AVDI VIDE TACE translated means “HEAR, SEE, BE SILENT”

The Royal Society, the premier and oldest learned society for the study of science, was founded in 1660 with the motto “Nullius in Verba” or “On the words of no one.” This date probably was the start of that remarkable period in the intellectual history of Europe that we call today “The Age of Enlightenment.”

But the story of the beginning of that age went back many years.

European universities and intellectual climate at the time were still dominated by Aristotle and Scholastic system of thinking, that of the “Disputatio.”

The way to arrive at truth was the method of “Deduction” axiomatic deductions from authorities. Who constituted the “Authorities" anyway? The sacred books, writings by ancient authorities and so on. Scant attention was paid to empirical evidence.

An example being based on the authorities of St. Thomas, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Kings 1, (the last three are books of the Bible) and St. Augustine, one must logically deduce that witches exist, and therefore it was heresy to say otherwise. (Hence the Witch Trials that lasted for 100's of years)

The Catholic Church’s pressure on Galileo to recant his heliocentric world view was base on a similar line of reasoning. The authority of the Bible and of Ptolemy clearly stated that the earth was immovable and was the center of the universe. (Many intellectual men of this time lost their lives or came very close at the hands of the Church)

Even Martin Luther, the man who started the "Reformation" was steeped in the Aristotelian world view and was a follower of the method of scholasticism of his Age. He had this to say regarding the heliocentric world view: “This FOOL Copernicus wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.” (Again the teachings had to be that the Earth was the center of the universe because the Bible said so)

Even today you will see people holding up a Bible or Koran as proof of anything they disagree with. Evolution, Gay Marriages, Women's Rights, etc.

That was the method of scholasticism that one drew upon the rigid axiomatic deductions by logic from premises, the veracity of which were based on "AUTHORITIES."

To sum this up, “TRUTH” is to be derived by induction from the particular to the general, by induction based on empirically collected data.

When I read or hear a person quoting sources of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Rielly, Donald Trump, or any other Mass Marketed Ultra-Conservative Personality as proof of their argument; my only thought is, “Hey Mindless, Non-Critical Thinking Lemming!!! At Least Try And Join The 17th Century Line Of Thinking!!”

“NULLIUS IN VERBA”

Bill O’Rielly’s Pinheads and Patriots

I saw this book at Barns & Nobles yesterday and the title jumped out at me, “Pinheads and Patriots.” I am sure that O’Rielly is trying to project that if you do not agree with his viewpoints, you are a Pinhead; and if you do agree, you must be a Patriot. What ever.

Of course my mind instantly jumped to that in many cases, the name Pinhead was much more applicable to those claiming the current “Patriot” mantle. Non-critical thinking, non-questioning, merely repeating mindlessly what they are programmed to drivel on and spout back simply because this is what they want reality to be.

So in this spirit of mindset, my book review for this book that I did not read, I have concluded that it is just pure crap and not worth the $20 (plus or minus ether way). I really have no idea how much they were asking for this book.

It’s Déjà vu All Over Again

This is a famous saying credited to Yogi Berra and few memories haunt Republicans more deeply than the 1995-96 partial shutdown of the federal government, which helped President Bill Clinton reverse his falling fortunes and recast the House Republicans as stubborn partisans, and not savvy insurgents. The comments at that time from the population were, “Newt Gingrich thinks HE’S the President!”

Now, as Congress careens toward a budget impasse, one can only wonder if another shutdown is imminent and whether the Current Extreme Right Wing Republicans will once again suffer the blame.

Reaping The Return On Their Investments

This latest Republican controlled House just a few weeks ago handed out tax deferment rewards to corporations by renewing the G. W. Bush’s 2000 tax cuts. This was money the country and tax payers did not have and it was this same tax cuts of 2000 that contributed greatly under funding the operations of the government and left us with the large deficits we are experiencing today.

NOW this same Republican controlled House wants to purge all funding for Planned Parenthood, Environmental Protection Agency, and repeal the Health Care Bill because there is no money for these programs.

Let’s just call it like it is. This has been the social engineering aspects that the Republican Party has been trying to push for years.

1. Shutting down Planned Parenthood because they provide women’s health care that may require an abortion. The procedure much like Congresswoman Jackie Speier described and admitted having to have done to her publicly on the House floor.

2. Gutting the Environmental Protection Agency because they have the power to admonish corporations for blatantly dumping their industrial process pollution into the water and air. We have seen the destroying of the water aquifers caused by strip mining in West Virginia by the coal mining companies being protected under the G. W. Bush’s administration. We have also seen the protection interference for the oil industries use of petrochemicals to drill at oil sites and citizens living in the area can now ignite their tap water. Many of my readers will remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire in Cleveland. Is this now the current Republicans view that we are to return back to the “Good O’l Days?” Is this now the Republican Party’s idea of progress? It was the Republican President Richard Nixon’s passage of the “Clean Air Act,” that gave the enforcement ability of the EPA. This was once what the Republican Party’s legacy standard and platform was about.

