This story is part of a larger profile appearing in the March 12th, 2012 issue of FORBES magazine. The complete cover story will appear online beginning Wednesday, February 22nd.

Sheldon Adelson plays as stubbornly in politics as he does in business. So the criticisms that he’s trying to personally buy the presidential election for Newt Gingrich are met with a roll of the eyes. “Those people are either jealous or professional critics,” Adelson tells me during his first interview since he andhis wife began funneling $11 million, with another $10 million injection widely expected, into the former speaker’s super PAC, Winning Our Future. “They like to trash other people. It’s unfair that I’ve been treated unfair—but it doesn’t stop me. I might give $10 million or $100 million to Gingrich.”

Adelson, the 78-year-old CEO of casino giant Las Vegas Sands,  certainly can afford to: With a net worth of roughly $25 billion, that $11 million, which jolted Gingrich’s flatlining presidential bid back to life, equates to 0.044% of his fortune. For someone with a $1 million net worth, the equivalent would be $440, or a two-night stay at Adelson’s Venetian casino. Adelson could personally fund an entire presidential campaign—say, $1 billion or so—andnot even notice.

CONTINUED at Forbes.

*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.

I’m finally back home and have enough time to actually sit down and write. The drive back from Orlando last night, immediately after the debate was insane! Drivers on Interstate 4 are beyond awful and they have no regard for the written and unwritten rules of the road. I nearly died a few times and by the time I got home, I just needed to chill out with some rum and watch ‘Firefly’ on Netflix. I intended to write this immediately after the debate but it just wasn’t possible. Between the lack of sleep the night before, the traveling and the two days of heavy discussions and debate, I was a vegetable. Thank God for my own bed and a bottle of Cruzan Black Strap rum as I feel much more alive this morning.

To start the day, I rolled out of bed at 7:30, which was pretty hard considering I was up late writing and drinking the night before and I just couldn’t get to sleep in a strange bed. I’ve always had trouble sleeping on the road. In fact, the only hotel that I’m comfortable in is the Hampton Inn across the street from the New Orleans Convention Center. Hell, I even have a hard time sleeping in Vegas without a ton of alcohol as a sedative, which is still partially ineffective, as that oxygen they pump through the vents has me wide awake pretty quickly.

So I woke up, got ready and suited up for my day, packed my suitcase and took a few minutes to watch part of the first half of the Liverpool v. Manchester United game before I had to check out. I went downstairs about twenty minutes into the game and ate breakfast with my friends from the Libertarian Party of Collier County. Shortly after this, we headed into the banquet room for the Libertarian Party of Florida’s business meeting. I’m not going to discuss the details but the meeting was informative and entertaining. Like one would expect, peering behind the scenes of politics at any level, the meeting had it’s fair share of heated debates between different factions all vying for control of the Party. Don’t take this the wrong way, this isn’t a bad thing, it is a very healthy way of addressing issues and concerns. All in all, it was a cool experience to see how the Libertarian Party operates in Florida.

At around 11:30, we split for lunch and I took that time to go upstairs and meet with Gary Johnson one last time before the debate. It was your typical meet and greet but there were more people present at this one than the two that I went to on the previous day. I listened in for awhile but I didn’t really interject myself this round. I asked a lot of questions the day before and I felt it was only fair for those who missed out on the earlier meet and greets to have their chance at asking Governor Johnson whatever it was they wanted to know.

I left after about a half hour, as the subjects being covered were already addressed at the previous meetings. Plus, my claustrophobia was kicking in as ten to fifteen people in a small hotel room is too many. I went downstairs, had some killer buffalo wings and spoke to congressional candidate Calen Fretts. If you live in the Florida panhandle, you should vote for Mr. Fretts. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and is a true representative of liberty. I think that may have been an endorsement. Anyway, we all headed back into the banquet hall at 1:00 for the second part of the business meeting. At 3:00 the debate officially started.

Contrary to what I wrote before, Roger Gary was not a part of the debate. Also, Leroy Saunders, a candidate from the State of New York joined the debate. I don’t know much about Mr. Saunders but his involvement added some energy to the event. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a Facebook page or anything else on the social networking level and that can only hurt his campaign, in my opinion. He does have a decent website however. The other candidates were mentioned in an earlier article, they are Gary Johnson, R.J. Harris, R. Lee Wrights, Bill Still and Carl Persons.

Before the debate, those of us who are members of the Libertarian Party of Florida were asked to write down any questions they had for the candidates. Two of my three questions were used in the debate and in fact, they were the first two questions used after the moderators were done asking theirs. The first question, which I asked in an effort to give a boost to Bill Still, went directly to Mr. Still first – how’s that for luck? The question was “What’s your plan to bring about economic recovery? Is it as simple as abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold standard and significantly cutting spending?” The reason I wanted this question to go to Still is that he takes the stance that a gold standard isn’t the answer. I wanted to give him the opportunity to explain his position, which he did by stating that the majority of the gold is held by the elite, so it isn’t a good way to give control of money back to the people and that throughout history, the gold standard hasn’t been as great as many economists claim.

The second question I asked that was used was “Is there ever a time when U.S. military intervention is necessary?” Most of the candidates said “no”. Gary Johnson however pointed to the Afghan War and said that he was for us going over there and wiping out Al-Qaeda but that we should have come back six months after going to war, as we sent the “evildoers” running for the hills. Leroy Saunders pretty much agreed with Johnson and added that if we are attacked, we have the right to go after the attacker and seek justice but other than that, we need to stay out of the business of all these other countries, except for trade – which should be free.

My third question “How would you curb the Supreme Court from making unconstitutional decisions?”, wasn’t asked. In fact, there was nothing asked about how they would work with the judicial branch, which was unfortunate. This is a subject I don’t hear libertarians discuss very often.

