Mitt Romney can't count on home-state advantage

Will Mitt Romney have enough money for the battles ahead? The Republican presidential candidate is scrambling to shore up his coffers for a grueling run of primaries over the next month, contests that could go a long way toward deciding the outcome of a nomination fight that has become much tougher, and more expensive, than anticipated.


The former Massachusetts governor and private equity manager has amassed far more money than his competitors and has a deep-pocketed super PAC spending unlimited funds on his behalf. Aides and fundraisers say he will have plenty of money remaining to dominate the contest going forward.


Michigan primary voters are susceptible to the Christian social message. That populist, blue-collar conservatism, tinged with a little protectionism, plays pretty well here," said GOP strategist McNeilly.


Santorum will attempt to emphasize his plan to give U.S. manufacturers a tax break when he addresses the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. That night, he'll address a Republican dinner in Romney's home county in the Detroit suburbs. Romney is sending his wife, Ann, who, like her husband, grew up in the area, the state's largest primary battleground.


Romney has almost universal support from the state's Republican establishment and is expected to receive the endorsement soon of popular GOP Gov. Rick Snyder. But establishment backing proved useless a dozen years ago for George W. Bush, who lost the state to McCain in an upset when Democrats and independents flooded the Republican primary, which is open to any registered voter.


With Romney's candidacy at a crossroads, Republican professionals in the state expect his money advantage to be decisive. But a top Romney advisor, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the campaign more candidly, cautioned that the GOP race had been "like a roller-coaster ride," and that more hidden turns may be ahead.

Santorum releases tax returns

ABC News’ Michael Falcone and Shushannah Walshe report:
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who frequently touts his humble roots as the grandson of a coal miner, earned an average of more than $900,000 each year between 2007 and 2010, according to the candidate’s tax returns released on Wednesday.
His adjusted gross income varied from about $659,000 in 2007 to more than $1.1 million in 2009. In 2010, Santorum earned $923,411.
According to the IRS-1040 forms released by the Santorum campaign, the former Pennsylvania senator paid an effective tax rate of roughly 28.5 percent in 2010.
That is a substantially higher rate than what Mitt Romney paid the same year, according to the former Massachusetts governor’s tax returns, which his campaign released in January.


The Santorums, filing jointly, had adjusted gross income of $659,637 in 2007.


That went up to $945,100 in 2008, about $1.1 million in 2009 and $923,411 for 2010.
The documents show Santorum earned the bulk of his income by consulting and doing public speaking for Excelsior LLC. His financial-disclosure forms show he has also earned income as a political pundit and member of corporate boards.
Tax returns became an issue in the GOP campaign when Romney declined to release his immediately. The multimillionaire did release his 2010 return and an estimate for 2011.

Romney's documents showed he paid an effective tax rate of 13.9% on adjusted gross income of $21.7 million in 2010.
Much of Romney's income comes from capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at 15% and not the top rate of 35% for wages and ordinary income.

Charlie Sheen Disses 'Men' While Commenting on Warner Bros

Mel Gibson, Chris Brown and Charlie Sheen represent the holy trinity of talented artists who share a penchant for violence against women.


All three have managed to steal the media spotlight for their vile behavior yet the public is all but ready to not only forgive them, but support them in the continuation of their craft.


Charlie Sheen is preparing his latest project Anger Management for big time television, Chris Brown just won a Grammy and was asked to perform by the show’s producers, and Mel Gibson was on the receiving end of a standing ovation for his performance in Jodi Foster’s The Beaver at SXSW last year.


WB sent the cease and desist letter to Sheen and FX for using the images from his "Men" days for his new sitcom "Anger Management". Branding it "egregious," the studio lawyer Katherine Chilton wrote in the letter, "Please immediately cease and desist from using these photographs or any other intellectual property belonging to Warner."


A representative for Sheen did not immediately respond to the complaint, but a source guaranteed, "It won't happen again." The so-called insider went on claiming that the inclusion of an old photo of Sheen was not an intentional flouting of WB's copyright, but it happened simply because the actor had been too busy to get new publicity shots taken.