3. Of course the National Health Care Bill that the insurance industry funded the resistance of its passage and now for its repeal. This Health Care Bill that protects people who have lost their jobs and are at risk after paying their health care premiums only to have their coverage deigned because 10 years ago they had a condition that needed to be treated.

4. Now we are seeing the last bastion of Union Busting going on right now in the current event today. Without this last aspect of workers voice and rights, we are seeing the removal of “Checks and Balances” of corporations.

Surely any person with just a smidgen of intelligence can see the “Return On Their Investments Dividends” being awarded to those who funded this current Republican House.

Where my curiosity comes from is why so many think that having protection of their personal health care destroyed, their quality of air and water being poisoned by industrial chemicals with no over site from the agencies that are to protect you. Instead now, all corporations will get is a knowing wink and nod with a smile from the EPA. How much is a person’s wealth in their homes worth when you can light their tap water to heat their homes? It can be said that this current Republican House motto is, “Take From The Poor (or even the middle working class making them the new poor) And Give To The Rich.”

War On Christmas Bill O'Rielly.....Really?

Let me start out by saying that “Religion” is just another business no different than any other business. Marketing agents will come up with what ever they can to gain more market shares of the population’s expendable income and the “Business of Religion” is no different. Hence the marketing message to the populous lemmings that, THERE IS A WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!

Below are some real facts on Christmas in the United States that goes back long before there was a United States.

1. One of the recent non-issues alarms that The Fanatical Religious Conservative Right, like Bill O’Rielly, is propagating that there is now TODAY a War On Christmas!!

Truth:
In sounding their alarm, the Fanatical Religious Right does not pass on that it was illegal to celebrate Christmas in the colony of Massachusetts in 1681. The Pilgrims had Christmas outlawed because it was too Catholic. Yes, the pilgrims, the very Christian religious English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs. The Puritans made it illegal to mention St. Nicolas' name, people were not allowed to exchange gifts, light a candle, or sing Christmas carols. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. That Christmas was ignored in this country for the first hundred years of its existence because it was viewed as an idolatrous Catholic invention...until retail stores discovered it was a way to make $$$. Christmas is the major holiday today because of retailers, so ranting against retailers for modifying their message is well...intellectually dishonest, especially when it comes from the same people who claim to represent the views of our founding fathers who didn't even recognize the holiday.

Presbyterians, Baptists, nor many Methodists, particularly those converted by revival during the Great Awakening of the 1740s and 1750s even recognize the celebration of Christmas. So the holiday did not have a prominent role in the community at the birth of the new United States of America.

No state legally recognized a Christmas holiday until 1836, and the federal congress did not acknowledge such a holiday in legislation until 1870, just six years before the nation's centennial. Santa Claus was invented in the 1840s by a committee of New York businessmen who wanted to promote sales. They borrowed the tradition of "Sinter Klaas" brought to New York by Dutch immigrants, originally a variation on St. Nicholas.

The early 19th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. During this time, unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season. In 1828, the New York city council instituted the city’s first police force in response to a Christmas riot. This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.
In 1819, best-selling author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent., a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving’s mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status.
Irving’s fictitious celebrants enjoyed “ancient customs,” including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving’s book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended; in fact, many historians say that Irving’s account actually “invented” tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.


2. Another point that The Fanatical Religious Conservative Right gives as proof that there is a War On Christmas is the use of the letter “X” in Xmas.

Truth:
The "X" in Xmas came from the Greek spelling of Christ and is as old as the Christian religion itself. The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning “Christ’s Mass.” "Cristes" is from Greek “Christos” and "mæsse" is from Latin "missa" (the holy mass). In Greek, the letter “X,” pronounced “chi,” is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter “X,” has been used as an abbreviation for Christ. Hence, Xmas was returned to popularity by retailers in their advertising as a cost issue and not for any anti-Christ aspect.

So in closing, my Christmas message to those claiming The Fanatical Religious Conservative Right, is be more critical and check the facts on what others would pass onto you because……
A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Convicted Felon....Tom DeLay

Following DeLay’s conviction Wednesday on money laundering and conspiracy charges, technically the money laundering charge carries a punishment of up to life in prison, but the Texas judge hearing the case has wide latitude and could end up just giving DeLay probation. So once again, all can expect an injustice to the political process once again with this Texas “Good-Ol-Boy” judge.