While watching the debate, I noticed that there weren’t a lot of philosophical differences between the candidates. They had different ways to achieve certain goals but for the most part, everything they said, I found to be correct and pretty on point. It’s hard to do a proper critique of the content, as these men know their stuff and were all pretty damn effective at expressing it and hammering their points. It’s really different when you have a debate where the candidates aren’t idiots and they don’t have to constantly explain their stance to an idiot crowd. Libertarians are cut from a different cloth and they typically educate themselves on a variety of topics. They are a group that is constantly in the know and on top of things. I’m not trying to toot my own libertarian horn here but those who truly represent our beliefs, don’t need to have everything explained to them. They are the self-educated minority and have reached a higher plane in their political philosophy that one can’t get to by blindly following mainstream ideas and not questioning what they’ve always been taught.

In the end, I felt that Gary Johnson did a solid job and articulated himself well. Bill Still did really good when the questions were economic based but needed to say more on some of the other subjects. R. Lee Wrights was great and really won me over. Even though I hope Johnson gets the nomination, I’d love Mr. Wrights as VP. R.J. Harris did alright but I was expecting a little more thunder, especially after hearing all the positive things my friends and colleagues have said about him. I wasn’t disappointed by my expectations of him but I wasn’t really impressed either. Leroy Saunders did a pretty good job but often times went on some tangents. He needs to get his talking points down and sharpen his skills. He’s a young guy though and he has a lot of time to get it right, just not in this race. Carl Persons had some sharp insight but he just didn’t bring the fire. I honestly can’t see him as a leader, which is unfortunate, as I did like the things he had to say. Truth be told though, I would take anyone of these guys over Barack Obama or the GOP contenders minus Ron Paul.

After the debate, I immediately left and drove home. I wish I could’ve mingled some more and gone to the Libertarian Party dinner but I really needed to get back. All in all it was a great weekend, I got to spend a lot of time picking Gary Johnson’s brain and I met a lot of like minded people from all over the country. It’s not everyday that an average joe can sit down with a presidential candidate and ask them questions face-to-face. I got to do it twice in one day.

*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.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’ve been spending so much time covering the 2012 presidential election that I really needed a break from it all. Sure, there were the Nevada caucuses this past weekend and I do plan to write my two cents on the results but I was thoroughly distracted by three days of greatness. Saturday was spent at the Hilton in Naples, FL at an all-day event held by FEE: the Foundation for Economic Education. Sunday was full of lots of meat, beer, a bounce house and the Super Bowl. Monday capped off the long weekend with an event at the Ritz-Carlton that was put on by one of the greatest libertarian think tanks in the world, the Cato Institute.

Friday night, I planned to get to bed early, as I wanted to be bright and alert for the all-day FEE event in my hometown. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to sleep so I sat in my room, sipping a tall glass of 1792 Ridgemont Reserve Bourbon while picking at some leftover BBQ ribs and watching ‘Battlestar Galactica’ on Netflix, as I haven’t watched the newer series but was a big fan of the original as a kid. I typically don’t get into shows until they are over, as I hate the suspense of waiting week-to-week for cliffhanger resolutions. After that, I tried to kill time in ‘Just Cause 2′ on my PS3 but I just couldn’t doze off. It was well after 3 a.m. before my head finally hit the pillow, which seemed like the quickest sleep I ever had when my iPhone alarm started blaring Wu-Tang Clan’s “Bring the Ruckus” at 6 a.m.

Saturday – FEE’s 1st Annual Winter Freedom Academy: 

So I woke up, showered, killed a bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran with a peanut Sweet & Salty bar, threw on a three piece suit, jumped in my car and drove down to the Naples Hilton half-asleep nursing a heavy hangover. Needless to say, I was ready for ten or so hours of hardcore economic thinking. Truth be told, as soon as I hit the hotel, I wandered into Shula’s Steakhouse looking for a tequila sunrise. Apparently it was too early and the bartender wasn’t working yet so I had to fill up on bagels and Diet Coke, which had a very negative effect on my mind and my nerves, as I gave up caffeine a month or so prior. It did nip that hangover in the bud though.

While waiting to move into the hall where the event was being held, I had a good long talk with one of my local heroes, Ismael Hernandez, who runs the Freedom & Virtue Institute. I also spoke to my friends from the Libertarian Party of Collier County, FGCU’s Eagles for Liberty and the Ayn Rand Society for Individual Rights of Naples (ARSIRN). After immersing myself in philosophical and political discussion for a good forty-five minutes, I felt ready to begin my day of economic awesomeness.

The event was emceed by Michael Yashko, who not only did a great job at coordinating and managing the event, but also gave a fantastic presentation on the Founding Father’s Constitution versus the abhorrent version of that sacred document we are stuck with today. I’m not sure if anyone at FEE was filming the event but if they did, I’d definitely link to the video on TheSwash.com as part of our Tuition Free Tuesdays weekly feature.

Yashko was then followed by Professor Nikolai Wenzel who teaches at Hillsdale College as well as Florida Gulf Coast University. Prof. Wenzel’s presentation was a perfect compliment to Mr. Yashko’s as it was about constitutional constraint and government mischief. Wenzel gave a great lecture and like Yashko’s (and really all the lectures at this event) I’d love to post video of it to the Swash so that our loyal SwashPeeps could experience it for themselves.

