A great cult movie is like a weird underground discovery, that feels so strange and wonderful, you suspect that you're the first person ever to appreciate it properly. But certain cult films have acquired fame and influence to rival any blockbuster, and have become part of our shared vocabulary. Here are 30 essential cult movies that everybody ought to watch, at least once.

Note: We debated a lot what we would consider a "cult movie" for the purposes of this list, and we mostly stuck to films that were not huge box-office hits and didn't get massive mainstream exposure when they were first released. The films on this list mostly either flew under the radar or were considered massive flops when they came out originally.

30) Zardoz

This is a movie set in the post-apocalypse year 2293 that features Sean Connery with a ponytail wearing some kind of red, leather, knee high boots/suspenders thing along with a fake god that spouts the following doctrine: The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth ... and kill! The only way a person could properly appreciate this movie is with cult status, and a handful of LSD. But it's absolutely something you have to experience at least once.

http://io9.com/30-cult-movies-that-absolutely-everybody-must-see-1538502596

Radio host Michael Medved tells CPAC no state tried to ban gay marriage: ‘That is a liberal lie’

By Travis Gettys
Friday, March 7, 2014 15:16 EST

Conservative radio host Michael Medved made a startlingly false claim Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, reported Talking Points Memo.

A panelist said during discussion on the shared goals of libertarians and social conservatives that the only religious liberties that had historically been infringed in this country were those of religious groups that supported same-sex marriage.

“The government has prevented them from engaging in the religious practice that they want,” said Alexander McCobin, president and co-founder of the libertarian Students for Liberty.

But Medved bristled at the suggestion made during the panel that asked, “Can Libertarians and Social Conservatives Ever Get Along?”

“When? Where?” Medved said. “No prohibition — there has never been a state in this country that has ever banned gay marriage,” Medved said. “That is a liberal lie.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/07/radio-host-michael-medved-tells-cpac-no-state-tried-to-ban-gay-marriage-that-is-a-liberal-lie/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

BY JOSH ISRAEL AND ADAM PECK ON MARCH 7, 2014 AT 1:02 PM

Faced with the horrors of Obamacare, the impending threat of a $10 minimum wage, and the chance to take back the Senate from Democrats, conservative donors may be feeling especially generous this election season. And, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, they have an abundance of options of how to best funnel money to their preferred candidates. With eight months to go til Election Day, 942 super PACs have already popped up, raising more than $140 million thus far.
But as these political groups solicit millions of dollars from donors big and small, not all of them are using their donations for their purported purpose.

A ThinkProgress review of Federal Election Commission PAC data found that several large political action committees and super PACs are spending most of their donations on “overhead” expenditures, with miniscule percentages going to actual political candidates.

Scam PACs

In 2009, Iraq War veteran and unsuccessful Congressional candidate Kieran Michael Lalor (R) registered a political action committee called Iraq Veterans for Congress. Its stated aim: to “Recruit, Fund and Elect to Congress conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.” But while the committee raised and spent more than $800,000 before the 2010 elections, just $48,000 (less than 6 percent) of its most went to donations to candidates, as most of its funds went to outside fundraisers and printing shops. Now called the Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC, the committee continues to be a prime example of a breed of PACs that spend a huge amount on political consultants and little on actually political action.

Though its website has been defunct since late last year, Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC reported $469,967.46 in 2013 expenses — just $9,000 of that (under 2 percent) on candidate contributions. While it is not unusual for political committees to make more of their campaign expenditures in even-numbered years, when most elections take place, the committee’s -$14,359.04 cash-on-hand total would hardly indicate the committee is saving up its funds. Asked last year by the Poughkeepsie Journal about his PAC’s high overhead and low political activity, Lalor — now a New York State Assemblyman — said only that, “It’s expensive to raise money, but it’s more expensive not to.”



http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/03/07/3362891/meet-scam-pacs/#

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/another-setback-minority-outreach

Crickets chirp as tumbleweeds roll through — and somewhere, the long, lonesome howl of a wolf is heard. That is one ghost town of a panel.

“CPAC organized a panel on minority outreach – an ongoing problem for the Republican Party and its base – and few thought the subject was worth their time,” explains Steve Benen. “…This is no way for a movement or a party to deal with a demographic problem that’s only going to get worse for the right.”

That picture is a Kirlian photo of the racist soul of the GOP. No one showed up, because no one cares. And no one cares because they’re all certain that minorities are mostly welfare queens and food stamp shoppers, Mitt Romney’s 47% makers-not-takers, and the fewer there are at the polls, the better. If there was a panel on voter ID (and there might be, I didn’t check) it’d be busting at the seams.

The base isn’t interested in voter outreach, because they want to keep minorities away from the polls. And if that means the impending demographic doom of the Republican Party, then no one deserves that doom more. If they only want white voters, then they’re only going to get white voters.

That’s not going to work out well for them.