Many of DeLay’s supporters will give the excuse that as a convicted felon, DeLay won't be able to run again for public office or even be able to cast a vote until he completes his sentence. After all, won’t that be punishment enough for corrupting Congress with laundered “Influence Peddling” money? I mean, after all, he is a Conservative Republican making all things such as “Felon Convicted Crimes” forgiven…right?

Texas prosecutors got convictions on DeLay for conspiring with two associates to use his Texas-based political action committee to send $190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas statehouse candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns. But because it was used to promote Conservative Political causes….it’s OK right? After all it’s not like they were promoting LIBERAL Democratic causes!!!!

I challenge anyone to hear anything but excuses from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rielly, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Fox News, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, etc. Not one of these will condemn the actions of Tom DeLay. If anything, they will work behind the scenes to give him a light sentence from the Texas Judge.

This is what this whole group has been about!!

Tea Party Wants Snooki for President

After the Tea Party candidate, Christie O’Donnell, for the Delaware Senate seat, I being a converted Tea Party Member, would suggest that we gear up and start promoting a new candidate.

Snooki for President!!!

Here is my reasoning.
1. She has no political experience.
2. She is very popular with many across the country.
3. She too can say very stupid things without logic or reasoning.
4. Many find her attractive and fuckable.

Let’s imagine a self promoting Italian from New Jersey as President.
Think about it. If we had an Italian from New Jersey as President…it would go something like this:

The first 24 hours after being sworn in, the war in Afghanistan would be over!!! “You Wouldn’t Know How” but it would be over. At the Presidential Press question session, reporters would ask, “Ms. President Snooki, how did you end the Afghanistan War in only 24 hour period?” President Snooki would give a little knowing laugh then her face would go serious with the reply, “Don’t worry about it! You just go enjoy your gas prices at $.32 per gallon….OK?”

Think about this…..when Bin Laden attacked the U.S. what did then President Bush do? He sent in the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. Everybody went to find one guy.

Would President Snooki do this?…NO!! Two Italian guys from Jersey would leave and go to Afghanistan and would be back in 24 hours. They would have found Bin Laden….No Problem. They would have walked right to his cave like any other hit, kicked in the door, leaned into the cave, and called, “Osama? Yo! How you doin? Pull up a rock….I wanna talk to ya about som’in. I’m already upset with you already cause I had to get up early. You know how far you live from New Jersey? Tell you what, sit still, here’s what I’m gonna do for you Bin. Hey Vinni….Hit him with da bat. Is he dead? Good! Steal the rug. War’s Over.”

That’s the kind of stuff President Snooki could bring to the table. YO!

Words of Political Wisdom from Samuel Clemmons

With the upcoming National Elections, we all should review and reflect the "Words of Wisdom, from the great American writer, Samuel Clemmons. Much can be learned from this great thinker.

In defining those who claim to be Patriots much like the Teabaggers or Fanatical Rightwing Proponents today, I pass on that Clemmons said that a Patriot is, “The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.” You can see this proof in action at every Tea Party Rally today.

As a lot of truth is passed on in jest, Clemmons can be quoted with, “It ain't what you DON'T KNOW that gets you into trouble. It's what you KNOW FOR SURE THAT JUST AIN'T SO.” Clemmons also went onto say, “Get your facts first, then you can DISTORT them as you please.” Again this is what you can find with about every follower and fan of “Conservative Talk Radio Programs” or “Fox Political Programming TV shows.”

I find that so many Teabaggers or The Extreme Right political viewpoints come from those with the least amount of worldly exposure. Clemmons stated about this with, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

As I know very well that these “Words of Wisdom” will only be taken in and see the relevance to those who are already aware. It is yet once again a sad state of affairs that the message to Teabaggers and Fanatical Extreme Right will just once again overlook the truths and continue on with their ignorance and nihilism.

"How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy."

Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse." Remember David Stockman? He was the “Financial Wonder Kid” that upon seeing the Reaganomics Plan, instantly call it, “Voodoo Economics!” Many may remember well when President Reagan took him aside to the preverbal “Woodshed” and scolded him for not playing along with the Reaganomics Plan.

I have decided to post this as this is exactly what I have been saying how MY REPUBLICAN PARTY has been taken over by CROOKS and CON MEN, WITH A FOLLOWING OF NON-THINKING LEMMINGS.

Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "DESTROYED" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."

Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider, someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology and coined the phrase of President Regan’s, “Voodoo Economics,” says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

But why focus on Stockman's message? It's already lost in the 24/7 news cycle. Why? We need some introspection. Ask yourself: How did the great nation of America lose its moral compass and drift so far off course, to where our very survival is threatened?
We've arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican.