The next speaker was Lawrence Reed, who I have had the pleasure of seeing several times now between events held by FEE – which is the organization he is the president of, The Southwest Florida Young Republicans and Eagles for Liberty, who are FGCU’s chapter of the more widely known Students for Liberty. Mr. Reed’s lecture was called “Money Mischief Since the Founders”. It was an amazing lecture jam-packed with so much knowledge that taking notes was damn near impossible but it did give me several ideas for articles I should probably write. Like his other lectures I’ve seen, one about the myths of the Great Depression and another that compared the United States to Rome during its collapse, this fifty minute lesson was a real treat and had me captivated the whole time. I leaned over to my friend Shawn when Mr. Reed wrapped up and whispered, “I could sit through four hours of this guy.” He nodded in agreement.

The next speaker was Ismael Hernandez who gave an incredible speech about compassion. Not government compassion with a gun to your head but real honest truthful compassion and how to express it effectively. Mr. Hernandez spoke about his past and how he grew up in Puerto Rico as a communist raised by a Black Panther father and how he came to America and experienced this country for himself without the direct influence of communist rhetoric. After telling his very personal tale and giving the audience the rundown on how compassion truly works, the crowd got to their feet and applauded Mr. Hernandez for his great story and his invaluable insight.

After Ismael Hernandez’s great lecture, we all went off to lunch. I was fortunate enough to partake in a special luncheon with Lawrence Reed that helped to benefit students wanting to go to FEE camps to learn about economics. At that lunch, I was seated next to both Michael Yashko and Lawrence Reed, which was awesome in itself. While munching on salad, a turkey sandwich and a cookie, I got two more doses of Mr. Reed, who went on to tell those of us at the special luncheon two stories. One was about Nicky Winton who saved 669 mostly Jewish children from the Nazis and found homes and safe passage for them in Britain. The second story was about a pirate radio station somewhere in Soviet controlled Europe. I can’t even begin to try and retell these tales, as Mr. Reed did it in such a profoundly poetic way. However, both these stories were really touching and went to show that no matter how bad we think we have it in the United States right now, it could always be very much worse. In retrospect, this is why we need to fight for liberty and freedom because it isn’t a stretch to envision an America that could fall that far.

After lunch, we went right back into more fantastic lectures. Professor Bradley Hobbs of FGCU gave us a pretty awesome lesson about business and economics. He spoke to us about his personal experiences growing up on the Space Coast where, as a kid, he worked for his father in the family pharmacy. The business has been so successful over the years that it has grown large enough to fill up an entire strip mall, minus a bagel shop and a medical supply store that the family also owns. Hobbs lectured greatly and had a very pleasant demeanor that made his presentation enjoyable, which made me feel like I should go back to school and take up economics at FGCU. The college is practically in my backyard, therefore much closer than George Mason where I was thinking of applying if I decided to go back to college.

The next speaker was former CEO of BB&T, John Allison. Mr. Allison, who has had several appearances on one of my favorite shows – ‘Stossel’, has been known to be a big fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophy: objectivism. In fact, Mr. Allison used to assign ‘Atlas Shrugged’ to all of his senior executives as required reading. He has referred to ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as “the best defense of capitalism ever written.” He’s been a large contributor to the Ayn Rand Institute and through the BB&T Charitable Foundation has given dozens of colleges and universities millions of dollars to start programs devoted to the study of Rand’s work. Apart from all this backstory, Mr. Allison gave one of the most inspiring lectures of the day. He talked about leadership and how to properly grab the reigns of a company or any situation and take control effectively and respectfully. John Allison gave us insight into the TARP bailouts and how he fought against them but ultimately lost and was forced to partake in the financial tyranny. He spoke heavily against regulation, especially in the financial industry. Truth be told, I walked away from these lessons with the intent to leave Wells Fargo and put all of my money in BB&T. You have earned a new customer Mr. Allison, even though you no longer work for BB&T.

Following John Allison was author John Blundell. This well-spoken Englishman talked to us abut his newest book ‘Ladies For Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History’. Blundell, who wrote a well-respected book about Margaret Thatcher turned his attention to many of the woman who have played a major part in building and shaping America throughout the years. He gave us some deep insight into the book and how it came to be and through his passion he sold me on buying a copy on the spot: call me an easy sell. I got to talk to Mr. Blundell one-on-one while he signed my book where we briefly discussed the possibility of him doing a follow-up book about woman who fight for liberty today.

After Blundell, two FGCU professors closed out the day. First up was Dean Stansel, who gave a great talk about taxes at a more local level. He pulled out a bunch of studies he did for the Cato Institute that showed the correlation between taxation and economic growth in various cities throughout the last several years. It didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know but it did present a lot of data, collected through Stansel’s hard work, that solidified my beliefs even further.

The last of the final speakers was Professor Carrie Kerekes. Prof. Kerekes gave us a pretty solid rundown of FGCU’s economic and business programs. I feel like it was a thirty minute infomercial for FGCU but it was effective and made me incredibly happy to know that there was a university, just down the street, that was teaching the right side of economics. If I do indeed end up going back to school, I think I may be a future student of several of the professors who spoke at this FEE event.

Once the event was officially over, I got a tequila sunrise or six and sipped them down at the bar in the hotel lobby where I mingled with the other attendees. I didn’t hang long, as I don’t nurse my alcohol and was pressed for time as I had to drive down to my boss’ lounge to celebrate two of my other bosses’ birthdays. I left that crazy party fairly early however, as I was tired from a previous night of no sleep and a day full of awesome economic discussion.

I do have to say that the FEE event was, by far, one of the greatest economic and political events I have ever attended and trust me, I’ve been to a lot more than my fair share. If you are in the Naples area and you don’t go next year, you’re certainly missing out on a great day; consider me a FEE lifer at this point.

Sunday – Super Bowl XLVI:

The following day was Super Bowl Sunday and even though I couldn’t care less who won between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, I was geared up to party with my peeps and indulge in a lot of food and booze. It’s hard watching American football when it isn’t a New Orleans Saints game but the overindulgence in food and booze made dealing with my team not being in the big game much more bearable.

