Since 1976, every time the GOP has run a RINO for president, the party has suffered an ignominious defeat – against a peanut farmer in ’76, a serial lecher in ’92 and a Marxist in 2008.

But Mitt Romney isn’t taking any chances. Should he secure the nomination, his primary campaign will ensure his defeat in November – 9% unemployment, a national debt hurtling toward the abyss, socialism and surrender notwithstanding.

Last week, Romney was beaming over what he called his “historic victory” in the Iowa caucuses. Out of 60,000 votes cast for Romney and former Senator Rick Santorum, Romney beat the Pennsylvanian (who didn’t even register on the Richter scale last year) by a whopping 8 votes, or .00001 percent. Mitt was actually down 6 votes from his 2008 total (30,021 to 30,015), despite a record turnout this year.

The victory was even more stupendous in light of the fact that Romney – who’s been campaigning in the Hawkeye state for 5 years – spent $133.30 for each of his votes, compared to the $13.33 Santorum spent per vote.

In New Hampshire, Mitt’s most impressive move was trotting out Geritol John McCain to endorse him, and to tell the rest of the Republican field to step aside and let the coronation of Willard Mitt Romney proceed. It’s hard to say which was goofier, McCain’s crotchety performance or Romney’s conviction that he’d be helped by the endorsement of a man who called him a liar in 2008, and went on to lose to the most unqualified presidential candidate in history.

Read More at Western Journalism By Don Feder, Western Journalism

Just prior to his appointment as President Obama’s so-called regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein wrote a lengthy academic paper suggesting the government should “infiltrate” social network websites, chat rooms and message boards.

Such “cognitive infiltration,” Sunstein argued, should be used to enforce a U.S. government ban on “conspiracy theorizing.”

Among the beliefs Sunstein classified as a “conspiracy theory” is advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.

The find comes as a government document reportedly relates the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report.

Reuters reported that a “privacy compliance review” issued by DHS last November confirms that since at least June 2010, the department’s national operations center has been operating a “Social Networking/Media Capability” which involves regular monitoring of “publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards.”

Read More at Klein Online By Aaron Klein, Klein Online

(CNSNews.com) – Although aides to Sen. Jim DeMint have endorsed Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, the South Carolina Republican has not done so himself.

In an interview with Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, the conservative DeMint said he likes much of what he’s hearing from Ron Paul: “If Republicans don’t understand the important aspects of what Ron Paul is saying, then I don’t think we’ll continue to exist as a party — certainly not as a majority party.”

DeMint said he doesn’t go along with some of Paul’s foreign policy — “but the fact is, if we don’t listen to other aspects, like getting our budget under control, we’re not going to have the money to be a foreign power.

“The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives — that’s what our party needs to be about,” DeMint continued. “There’s no longer room for moderates and liberals, because we don’t have any money to spend.” He said he doesn’t want to be debating with someone who wants to grow government.

DeMint also praised Ron Paul’s campaign issues: “The unaccountable and out of control Federal Reverse, individual liberty, constitutional limited government — those are the concepts that Ron Paul is bringing forward, and all of our country needs to listen to that, because those are the things that made this country so great.”

Read More at CNS News By Susan Jones, cnsnews.com

Only two candidates are slated to be on the 2012 Virginia Republican presidential primary ballot. The mainstream media is choosing to frame this predicament as evidence of which GOP candidates are running “serious” campaigns and which are not. But this media-driven narrative largely misses the mark.

The real loser in this ordeal is likely to be the eventual GOP presidential nominee.

Given that Virginia voters don’t register by party affiliation, the presidential primary is an important tool for identifying potential Republican general-election voters. With only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot and no way to write in votes, turnout will likely be low, thereby guaranteeing limited new data.

Add in the fact that the Democrats are not running a competitive primary on the other side, and this situation quickly morphs into a serious predicament for the eventual Republican nominee from a general-election organizing perspective.

Unfortunately for the eventual GOP nominee, knocking Obama out of the White House will be next to impossible without winning Virginia, a state he won in 2008.

 Read More at Western Journalism By Matt Mackowiak and Ford Connell

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A state judge agreed with Democrats on Monday and dismissed a lawsuit aimed at keeping President Barack Obama off the ballot in Alabama this year, joining other jurists who have thrown out cases arguing Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen and can’t legally hold the office.

The fight isn’t yet over whether Obama will appear on the state’s ballot, however, since a similar suit was filed as the time the judge was tossing the first one.

Circuit Judge Helen Shores Lee, herself a Democrat, sided with a party lawyer who argued that plaintiff Albert Hendershot Jr.’s claims about Obama’s eligibility to serve are a political dispute, not a legal question, and don’t belong in court.

Hendershot, who filed suit in December, declined comment after a brief hearing, but he previously said he would appeal to the Republican-controlled Alabama Supreme Court.

As the hearing was being conducted, Crenshaw County resident Harold Sorensen filed a similar lawsuit in Jefferson County. That case, too, was assigned to Lee by random draw.

 Read More at The Washington Post By Associated Press, The Washington Post