Please listen with an open mind, no matter your party affiliation: This makes for a powerful history lesson, because it exposes how both parties are responsible for destroying the U.S. economy. Read Carefully:

Reagan Republican: the GOP should file for bankruptcy Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: "If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation's public debt, will soon reach $18 trillion." It screams "out for austerity and sacrifice." But instead, the GOP insists "that the nation's wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase."

In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans. Stockman says: "Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses too."
No more. Today there's a "new catechism" that's "little more than money printing and deficit finance, vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes" making a mockery of GOP ideals. Worse, it has resulted in "serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy." Yes, GOP ideals backfired, crippling our economy.

Stockman's indictment warns that the Republican Party's "new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one:"

Stage 1. Nixon irresponsible, dumps gold, U.S starts spending binge.
Richard Nixon's gold policies get Stockman's first assault, for defaulting "on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world." So for the past 40 years, America's been living "beyond our means as a nation" on "borrowed prosperity on an epic scale ... an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves."
Remember Friedman: "Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct." Friedman was wrong by trillions. And unfortunately "once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors."
And without discipline America was also encouraging "global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve." Yes, the road to the coming apocalypse began with a Republican president listening to a misguided Nobel economist's advice.

Stage 2. Crushing debts from domestic excesses, war mongering.
Stockman says "the second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970." Who's to blame? Not big-spending Democrats, says Stockman, but "from the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."

Back "in 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts," but Stockman makes clear, they had to be "matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration's hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces, the welfare state and the warfare state, that drive the federal spending machine."

OK, stop a minute. As you absorb Stockman's indictment of how his Republican party has "destroyed the U.S. economy," you're probably asking yourself why anyone should believe a traitor to the Reagan legacy. I believe party affiliation is irrelevant here. This is a crucial subject that must be explored because it further exposes a dangerous historical trend where politics is so partisan it's having huge negative consequences.
Yes, the GOP does have a welfare-warfare state: Stockman says "the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending, exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans' fiscal religion."

When Fed chief Paul Volcker "crushed inflation" in the '80s we got a "solid economic rebound." But then "the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts." By 2009, they "reduced federal revenues to 15% of gross domestic product," lowest since the 1940s. Still today they're irrationally demanding an extension of those "unaffordable Bush tax cuts that would amount to a bankruptcy filing."

Recently Bush made matters far worse by "rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures." Bush also gave in "on domestic spending cuts, signing into law $420 billion in nondefense appropriations, a 65% percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy." Takes two to tango.

Stage 3. Wall Street's deadly “vast, unproductive expansion.”Stockman continues pounding away: "The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector." He warns that "Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation." Wrong, not oblivious. Self-interested Republican loyalists like Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner knew exactly what they were doing.

They wanted the economy, markets and the government to be under the absolute control of Wall Street's too-greedy-to-fail banks. They conned Congress and the Fed into bailing out an estimated $23.7 trillion debt. Worse, they have since destroyed meaningful financial reforms. So Wall Street is now back to business as usual blowing another bigger bubble/bust cycle that will culminate in the coming "American Apocalypse."

Stockman refers to Wall Street's surviving banks as "wards of the state." Wrong, the opposite is true. Wall Street now controls Washington, and its "unproductive" trading is "extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives." Wall Street banks like Goldman were virtually bankrupt, would have never survived without government-guaranteed deposits and "virtually free money from the Fed's discount window to cover their bad bets."

Stage 4. New American Revolution class-warfare coming soon.
Finally, thanks to Republican policies that let us "live beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore," while at home "high-value jobs in goods production ... trade, transportation, information technology and the professions shrunk by 12% to 68 million from 77 million."
As the apocalypse draws near, Stockman sees a class-rebellion, a new revolution, a war against greed and the wealthy and soon. The trigger will be the growing gap between economic classes: No wonder "that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1% of Americans, paid mainly from the Wall Street casino, received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90%, mainly dependent on Main Street's shrinking economy, got only 12%. This growing wealth gap is not the market's fault. It's the decaying fruit of bad economic policy."

Get it? The decaying fruit of the GOP's bad economic policies is destroying our economy.

Warning: this black swan won't be pretty, will shock, soon
His bottom line: "The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing, it's a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach, balanced budgets, and sound money and financial discipline is needed more than ever."

Wrong: There are far bigger things to "pity."
First, that most Americans, 300 million, are helpless, will do nothing, sit in the bleachers passively watching this deadly partisan game like it's just another TV reality show.

Second, that, unfortunately, politicians are “so deep in the pockets” of the Wall Street conspiracy that controls Washington they are helpless and blind.