I kicked the day off by going to my mum’s where I watched the Chelsea v. Manchester United game, which may have been the best EPL game I’ve seen this season even though it ended in a tie. Between kicks and goals, my mum and I emptied two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon into a bowl full of flour and made some real serious beer bread. Shortly after this, I helped my friend Michael make our special treat: meat turtles. Essentially, you take a giant mound of ground sirloin and mix it up with a bunch of shredded cheese and whatever sauces you may want to put in it. You then wrap the big ball of meat in a shell of bacon – woven together. You then stick three hot dogs through it – making four feet, a head and a tail, which creates the shape of a turtle (see pic to the left).

So we took our meat turtles (made of Kobe beef and Kobe bacon) and our beer bread to Michael’s co-worker Mikey’s house. Lots of Mikes I know but it gets even more confusing when Mikey’s father and grandfather are also both named Mike. Anyway, we blew up a bounce house, drank beer and had a real party going even before the Super Bowl kicked off. To compliment the day even more, Mikey’s dad made a monstrous beef brisket and a giant mound of pulled pork. There was also BBQ chicken, homemade baked beans and so much other food that listing it all would take entirely too long for me to type and too long for you to read. Plus this is making me hungry again.

The food was beyond amazing! I gorged until I couldn’t move, waited a while and gorged again. We all drank beer and whiskey to wash down the giant mounds of meat scattered throughout the large kitchen and followed that up by firmly planting ourselves in recliners in front of a giant screen to watch the game. I missed parts of the contest between the Giants and Patriots as I kept nodding off into sporadic but very short-lived food comas. When I was able to be mobile enough to get up, I only did so to cut myself a piece of red velvet cake. I was on a serious mission and it was mission accomplished!

In the end, the Giants won and I couldn’t find anymore PBR or whiskey.

Monday – The Cato Institute’s Policy Perspectives 2012:

I woke up late Monday morning, as my alarm either didn’t go off or I somehow crawled across my room, turned it off and then crawled back into my bed. While that is theoretically possible, I’ve never made it comfortably back to my bed after turning off my alarm. Usually I awake to find myself curled up in the fetal position trembling from being in my boxers on my very cold tile floor. It’s kind of like waking up on a frozen lake with nothing more than swimming trunks on. Luckily for me, I didn’t find myself on the floor and I didn’t have to fight off hypothermia as I showered and threw on a suit to head down to the Ritz-Carlton, Naples Resort for the Cato Institute event featuring Tucker Carlson, David Boaz, Ed Crane and Robert Levy.

I arrived at the Ritz-Carlton just before 10 a.m., so I at least got there before the opening reception and was able to score the best table in the house for attendees who weren’t a part of a larger group. The early bird most definitely catches the worm and in my case, these words were never truer, as the table I selected was quickly filled with a few other like-minded early birds – one of which provided me with one of the best moments of my life.

The woman who sat to my left came to my table and asked if she could sit there or if it was reserved. I told her anyone could join me, as I was by myself with seven empty chairs surrounding me. She sat down and I’m not sure how we arrived to this point but we started talking about objectivism. After several minutes of discussing Ayn Rand’s philosophy, this woman – who’s name is Elayne Kalberman, opened up and told me that she used to work for Rand. In fact, she was the sister of Nathaniel Branden, a very close confidant and partner of Rand who helped bring her philosophy to the world.

Mrs. Kalberman went on to tell me that she used to be a part of a group that would meet with Rand weekly at her home to discuss ‘Atlas Shrugged’ while it was being written. This small group of intellectuals met in an effort to make sure that Rand’s philosophy was coming through and that all the points that she needed to make were hit effectively. So here I am, sitting in a room full of libertarians of all ages who would probably worship this woman, if they were even slightly aware of her presence there and I was the lucky guy that got to sit next to her out of the 400 plus other people!

I’m not going to discuss the details of all the things she told me and the stories I found so engaging and incredible, as they are her tales to tell, not mine but it is worth mentioning that we talked for a few minutes about the fall of one-time objectivist and Rand ally Alan Greenspan. Mrs. Kalberman and I discussed the Federal Reserve, inflation and she shared her insightful thoughts and solutions on it with me. We spoke about her brother and about the fact that there was a falling out between their family and Ayn Rand. One thing she did say, that I will share, as I know others who knew Rand felt the same way, is that Mrs. Kalberman didn’t like the way Ayn Rand treated young people who wanted to better understand objectivism. Rand was often times mean and had a very abrasive attitude towards those wanting to come to the same conclusions Rand arrived at.

Mrs. Kalberman and I also talked about Murray Rothbard, my favorite economist and someone who she had a lot of dealings with throughout the years. She was a pleasure to sit next to and a very nice woman. I hope to one day cross paths with her again as I couldn’t fully pick her brain on things due to the fact that we only had a few minutes here or there to discuss these things between all the different speakers who were at the event.

Speaking of which, the event was emceed by Cato’s Robert Levy who is not only hilarious and quick-witted but also a great teacher and speaker. Next up was Cato Founder and President Ed Crane who gave us an informative Powerpoint presentation that included a great scene from ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ about people needing to be individuals and not a collective desperate to follow a leader. Cato’s Executive VP David Boaz lit up the room with his lecture, as he always does. He talked about effective ways of reclaiming freedom and entertained the crowd with his sharp and witty ways. All the Cato speakers aren’t just near-geniuses they are all practically stand-up comedians who know how to properly mix together their lessons and their humor in a way that keeps everyone engaged.