Sheen's new sitcom "Anger Management" is set to launch in June on FX. The show has rounded up its main cast ensemble with Selma Blair, Shawnee Smith and Daniela Bobadilla taking the female lead roles.

Charlie Sheen Gets Cease-and-Desist

Charlie tells TMZ ... he's delighted the company that fired him has sent him a cease and desist letter, warning him and his new production company not to use photos of himself from "Two and a Half Men" for his new show, "Anger Management."


"Please immediately cease and desist from using these photographs or any other intellectual property belonging to Warner."


The rub came when the aforementioned motorcycle pic was used by Sheen and his current colleagues in a promotional packet touting Anger Management to buyers at last month's NATPE conference in Miami.


A rep for Sheen declined to comment, but THR quotes a source saying that the inclusion of an old photo of Sheen was not an intentional flouting of WB's copyright. The back-in-action star had just been too busy to get new publicity shots taken, the insider said.

Honduras' deadly prison fire stirs furor

In central Honduras, more than 300 inmates burned or suffocated to death in a prison. One can only imagine the cries of those trapped in their cells, while no one could find a key to let them escape the flames. We can only try to comprehend the agony of the prisoners' parents, children, relatives or friends as they saw the images on television, wondering whether their loved ones survived or, if they died, how much they suffered in their final moments.
The horrific tragedy at Honduras, a small impoverished country in Central America, brings to the forefront an issue that has long been ignored: Abysmal prison conditions.
Fire one of the worst incidents of its kind in Latin America
Across the world, in rich and poor countries alike, many people who are sentenced to prison suffer unspeakable conditions. Even if we assume that those incarcerated have gone through a fair trial, nothing justifies condemning individuals to live below the minimum level of human decency.


Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said the growing presence of organized crime in Honduras has "logically" fed the country's prison population.


"We have to come up with an immediate response because we can't allow our country, Honduras, which has had three incidents of this kind, to go down that road," he said Wednesday in a television interview.


Honduras is not alone. Prison conditions have worsened across the region as inmate populations swell, in part because of crime sweeps aimed at tackling the growing presence of international drug traffickers and homegrown street gangs.


In Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels in 2006, thousands of drug suspects have been housed in poorly run state prisons because the federal installations lack space.


By 2010, the ranks of federal prisoners in Mexico had quadrupled in four years to more than 12,000, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said at the time.

358 killed in Honduras prison fire

COMAYAGUA, Honduras — The bodies of the inmates, shirtless and blackened by soot, lay on the ground in neat rows, belying the chaos from which they emerged.


Outside the fence, hundreds of relatives rushed the gates of the burned-out prison on Wednesday, anguished and anxious for any word, clashing with soldiers and the police when they could not get in. As a prison officer stood on a balcony, reading out a roll call of the dead and survivors from a handwritten list, faces in the crowd turned away in tears.


It was one of the worst prison fires in recent years in Latin America, with a death toll surpassing 300, most of the victims choking to death in their cells awaiting a rescue that never came. Guards with the keys were nowhere to be found, rescuers said. Some inmates bashed their way through the roof to escape, and kept running. They are now fugitives.


Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said on national television that he had suspended the country's top penal officials, including Orellana, and would request international assistance in carrying out a thorough investigation.
"This is a day of profound sadness," Lobo said.
Orellana said the convicts were allowed to work outdoors, unlike those held in a maximum-security facility for the country's most dangerous prisoners in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Located in the middle of irrigated fields and several large ponds, the prison was comprised of 12 buildings set close together, with an open, dirt prison yard within a central compound. A single dirt road led into the facility, which has a soccer field on the property.
Honduras has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and its overcrowded and dilapidated prisons have been hit by a string of deadly riots and fires in recent years. Officials have repeatedly pledged to improve conditions, only to say they don't have sufficient funds.
Tuesday's blaze was the world's deadliest prison fire since 1930, when 322 prisoners were killed in Ohio.
Honduras has 24 prisons, 23 for men or both genders, and one exclusively for women. In December, the total prison population was 11,846 of which 411 were women.