Third, there's a depressing sense that Stockman will be dismissed as a traitor, his message lost in the 24/7 news cycle until the final apocalyptic event, an unpredictable black swan triggers another, bigger global meltdown, followed by a long Great Depression II and a historic class war.

So be prepared, it will hit soon, when you least expect it!!

I intend for my next posting to be on John Law, the Scotsman who handled the budget of France based on a Ponzi Scheme that when it crashed……It started the French Revolution. History Repeats Itself!!!

Man with Neo-Nazi ties leading patrols in Arizona

Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed Neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.

Jason "J.T." Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.

But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."

"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said. "This is what our founding fathers did."

Escalations of civilian border watches have taken root in Arizona in recent years, including the Minutemen movement. Various groups patrol the desert on foot, horseback and in airplanes and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally, they have not caused problems for law enforcement.

But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.

"These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."

Ready is a reflection of the anger over illegal immigration in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer signed a controversial new immigration law in April, which requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.

But Brewer hasn't done enough, Ready said, and he's not satisfied with President Barack Obama's decision to beef up security at the border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said there haven't been any incidents with the group as they patrol his jurisdiction, which includes several busy immigrant smuggling corridors. But Babeu is concerned because untrained group acting without the authority of the law could cause "extreme problems," and put themselves and others in danger.

"I'm not inviting them. And in fact, I'd rather they not come," Babeu said. "Especially those who espouse hatred or bigotry such as his."

Law enforcement officials said patrols like Ready's could undercut the work of the thousands of officers on duty every day across the border, especially if they try to enforce the law themselves in carrying out vigilante justice.

Ready said his group has been patrolling in the desert about 50 miles south of Phoenix, in an area where a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy reported he was shot by drug smugglers in April.

The patrols have been occurring on public land, and militia members have no real restrictions on their weaponry because of Arizona's loose gun laws.

The militia is an outgrowth of border watch groups that have been part of the immigration debate in Arizona. Patrols in the Arizona desert by Minutemen organizations brought national attention to illegal immigration in 2004 and 2005.

Such groups continue to operate in Arizona, and law enforcement officials generally don't take issue with them as long as they don't take matters into their own hands.

Ready said he's planning patrols throughout the summer.

"If they don't want my people out there, then there's an easy way to send us home: Secure the border," he said. "We'll put our guns back on the shelf, and that'll be the end of that."

Teabaggers Prepare For President Obama’s Visit To North Carolina

Of course, by PREPARING, I mean taking over their children’s or grandchildren’s crayons to color their signs, miss spelling many of the words on their signs because most can’t demonstrate proficiency of having a 7th grade education, attaching tea bags to their clothing and trying to figure out how they’re going to pounce on the President of the United States.

But, hey!!! They’re “Super Patriotic Folks”…..RIGHT?!?!?! (Oh yea, only so long as you agree with their views which are very dynamic and can mean many different conflicting things at any given point and time.) Now my thoughts here are….That the vast majority of the Teabaggers have NO CLUE what they’re actually protesting….Just so long as they can shout rage, hate, and non-factual bull crap, blaming someone else for their problems.

It’s no wonder President Obama isn’t going to make a public appearance when he visits Charlotte on Friday, especially after the Teabaggers demonstrated what they are really about on the Capital steps being so rude as to spit, and shouting racial slurs at Congressmen, etc. during the health care bill’s final passage in Washington D. C. Who would want to subject themselves to such abuse? Especially when this crowd of abusers are likely to be packin’ heat.

Here’s hoping the Teabaggers eventually get a clue…(Not that there is much chance of this)… and realize how utterly goofy it is to wear tea bags on their head. I mean, come on….REALLY?!?! (Many of us know how the Urban Dictionary defines Teabagging, RIGHT?!?!?)

Now to close this posting with some reality, a recent Bloomberg National Poll confirmed, what was already apparent to the more intelligent demographic balance of the population, that the Tea Party movement has an intense hatred for anything they, or their leaders, deem to be socialist while both appreciating and wanting more government support for programs they like and, of course, not really understanding even what the term socialist means.

The GOP Starts Training Staffers To Abuse Finances At A Young Age

As Republican Tom Coburn, co-filibusterer with Jim Bunning, speak of finical responsibility and no relief to those un-employed long term….Yet another reality of the Republican “Socialism For The Rich” cutting more than their share of donated money to the Party!! Mike Steel again should be proud those he tries to protect so well.

Melanie Phister was a 25-year-old junior staffer when the Florida Republican Party gave her an American Express card.