This was followed by a reception in the courtyard outside of the event hall where I may have drank too much “lady wine” – my name for white wine. After the fifteen minute binger, we were brought back into the large hall for lunch. We were served some sort of strange salad with a green dressing that was more like an emerald-colored Béarnaise sauce than actual salad dressing. The main course was a chicken cutlet covered in tomato sauce with a strange potato thing and a mixture of spinach leaves and mushrooms, which was surprisingly the tastiest thing on the plate. Dessert was a small rectangle thing that looked like it came straight out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. When I bit into it, I realized that it was the world’s fanciest piece of key lime pie. I don’t mean to knock the Ritz-Carlton, as they host events incredibly well, but being the food snob I am, I wasn’t all that impressed with the culinary display on this day.

After lunch we got the main event, which was a great lecture by Tucker Carlson who owns the Daily Caller, works for Fox News and has previously worked for CNN and MSNBC. He talked about the 2012 presidential race and gave us all some of his personal insight on Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. He talked about supporting Ron Paul during his 1988 run for president when he ran under the Libertarian Party. He spoke about Rick Santorum the man but understands why people are turned off from him due to his stance on social issues. Tucker told us about his relationship with Newt Gingrich and mentioned that Newt’s office is practically next door to his. He also talked about Romney being the “prefect candidate”.

Tucker explained that all the things that the voters gripe about they actually don’t care about because it rarely, if ever, sways the consensus. He talked about how people always point to flip-flopping but defends it saying that when you get all the facts and new data becomes available, you should take the best stance and in certain cases, that could mean that a politician flip-flops. Realistically, the issue is what they flip-flopped on and why, not just that they switched positions. While I understand this point and agree with it to some degree, I do feel that politicians should be real students of the game and truly study up and know what it is they are voting on or supporting. I’m not a politician but if I don’t know something as fully as I should, I tend not to comment on it and I’m honest about it when pressed on it. Maybe it’s different when you’re playing the games that the Beltway Suits play.

He also told us that the night before the Cato event he was in Chicago with Andrew Breitbart and a few others where they had dinner with domestic terrorists and leaders of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. He said that they pretty much denied everything Tucker asked them about and that these fighters for socialist causes hosted the dinner event in the penthouse of one of Chicago’s nicest and tallest buildings. Maybe it took place in the penthouse that the Joker crashed in ‘The Dark Knight’, seems fitting anyway. In any event, Tucker finished by telling us that Ayers asked where he was going from there and Tucker responded by telling him a Cato Institute event, which caused Ayers’ lip to quiver.

During the Q & A session after the lecture, Tucker said that he didn’t believe Ron Paul would run third party and that Gary Johnson going third party and potentially getting a Paul endorsement would most certainly split the vote and get Obama re-elected. Tucker said that Obama was beatable and then went on to talk about how Ron Paul is resonating with people and that the GOP is essentially careless in not embracing him and more of his ideas, as it could cost them the race. He was also asked if Hillary Clinton would run as Obama’s VP but Tucker was certain she wouldn’t and then shared some recently acquired insider knowledge that she may become the new head of the IMF or the World Bank. He then spoke about how Joe Biden is made to look dumb by the press who are fed stories from the White House but in actuality, even though he is an outspoken passionate blowhard, he understands the game much more than Obama and is actually a solid VP for the Democrats.

At the end of Tucker’s time on stage, people quickly filtered out of the large hall, as I walked towards the front of the room to talk to the man. We talked about a few different issues but the most important part, at least for me, is that he was very complimentary of what it is I do. We talked about building Internet new sites from the ground up and he gave me some solid advice on what I need to do to take TheSwash.com to the next level. We talked about the difficulty in getting started and how to build your brand and bring in other contributors. He said that he really likes the name “The Swash” as it was really memorable and it sounded “dirty”. It was a great discussion with a great guy that only wanted to offer advice and to help out another guy clawing his way up from the bottom of the barrel to the top.

Tucker dipped out and so did I while running into a good friend and congressional candidate Trey Radel. I talked to my friend Trey and mentioned interviewing him for the Swash. He’s game and I’m going to try and set something up. He’s already got my vote, not because he’s a friend – I have other friends in the hunt, but because of his stance on NDAA, SOPA and PIPA. He’s also a very pro-constitution candidate, which we don’t have enough of. This was followed up by a thirty minute wait in the valet line and a trip to my local watering hole to reflect on the awesome weekend.

I did good this round.

February 5, 2012. Las Vegas. For the second time in just five primary states, the Republican Party, with the assistance of the national corporate news media, is raising questions about the legitimacy of this season’s primary election system. First, the Iowa Republican Party and the entire American media knowingly reported the wrong Iowa Caucus results with the wrong person being declared the winner. Last night, it appears the same thing may be happening in Nevada. And again like Iowa, critics are accusing the GOP of suspicious activity.

Perhaps it’s indicative that the beneficiary of these recurring vote counting “mistakes” always seems to be former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. He’s just happens to be the same man that both the Republican Party establishment and the four corporations that own all of America’s news media outlets are actively supporting.

Iowa Caucus

In Iowa a few weeks ago, local Republican precinct captains – the individuals responsible for providing the official vote count to the state Republican Party – were up in arms and all over the national media claiming their vote counts had somehow been changed once they arrived at the state GOP headquarters. Two weeks later, the party announced that Mitt Romney didn’t win, but instead, Rick Santorum had actually won. This author was one of the only national journalists that predicted the results would be reversed. Two weeks later, they were. Read the article, ‘Santorum won Iowa and didn’t say Black’ for specific details, published two weeks before the Iowa GOP reversed their vote count.

Nevada Caucus

As early as 2:00am this morning, supporters of Ron Paul had taken to social media with cries of “fraud” over the Nevada Caucus election results, or lack there of.

