United Liberty

While surfing through Reddit last night, I caught this humorous photo from Reuters. It looks like Obama’s teleprompter has become self-aware.

If you’e heading down to the Republican National Convention next week in Tampa, you may run into Vice President Joe Biden. That’s right, folks, the Obama campaign’s worst spokesman, just two weeks after saying that the Romney-Ryan ticket would allow Wall Street to put African-Americans “back in chains,” is going to be in a city crowded with Republicans:

Vice President Joe Biden has plans to be in Tampa during the Republican National Convention next week, the Obama campaign said Tuesday. Biden has events in Tampa and in other cities next Monday and Tuesday, the campaign said.

In addition, “a strong bench” of surrogates will be in the Tampa area as well.

While visiting a Minneapolis high school Tuesday afternoon, Biden seemed to embrace his role in Tampa turning to reporters traveling with him, “Who’s going to Florida with me? Any of you going to be in Florida?

“Well I’m the speaker at the convention,” he continued to laughs. “I’m going to be down there.”

What could go wrong?

As noted earlier this week, American Crossroads launched a rather snarky ad endorsing Biden for Vice President, as opposed to someone else on the Democratic Party ticket, because of his proclivity for gaffes:

A ridiculous story from Paris, VA:

Editor’s note: This is one of two takes on the Brandon Raub story that have been posted today. You can read Marshall McCart’s thoughts here.

The Internet has been up in arms over the detention of former Marine and libertarian activist Brandon Raub. His supporters have been claiming that he has been detained because of the fact he criticized the government and his support for 9/11 “Truth” and other conspiracy theories, which threatens the First Amendment. While the FBI and local police claim that he had posted some threatening posts on his Facebook page and they went and interviewed him as is standard operating procedure. A judge has ordered Mr. Raub held under psychiatric evaluation for the next 30 days in a mental hospital. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Raub is no martyr but instead he is a fool whose posts on Facebook certainly can be construed as calling for violence.

Mr. Raub, like many other wannabe political activists do, use their Facebook pages for political activism. His Facebook wall was full of criticisms of the United States government, the “New World Order”, and the promotion of various conspiracy theories. His profile picture is him standing shirtless in front of a US Marine Corps flag while brandishing a shotgun.

The posts themselves usually consisted of things like one that was posted on August 13:

Sharpen up my axe; I’m here to sever heads.

Here’s another one posted on August 12 about alleged chemtrails:

There have been some worries in Republican circles about delegates aligned with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). During the GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, Paul’s supporters managed to win enough delegates in a handful of states to raise eyebrows. It seemed that some of his delegates would not be sat, but news broke last night that Republican leaders want to avoid any embarassment and decided to make a deal with Paul:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will enter the GOP convention next week with more delegates after a deal was reached avoiding a potentially embarrassing standoff with Mitt Romney.

The compromise settled a dispute over delegates from Louisiana.

“Paul will be awarded 17 of the state’s 46 delegates in the compromise,” Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton told ABC News in an email. “The rest of the state’s delegates are expected to support Mitt Romney, the party’s presumptive nominee.”

In addition, the RNC will seat an additional Paul delegate from Massachusetts.

Supporters of Paul and Romney clashed at the Louisiana party convention in June and ended up holding dueling conventions, with each group submitting lists of delegates.

So there is some good news for Paul’s delegates, but as Brian Doherty explains, “Early word from the more hardcore and rootin-tootin Paul forces on the ‘Net is that such compromises won’t necessarily keep them pacified on the floor, and certainly won’t mean they’ll become good soldier Romney voters.”

Editor’s note: This is one of two takes on the Brandon Raub story that will posted today.

Early Monday morning while making my news rounds, a very interesting item from caught my attention. Brandon Raub, a former Marine, was arrested by local police and the FBI in Virginia and was sent for a mental evaluation for posting anti-government comments. At least, according to that first article I read.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to share or comment on the story until I had more info, but I had to get to work. So, as the day progressed, I read more and more about this story. There was talk about green warrants and possible mental health issues. Then someone posted a link to this guy’s Facebook page. Some of the stuff on there was just downright crazy. But! Was it a threat or a call for violence? No. Not in my opinion.

Still…I didn’t have the necessary information to make an informed decision. Did this guy’s family have him committed? At this point, it’s looking like no.  And the strangest thing to me was, as I mentioned, that the FBI was involved with his detainment.

Ahead of delegates gathering in Tampa next week for the Republican National Convention, some GOP delegates are busy this week putting together the party’s platform. To many this process can be uninteresting, but many Tea Party activists saw it as an opportunity to make the Republican Party more friendly to its ideas. And, according to Kristina Ribali of FreedomWorks notes, it looks like they were successful.

FreedomWorks put together 12 economic/limited government issues to be considered for the GOP platform, ranging from repealing ObamaCare and preventing tax hikes to energy independence, opposition to cap-and-trade, and auditing the Federal Reserve. Dean Clancy, Vice President of Health Policy at FreedomWorks, explained (via Ribali) that the only the plank calling for the elimination of the Department of Education was rejected:

We did not secure approval for ‘Eliminate the Department of Education’ – which, to be honest, was always the plank we regarded as most difficult to achieve. But the document’s education section does contain good language on the need for local control and a very strong endorsement of school choice, including vouchers. So we rate this section as a partial victory.

Ribali also notes that the plank calling for a “flat tax” wasn’t fully achieved, though the Republican platform will call for a “flatter tax.” That’s an opportunity missed, unfortunately, since the need for tax reform is so great.

According to the USA Today, free expression isn’t allowed at one kindergarden in Oklahoma:

An Oklahoma City kindergartner was forced to turn his University of Michigan shirt inside out last week because it violated a city ban on any apparel not supportive of the state’s college teams.

Cooper Barton, 5, comes from a family of Michigan fans. He went to school wearing a maize and blue shirt with “The Big House,” the nickname for Michigan’s 114,000-seat stadium, written on the front. The school principal made Cooper turn the shirt inside out due to the state policy.

The rule is among many restricting clothing and dress in the city schools. It came into effect in 2005 after suggestions from a gang task force. On the list of banned items, non-Oklahoma college dress falls directly in between gang symbol haircuts and “satanic cult dress, witchcraft and related symbols.”

As an OSU graduate, I hate Michigan University probably more than anyone who writes for this blog. But what is so bad about allowing children wear whatever clean t-shirt they want to?

The deadline for Rep. Todd Akin to end his campaign for for the Missouri Senate race came and went last night. Missouri election law would have allowed Akin to drop out and a substitute candidate to take his place if he had dropped out by 6pm yesterday. But despite overwhelming pressure from Republicans for the embattled candidate to get out of the race, Akin insisted that he would face Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in November:

Resisting the full brunt of his party, the Missouri Senate candidate let a 6 p.m. EST deadline pass for him to get out of the Senate race voluntarily and allow Republicans to pick a replacement.

The GOP mounted a fevered 48-hour anti-Akin campaign after the six-term congressman said in a TV interview Sunday “legitimate rape” victims rarely get pregnant because female bodies have a way to “shut that whole thing down.”

But the congressman grew seemingly more defiant with each statement of GOP outrage, dismissing claims that he was putting a must-win Senate seat for the party at risk. Sen. Claire McCaskill has been seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators in the country, but her prospects are suddenly much brighter thanks to Akin’s blunder.
[…]
Though Akin could technically still get out of the race, the process for dropping out now becomes far more cumbersome. He would have to petition a court to withdraw before Sept. 25. After that, Akin’s name would appear in the November ballot no matter what.