Over the next 2½ years, nearly $1.3 million in charges wound up on Melanie Phister's Republican issued American Express Credit Card. $40,000 at a London hotel, and nearly $20,000 in plane tickets for indicted former House Speaker Ray Sansom, his wife and kids, for starters. Statements show thousands spent on jewelry, sporting goods and in one case $15,000 for what's listed as a month long stay at a posh Miami Beach hotel, but which the party says was a forfeited deposit.

The credit card records, obtained by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, offer the latest behind the scenes look at extravagant and free-wheeling spending by the party touting fiscal restraint. Not only did certain elite legislative leaders have their own party credit cards to spend donors' money with little oversight, but Phister's records show these leaders also liberally used an underling's card without her knowledge, she says.
"I did not have the sole discretion to initiate credit card spending," Phister said in an e-mail statement. "Over that period of time, there were multiple instances when the card was used to make purchases that I had no knowledge of, and I did not regularly review the monthly credit card statements which I understand were sent directly to the Party's accounting office."

Even after a series of embarrassing revelations over profligate credit card spending by the likes of Republican U.S. Senate frontrunner Marco Rubio, Sansom and incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, and pending state and federal investigations of party finances revelations of the huge charges on Phister's card had veteran GOP fundraisers apoplectic.
"Oh my God. I can't believe it,'' said Al Hoffman, a top fundraiser from Fort Myers, when told of the $1.258 million on Phister's card. "See, that's it. They have an underling do it all. There's no reason a young assistant should be ringing up charges like that."
Phister served as finance director for state House campaigns for 2½ years starting in mid 2006.

She was a Republican Party employee who mainly answered to Sansom, R-Destin, speaker-designate at the time and overseeing House campaign operations. The job involved planning fundraising events and often accompanying Sansom and other legislative leaders on fundraising and other political trips.

Sansom was indicted by a grand jury last year for inserting $6 million into the state budget for an airport building that a friend and GOP contributor, Jay Odom, wanted to use as an airplane hangar. That criminal investigation revealed that Sansom charged more than $170,000 on his party-issued credit card — everything from plane tickets for his family to clothes to electronics.

Turns out Sansom spent heavily on Phister's card as well. Her credit card statements include at least four sets of plane tickets for Sansom, his wife and four kids. He also ordered Phister to accompany him on a trade trip to London in the summer of 2008. Phister brought her mother along at Sansom's encouragement, and Phister's GOP American Express saw plenty of action: nearly $40,000 at a London hotel, and more than $3,600 in sightseeing expenses.

"I can't believe it. Someone should be hanged for that," Mark Guzzetta, a Boca Raton developer who has raised millions of dollars for Republicans, said of the party allowing so much spending on a low-level staffer's card.

Republican legislative leaders during that period were raising many millions of dollars, and they note that it costs money to raise money. So such Phister expenses as $1,200 for Broadway tickets in New York, or $19,000 at the Water Club restaurant during a different New York City trip may have been for evenings that raised many times that much.

Neither Phister nor the party would discuss the credit card statements in detail, citing pending state and criminal federal investigations into its financial activities as well as an exhaustive "forensic audit" of party spending about to get under way.
"The Republican Party of Florida has hired the firm Alston +Bird LLP to conduct an independent forensic investigation of the party's finances. Members of the firm's Special Matters and Investigations staff will review questionable credit card expenses to determine whether or not the party may have been the victim of improper financial dealings,'' said Florida Republican Party spokeswoman Katie Betta.
"If the audit reveals any inappropriate expenses that have not been reimbursed to the party, we will seek to collect compensation from the individuals who incurred the expense."

Judging what's an appropriate expense may be subjective. For instance, Phister's American Express shows $10,000 to a watch company in California in August 2008. Republican donors paid for Sansom to present every legislator, Democrat and Republican alike, with a memento watch.

Phister's card paid for nearly $650,000 in lodging, $60,000 in airfare — mostly commercial airlines — and $66,000 for charter planes. The statements show Republican donors also paid for plane tickets to Germany for Phister and her mother.
Phister declined to discuss those tickets, though the party said the trip was part of the expense of accompanying Sansom to Europe. Now 28, Phister parlayed her insider access to become a well-funded public employee, now earning about $70,000 yearly working for the Florida House of Representatives as a scheduler for special projects.

The Florida Democratic Party requires staffers and leaders to use their own credit cards and seek reimbursement for appropriate expenses. That's now the practice at the Florida Republican Party, and fundraiser Hoffman suggested it's about time.
"My company, with 4,000 employees, nobody had credit cards,'' said Hoffman, a developer. “If you wanted to expense, you had to submit a form with backup. It wasn't one employee taking another out to eat and charging it all off.”