Here are just some of the comments taken from the Ron Paul 2012 Facebook page:

Dorian RM posted, “I am seriously smelling voter fraud again. This is seriously depressing.” Toni P wrote, “I am not a big pusher of conspiracy theories, but this election is swaying me to how corrupt this all is.” Patrick M added, “It’s not a conspiracy. It’s been proven.” Matt K confirmed the same feeling, posting, “I’m smelling voter fraud.” Ryan added, “Is this true about the fraud in Nevada or is everyone just panicking?”

That’s the big question as self-imposed deadline after self-imposed deadline passes without any word from the missing precincts of Clark County. According to the Nevada Republican Party last night, they were going to recount every single vote from Clark County, right there in the smoky, back room of the GOP headquarters. The only good part of the announcement is that a representative from each candidate would be allowed to oversee the recount.

Expected to be over by “midnight”, that deadline turned into “dawn”. When dawn came and went with no vote results in sight, questions over vote fraud really picked up steam. See the below chain of events from last night and decide for yourself if something fishy is going on.

Events of the Las Vegas Caucus, February 4, 2012. All times and percentages are rough estimates from memory. All are from first-hand witness accounts.

Counting the votes

8:00pm EST – Some polls close, roughly 3 percent of the total vote is in. Mitt Romney leads with over 50 percent of the votes counted. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are tied with approximately 20 percent of the vote each.

9:00pm EST – Media outlets nationwide declare Mitt Romney the winner of the Nevada Caucus “in a landslide.”

9:01pm EST – All polls but one are closed. Some results have been released, less than 4 percent of the total vote is in. Mitt Romney leads with 46 percent, Gingrich second with 24 percent, Paul third with 19 percent and Santorum fourth with 11 percent.

10:00pm EST – All media outlets spend two hours declaring Mitt Romney the overwhelming winner of the Nevada Republican Caucus in a landslide victory. Only 4 percent of the vote is in.

11:00pm EST – CNN sends their election coverage live to the last remaining open precinct in Nevada, located in Clark County. The polling place remained open extra long to accommodate strict religious observers. The voter demographic of the precinct is devout Christians and Jews who refused to violate their Sabbath day by voting during daylight hours. 15 percent of the state’s precincts have reported, Romney still leads with approximately 46 percent to Gingrich’s 22 percent, Paul’s 20 percent and Santorum’s 12.

11:15pm EST – With apparently nothing better to broadcast, media outlets like CNN announce to viewers that they’re in for a treat. They will see the Caucus process, live in action. The outlets would broadcast live from the last open Nevada precinct.

11:45pm EST – For 45 minutes, actual voters at the Adelson precinct being broadcast live on CNN and other stations, gave some of the most heartfelt one-minute speeches in support of their candidate – every single one of them was caucusing for Ron Paul. This was no Ron Paul rally either. This was a closed-door caucus. These were actual voters who were about to vote at this particular precinct. According to 40 minutes or so of speeches, it appeared Ron Paul should capture 100 percent of the vote in this Clark County precinct.

**Thanks to a much valued reader, it’s explained that the Adelson precinct had let each candidate’s supporters speak one candidate at a time. This was the segment CNN chose to air live and simply the Ron Paul campaign’s turn to speak. In fairness, Ron Paul’s speakers at this location did in fact out number all speakers from all other candidates combined.

12:00pm EST – CNN and the other outlets finally broke away from the speeches when no other candidates besides Ron Paul appeared to have any voters present. Only moments later, the network broke into its all-night election coverage to announce that the precinct viewers were just watching had begun to count the votes and had decided to do it publicly, letting the national media outlets continue filming.

12:15am EST – In riveting coverage, an entire auditorium full of hundreds of voters fell silent. One by one at a table assembled on a stage and with campaign representatives watching over their shoulders and the entire nation watching, the GOP precinct captain shouted out each vote as he unfolded each paper ballot.

12:30am EST: For five minutes, CNN sat in silence as the Republican precinct captain shouted out each vote while dozens of tabulator sat nearby keeping track. Unfolding one sheet at a time, the man yelled, “Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul.

12:45am EST: Based on your author’s quick mental addition, it appeared Ron Paul would capture roughly 70 percent of the vote in this precinct, with Mitt Romney coming in around 20 and Newt Gingrich around 10. The entire time, every news outlet repeatedly congratulated Mitt Romney for his avalanche victory in Nevada.

12:55am EST: The official Nevada Caucus vote count was still stuck where it had been for the last 4 hours. 47 percent of the vote counted and included every county but one. 53 percent of the vote still outstanding, all from Clark County – the largest county in Nevada representing more than 60 percent of the state’s voters. It’s also the scene of the Caucus site just broadcast showing Ron Paul winning overwhelming.

1:00am EST: The same precinct captain in Clark County calling out votes 30 minutes earlier was now about to announce the final vote totals from the nationally televised caucus site. With CNN showing it live, the rough final vote count (going from memory) was 150 for Ron Paul, 50 for Mitt Romney, 20 for Newt Gingrich and 8 for Rick Santorum.

1:05am EST: The same above precinct then announced they were going to recount each and every vote to insure an accurate vote count.

1:30am EST: CNN and the precinct captain revealed the results of the second count. This time Ron Paul’s count was roughly 183 (58 percent of the precinct’s overall vote) to Mitt Romney’s 45, Newt Gingrich’s 20 and Rick Santorum’s 8. (Again, all numbers from your author’s tired, late-night memory. If the media wasn’t blacking out the coverage now, we could share the actual numbers with our readers). Paul supporters are extatic knowing that they won overwhelmingly in a precinct full of Jewish and extremely Christian voters, two of Ron Paul’s worst demographics. In fact, CNN entrance polls showed that Ron Paul won overwhelmingly among voters who said they weren’t religious.