We Are Seeing History Repeat Itself With The Dull & Dim Witted Teabaggers

I thought that I would pass this story on and in doing so, show how the Teabaggers are just repeating history of the same when the 1963 Civil Rights Act was the issue.

A good friend and I went out to eat at the Texas Road House in Seaford, DE. and we struck up a conversation with the server. When she spoke, I noted an accent and asked where she was originally from. She replied Birmingham, Alabama. I then asked her if they had taught Birmingham’s history when she was going to school of the “Bombing in Birmingham.” on the Sunday of September 15, 1963. She just got a puzzled look on her face and asked, “What was the Bomb?” I just stated that the “Bomb” was a real bomb that went off on a Sunday in 1963 at a church killing four little girls. Her face just glazed over and I let the subject drop.

I was not really surprised by this young lady being clueless of her own history. The point that I want to pass is how important it is to have this subject taught to the students so that maybe those like the uneducated, dull, and dim witted Teabaggers can be seen for what they really are. It is too easy to repeat the mistakes of the past when people do not even learn the lessons of their own history.

Birmingham, Alabama, and the Civil Rights
Movement in 1963

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth. Tensions became high when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African American to vote in Birmingham.

On Sunday, 15th September, 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Soon afterwards, at 10.22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.

A witness identified Robert Chambliss, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, as the man who placed the bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On 8th October, 1963, Chambliss was found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for having the dynamite.

The case was unsolved until Bill Baxley was elected attorney general of Alabama. He requested the original Federal Bureau of Investigation files on the case and discovered that the organization had accumulated a great deal of evidence against Chambliss that had not been used in the original trial.

In November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Now aged 73, Chambliss was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Chambliss died in an Alabama prison on 29th October, 1985.
On 17th May, 2000, the FBI announced that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing had been carried out by the Ku Klux Klan splinter group, the Cahaba Boys. It was claimed that four men, Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry had been responsible for the crime. Cash was dead but Blanton and Cherry were arrested and Blanton has since been tried and convicted.

By passing on this historical example which many of us have lived through and learned from, I am pointing out the conclusion of the Ku Klux Klan of 1963 Biringham, AL and recent acts of Tea Party Members, are nothing more than the same people doing the exact same thing yet once again.

Another Teabagger Sympathizer Thinking They Can Circumvent Our Republic With Death Threats

Another Teabagger sympathizer has been arrested by the FBI for threatening U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Gregory Lee Giusti was detained yesterday and will appear in federal court there today.

Gregory Lee Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi's homes in California and Washington, D.C., as well as to her husband's business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.

The Teabagger Giusti has a long history and has been in trouble previously for making threats. In 2004, he pleaded no contest in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, to a felony charge of making criminal threats and was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of supervised probation.

It is becoming quite clear for the FBI to develop the profiling and a common thread of what Teabaggers are really about. Mentally sick and weak minded people who are easily led to violence by the propaganda of Conservative Talk Radio and hate programs perpetuated by Fox Programming.

Sen. Patty Murray Receives Death Threat And Washington State Man Finally Arrested

The FBI has finally arrested someone making death threats to elected officials, and it WAS ABOUT TIME that this country’s law enforcement takes these nut jobs seriously. We as a Nation need to take control and bring these Fanatical Christian Militias, Radical Teabaggers who think it is acceptable to destroy personal property and make threats to others who do not agree with their political beliefs. It is also time to start investigating what charges can be brought on those making speeches with statements like, “Don’t Retreat…Reload!”

Charles Alan Wilson, a Washington State man has been charged with threatening to kill Democratic Sen. Patty Murray over her support for health care reform, leaving voicemail messages at her office saying she had a target on her back and "it only takes one piece of lead."

Federal agents arrested Charles Alan Wilson, 63, without incident in Yakima, Wash., on Tuesday.

Murray's office in Seattle reported the threats amid a rash of ugliness aimed at lawmakers who supported the sweeping federal health care legislation. Some lawmakers have been spit on and several have reported receiving threatening calls.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Wilson is believed to be the first person in the country arrested for such threats.

The messages to Murray were left on voicemail from a blocked telephone number, FBI Special Agent Carolyn W. Woodbury wrote in a probable cause statement. Agents said they traced the calls to Wilson's home in Selah, near Yakima.

Wilson has a .38-caliber revolver registered to him and has concealed weapons permit.
To confirm Wilson was the caller, one agent telephoned him and posed as a member of a group working to repeal the health care legislation, the statement said.

According to an excerpt of the conversation, Wilson confirmed he repeatedly called Murray as well as Washington's other Democratic senator, Maria Cantwell. He then stated: "I do pack, and I will not blink when I'm confronted. ... It's not a threat, it's a guarantee."