1:35am EST: Your author, and thousands of Ron Paul supporters still waiting up and able to do simple math, deduced that if Ron Paul won 58 percent of the vote in a large Clark County precinct and that was representative of his performance county-wide, the Texas Congressman should win the Nevada Caucus. Clark County alone represents more than half the vote in the entire state of Nevada. If Ron Paul won 58 percent of the 53 percent outstanding, compared to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent of the 47 percent counted, it’s a Ron Paul win.

1:45am EST: CNN blacks-out election coverage, shutting down the studio without so much as one word of explanation or warning. Switching to human interest stories with an afternoon anchor for ten minutes, the network the shut all live coverage completely, opting instead to rebroadcast the entire night’s early evening election coverage. Every minute of the broadcast for the next few hours replayed Mitt Romney’s victory speech repeatedly, along with all the CNN pundits declaring Mitt Romney the landslide victor with 3 percent of the vote counted.

1:50am EST: A quick check of Fox News revealed the exact same tactic. The network had switched to replaying its entire early evening election coverage. Viewing like a Mitt Romney campaign commercial, the network was repeatedly rebroadcasting the Mitt Romney victory speech from hours earlier. Their pundits also spent the entire time congratulating Romney on his overwhelming victory, with just 3 percent of the vote reported.

1:55am EST: Feeling like he had just stumbled back in time or tripped into the Twilight Zone, your author went to the internet in search of vote totals. Stuck all night at 47 percent of precincts reported, Mitt Romney was leading with 42 percent of the vote to Newt Gingrich’s 26, Ron Paul’s 18 and Rick Santorum’s 13.

2:00am EST: Getting the sneaky suspicion that the Republican Party’s vote totals weren’t adding up again, a quick stop at the Ron Paul 2012 Facebook page revealed your author wasn’t alone. The campaign had posted a message saying that the Nevada GOP had announced that even though the first 47 percent of the votes were counted and reported in an hour, the remaining 53 percent, all coming from Clark County, would take all night. Random posts followed leveling accusations of suspicion and even outright vote fraud. Many had watched the results being tabulated live on national TV just as this author had. We all saw Ron Paul’s overwhelming victory in that part of Clark County. It’s unimaginable to believe that in the same county, a candidate could win overwhelmingly when the votes were counted live on TV, but lose so badly when the votes were counted by the Party establishment behind closed doors.

2:00am EST: CNN and Fox News had blacked-out their coverage, opting instead to run reruns for the first time of any election so far this primary season. Online news outlets also froze their coverage, stopping all blog entries at midnight. With that, your author went to bed.

9:00am EST: Your author wakes up to a Nevada Caucus vote count with 71 percent of precincts reporting. The totals and percentages, even though the added 24 percent appeared to overwhelmingly favor Ron Paul by a staggering margin of more than 3 to 1 over Mitt Romney, had somehow managed to match the first 47 percent of the vote reported earlier in the evening that overwhelmingly favored Mitt Romney. The new state-wide totals now read Mitt Romney 47, Newt Gingrich 22, Ron Paul 18 and Rick Santorum 11.

10:00am EST: The Nevada Republican Party announces they are not going to release any of the missing Clark County vote totals until all the precincts in Clark County are turned in.

11:00am EST: The Nevada Republican Party announces they are not going to release the final and complete vote results. Instead, they are going to hold an internal recount.

11:05am EST: Outrage, frustration and condemnation erupt from Ron Paul supporters everywhere. Social media explodes with charges of blatant vote fraud by Nevada Republican Party officials. The entire corporate national news media, including all the Sunday morning political talk shows, blacks-out the events of the previous evening, the missing vote totals and the outrage by the Ron Paul campaign. Instead, they continue to inform their readers and viewers that the Nevada Caucus is over and it was another landslide victory for media and GOP favorite Mitt Romney.

Even the Ron Paul supporters will concede they have no concrete proof of actual election fraud regarding the tabulation of the Nevada Caucus ballots. What they do have is a very legitimate complaint and very real circumstantial evidence. And it’s not so crazy considering the Iowa GOP just reversed their caucus winner. As Republican Party officials repeatedly remind us, primaries and caucuses are “private party events”. They are not general elections. They are party functions and the party makes, and changes, the rules whenever they want for whatever reason they want. If you don’t like it, don’t be a Republican.

The bigger tragedy is that the nation’s corporate owned media is obviously playing along, just as they did in Iowa. We’ll see if the Nevada GOP has to publicly and officially reverse the results of its election just as the Iowa Republican Party was forced to do two weeks after its caucus a few weeks ago. If that turns out to be the case, the national GOP and the nation’s news outlets will have more explaining to do than just the theft of one election.

Source: The Examiner.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Four states down and only forty-six more to go! Next up is Nevada, where three villains and one hero will clash over who will take the reigns of the GOP elephant! Regardless of what happens, Romney will still have the reigns, as Florida gave him so many delegates that it’ll take a few solid wins or second place finishes for one of the other candidates to catch up, which can be done fairly quickly mind you. Newt Gingrich could come out strong, Ron Paul’s already got the jump on the others and Santorum may just generate enough wacky religio-fascist rhetoric to get the crazy cultic mole men who live in the Vegas sewers to rise up in the streets just long enough to cast their vote. I’ve been told that this overly-religious subterranean sect of mole men are nothing more than an urban legend but when I was in Vegas about six months ago, I could’ve sworn that I saw a few wandering around the dumpsters behind Circus Circus. I found it odd that they had two lesbian Thai prostitutes chained to the hood of an ’85 Yugo GV in some sort of sacrificial rite but this was Vegas and I never involve myself in religious mumbo jumbo – so I kept on walking. Plus I tripped and crashed through a table full of pills earlier in the night, so my head could’ve been providing me with some form of strange entertainment that no one else could see.