Murray's office told the FBI it had been receiving harassing messages from the caller for months, but they became more threatening as Congress was voting on the health care legislation.

Charles Alan Wilson was recorded saying on March 22, "There's a target on your back now. It only takes one piece of lead. Kill the fucking senator! ... Now that you've passed your health-care bill, let the violence begin."

In other messages over the next several days, Charles Alan Wilson said, "I hope somebody puts a fucking bullet between your fucking eyes," and "I do believe that every one of you fucking socialist democratic progressive fuckers need to be taken out. I want to fucking kill you."

I am guessing that some of my fellow Republicans are proud of Charles Alan Wilson, but for me, I see nothing but STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE!!!! Rush, Sarah, Glen, Shawn, and Bill be damned!!

The Republican Shame of Teabaggers Actions

The blame of the latest terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Teabaggers on Democratic Congressman lie squarely on the Republicans for inciting threats and vandalism against Democrats. I am very ashamed, outraged, and I criticize the Republican leaders for not speaking out more forcefully enough to denounce the Teabagger’s threats.

I implore all to denounce Republican House members who cheered hecklers who were removed from the gallery during Sunday's health care debate. The Congressional House of Representatives deserves respect and it is inappropriate for Republican members of Congress to cheer when disrespectful sentiments are shouted out from the gallery.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said: "We've got to all be cognizant of the fact when we use very hot rhetoric, it can be seen as incitement to people whose judgment is not peaceful … and who either verbally or physically threaten people with whom they disagree."

Of the reported acts of vandalism and threats against House Democrats, it is irresponsible for all Republicans to clearly state that it is inappropriate, that racially / bigoted insulting words being used that are so beneath the dignity of this debate and the people they were used against.

Meanwhile dozens of leaders of the Tea Party and other conservative groups instead decided to make half hearted apologies but along with interjected justificational reasons to the violence, threats and the use of "disparaging terms" to refer to politicians.

All should be demanding investigations and prosecutions of anyone accused of violence, or inciting and promoting violence.

In the mean time, I have present some Nazi Propaganda poster throughout this posting and I suggest that the Teabagger should chose a couple for their uses. Nazi / Teabaggers….One In The Same!!

Teabaggers Expose Once Again Of Their Racial / Hateful Based Ideologies

The truth just constantly keeps coming out doesn’t it. The Teabaggers cannot help but expose themselves for what they really are. Bigoted Racists who resorted to racial slurs that were yelled at some black lawmakers and even spitting on some lawmakers by the Teabaggers protesting Health Care Reform as the lawmakers headed for a procedural vote at Capitol Hill Saturday.

Any stable, sane, and self respecting Republican would denounce this Right Wing Extremist Teabagger group. They are nothing more than John Birchers, Neo-Nazis, and Klan members posing as God Fearing Christian Republicans under the guise of protecting American Citizens’ rights. Now good “O’l Uncle Tom” Steel rejected the notion that the racial slurs and spitting incidents may make any association with the Tea Party Movement a danger. To reiterate, Republican Chairman Steel still supports the Teabaggers and keeps them welcome within the Republican Party.

The incident occurred Saturday after thousands of Tea Partiers descended upon Capitol Hill to rally against Sunday's major vote on Health Care Reform.
Some of the protesters targeted a handful of black members of Congress and one gay lawmaker as they walked from the House office buildings to the Capitol to make a procedural vote.

Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga, and Andre Carson, D-Ind., both members of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that a group of protesters hollered at them and called them the N-word.

Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking."
"I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.

Lewis was one of the most pivotal figures of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He spoke alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial during the "I Have a Dream" speech. And Alabama State Police fractured the congressman's skull as he led a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on what became known as "Bloody Sunday" in 1965.

First elected in 1970, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., is one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus. "You don't see any black folks in these groups," said Rangel. "Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever." Rangel suggested that some of the protesters knew Lewis' story and deliberately went after him.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said nothing would surprise him from some of the bands of health care protesters. "I have never heard anyone campaign for their freedom to be uninsured. I've never heard anyone campaign against Medicare," said Scott. "That's what you're dealing with."

But black lawmakers weren't the only targets of the protesters' invective. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., related that some of the demonstrators also castigated Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay. "I don't even want to repeat it," said Crowley when asked what they said to Frank.

I want to conclude this posting by saying that as a self respecting member of the Republican Party, I am totally outraged and ashamed that my once Grand Old Party that I have been an active member of for 35 plus years has sunk to this low of a level. I put all of this blame on the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Glen Beck, Bill O’Rielly, Shawn Hannity, Michael Savage, and the likes of this group in general. The shame and black spot on my Republican Party during this period in time will be looked back as unforgivable.