Anyway, one big plus for us Ron Paul fans is that the Grandmaster of Constitutional Liberty ditched Florida and went on the road elsewhere, one of these places being Nevada. Dr. Paul beat the other three candidates to the punch, as two out of the three of them wasted so much of their time and money in a state where they walked away with nothing more than a kick in the balls and a slap on the back. So who’s the most economical candidate, I have to ask?

Ron Paul’s events in the Battle Born State have been met with great fanfare and he’s getting a lot of support from the people out there in the neon desert. Now will this translate to votes? I certainly hope so but just like in other states, this trend hasn’t necessarily worked in Dr. Paul’s favor. He had great events in South Carolina while Newt Gingrich had to cancel a major event just before the primary out there due to “lack of interest”. Strangely, Newt Gingrich won South Carolina by a large margin and Paul finished last. This could be because Paul’s supporters are so passionate and gung ho that they’ll attend every event in an attempt to push their candidate to the moon while the supporters of Gingrich, Santorum and in many cases Romney are just couch potato assholes that don’t pay much attention, have no passion and only go out to vote based off of two things: Fox News tells them to hate Obama and Fox News tells them that Ron Paul is crazy. I hope the Drunken Party State doesn’t follow this bullshit craze because from my time out there, these people don’t seem like they need a shepherd.

However, polls indicate that Romney is going to take Nevada as well and it looks as if Paul will be in last place. When you peel back the surface on Nevada, especially Las Vegas, you come to see that the town is pretty much run by unions. All the casino employees are unionized and therefore are probably going to want to protect their jobs and their benefits by voting for one of these progressive liberal conservatives. Hell, this state has been voting for Harry Reid for what seems like centuries now. Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle nearly beat him in 2010 though and there is a lot of speculation that there was foul play and election fraud going on the day of the election, so who’s to say that there isn’t a big front of fiscally responsible conservatives that want a better candidate that can and will bring forth positive change economically? Then again, in their short history, the Tea Party has proven to be more rhetoric than action. In the case of Nevada, a poll today shows that Tea Party members are split between Romney and Gingrich with Ron Paul dead last! What the hell is wrong with these people? Everything they say is completely different than how they vote! The Tea Party has no room to bitch anymore. That’s it! They’re done!

Despite how this is seemingly projected to go, the Nevada caucuses have not happened yet and, as this race has proven, anything can happen. I think Ron Paul’s doing better out there right now than some of these polls indicate based off of his early arrival and successful events. Romney is the man to beat however and he is in a position where he can pull away with the nomination. Being the favorite and having a significant advantage in the number of delegates collected, Mr. Mittens is on the verge of solidifying his position as Barack Obama’s 2012 nemesis. As I’ve said, the others can rock out and catch up but it will not be easy by any means. If Romney wins Nevada and the next few states after, the GOP voter base will pretty much fall in line and unify behind their top dog and will just make the rest of his primary journey that much easier.

Now is the time to pull out the big guns and take it to Mitt. I still believe that this is a two man race between Romney and Paul, as Newt, even with his successes, continues to crash and burn week after week and Santorum is just a dickbag dork that can only rally people who are Jesus freaks and too inept to remotely follow politics on a real level. If Paul can win this or finish in a strong second, he is still solidly in the hunt. If he finishes last and then has a few not-so-great performances post-Nevada, this thing may be over. Dr. Paul’s message is spreading like it never has before. The question is, has it truly penetrated Nevada yet? We shall see shortly.

Keep in mind that what happens in Vegas, affects the whole country – if not the whole world. I’m hoping that my home away from home doesn’t disappoint me like Florida did. Truth be told, I’m looking for real estate outside of this phallically-shaped state.

Newt Gingrich is taking a decidedly populist tone as he tries to revive his candidacy after a big loss in Florida.

While his archrival Mitt Romney was getting an endorsement in the GOP presidential race from real estate mogul Donald Trump, Mr. Gingrich was speaking at Xtreme Manufacturing, a company that makes telescoping forklifts, delivery trucks and cubes that can be used for everything from living space to laboratories. He start off with “some fascinating differences” between himself and Mitt Romney. “Let me say first of all that I like hiring people,” he said, in a dig at the former Massachusetts governor. Mr. Romney made headlines last month for saying he liked “firing people” when talking about health-care companies that fail to provide good service.

As he campaigned in Nevada ahead of the state’s Saturday nominating caucuses, Mr. Gingrich continued to mock the GOP front-runner for saying Wednesday that he is not concerned about the very poor because they’re protected by social safety net programs.

“Mitt Romney and Barack Obama seem to believe that a safety net is all the poor need,” Mr. Gingrich said. “What the poor need is a trampoline so they can spring up.”

It’s the second time in recent weeks that Mr. Gingrich has taken up the banner of the working man. After losing badly in the New Hampshire GOP primary, Mr. Gingrich attacked Mr. Romney for practicing unethical capitalism at Bain Capital, the Boston private-equity firm he helped start. His latest volleys, some of which he first launched in Florida, are more focused on propping up low-earners.

Mr. Gingrich, for instance, often says those receiving unemployment assistance should have to enroll in business training programs. Meantime, Mr. Gingrich brushed off reports that Mr. Trump is supporting Mr. Romney. While touring the factory, Mr. Gingrich said he hadn’t expected the endorsement and wondered aloud how the star of reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” manages to garner so much attention.

Source: Wall Street Journal.