It all happened at the University of Central Florida where the conservative wing nut Fox broad caster,Glenn Beck was kicking off the first leg of his American Revival Tour.  Fans showed up at the venue and followed the signs telling them where to park.

When 53 of the fans came out after the Beck festivities, the parking signs were gone along with their cars.  It turns out the cars had been towed because they were not supposed to be parked where they were.

Democratic plot? Results of Obama’s Socialist, Fascist, Communist, Nazi policies?  Or is it possible it was just a college prank?  I don’t know, I’ll let you decide.

From mediaite dot com;

They may have begun the night angry at our government, but last Saturday, 53 Glenn Beck fans got a new insidious and possibly corrupt faction to hate: a small towing company in Central Florida! (cue dramatic music)

According to Orlando news channel WFTV9, the possible scam went down at the University of Central Florida where Beck was kicking off the first leg of his American Revival Tour.  The fans involved followed event parking signs and parked in a big lot.  Unfortunately, it turns out the signs were fake and the lot was the private property of a local fraternity.  Next thing you know, Orange County Towing and Recovery is spending eight hours hauling away vehicles.

Read the rest and watch the local news report here.

I don’t know how successful Glenn Beck and his American Revival Tour will be.  I doubt it will do much, really.  But it sure helped the economy of a town in Central Florida by infusing cash into their local tow company.

By BobbiV

Wow, for not believing in the government and all its intrusive policies, these domestic terrorists who wanted to kill police then set off bombs at the funeral to kill even more police, sure change their tune when their asses are on the line for their crimes.

These so called freedom fighters who hate the government and everything it stands for sure pony up fast when the government has something to offer them.  It also appears that some of this militia group were drawing unemployment while playing their soldier games. I wonder if these Christian militia members are smart enough to understand irony.

Personally, I am getting more than a little tired of hearing the complaints of the tea bagger  and wing nut fringe, then hearing about how they take from the government.  Like the blogger who was encouraging the breaking of windows because of health care legislation.  It turns out he supports himself on government disability.

Sarah Palin is another good example of this nitwit conservative logic.  She did her best in her half term as Alaska governor to take every possible perk she could get from the state.  In fact, she even lied about travel on expense reports so some of her spawn could travel with her, stay in the best of hotels and eat at the finest restaurants.  Why not pay or the kids travel and expenses yourself if you are such an anti government rugged individualist?  Why pad the expense account, which amounts to stealing, if you are such a God fearing Christian?

Now, I want to be perfectly clear here, I do not begrudge the accused militia members the use of public defenders.  I also think if they were eligible for unemployment or other government benefits they should receive them.

What makes makes my brain start to hurt is the gripping about the government and then taking everything the government has to offer.  Doing this and failing to understand that you are trying to bite the hand that literally feeds you is just dumb beyond belief.  People this ignorant should not be allowed near anything sharp, and they certainly should not be allowed to play war games with real guns.

My parents taught me to be proud and self sufficient, not to just talk about it.  If you don’t want to support the government then have the courage to leave all the government goodies alone.  That includes disability payments, social security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, student loans and a host of other things.  It also means not driving on roadways the government maintains, enjoying federal parks, calling the police if you are in an accident or calling the fire department if your home is burning and expecting help after a flood, earthquake or hurricane.  You get the picture.

If the right wing nuts and tea baggers want any respect they, along with their militia buddies, will have to really disavow the government.  That means all of it.  Even the public defenders.

From The Associated Press via ABC News;

An undercover federal agent infiltrated a Christian militia group that authorities say plotted to incite violent revolt, and the agent built explosives under the direction of the group’s suspected ringleader, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Arguing for the detention of alleged Hutaree leader David Brian Stone, 44, and six other members, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet said the agent accompanied Stone and others in a van as they tried to attend a Feb. 6 meeting of militias in Kentucky.

They turned back in Indianapolis because of bad weather, but the agent recorded Stone reading a speech, Waterstreet said. In the recording, played in U.S. District Court in Detroit, a speaker identified as Stone says “now it’s time to strike and take our nation back so we will be free of tyranny.”

Prosecutors say the group planned to make a false 911 call, kill responding police officers, then set off a bomb at the funeral to kill many more. An indictment said that after the attacks, the group planned to retreat to “rally points” protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with law enforcement personnel.

Several defense attorneys objected to Waterstreet’s testimony Wednesday. “All they’re saying is my client has an opinion and knows how to use his mouth,” Stone’s lawyer William Swor said before Waterstreet played the tape.

Later on the drive back to Michigan, Waterstreet said the van carrying the militia members passed a car on the side of the road with a Hudson, Mich. police car behind it, and Stone said “We’re going to pop him — guaranteed.”

Read the rest here.

One last thing, to really gain respect and prove you are not hypocrites, you need to call these guys terrorists and enemy combatants.  You also need to send Liz Cheney out to yammer about the public defenders that are handling their cases and screech about reading them their rights.  Maybe you could also claim they should be water boarded because it isn’t torture.

You tea baggers and wing nuts understand that don’t you?……..No, I didn’t think you would.

Liz, we are waiting to hear from you regarding reading of rights and public defenders for terrorists. But, if you don't think that applies in this case you need to explain why.

By BobbiV

Stupid is as stupid does is one of the memorable sayings from the lead character in the great movie Forest Gump.  It seems that Republicans have taken this saying very literally and are trying to top one another for stupid.

The latest example that just blows me away is their attitude toward the census.  Note these census numbers for five heavily Republican districts in Texas.

From the Washington Independent;

King County (92.% for McCain) – 14% return rate, down from 48% in 2000.

Roberts County (92.1% for McCain) – 22% return rate, down from 68% in 2000.

Ochiltree County (91.7% for McCain) – 39% return rate, down from 71% in 2000.

Glasscock County (90.1% for McCain) – 30% return rate, down from 49% in 2000.

Oldham County (88.4% for McCain) – 26% return rate, down from 72% in 2000.

Obviously, with so much time left to complete the Census, lots of populous and Democratic areas are way off of their 2000 rates so far — Harris County, for example, is only at 35%, when in 2000 it had a 68% return rate. But these numbers in conservative areas are worth watching.

Read the rest here.

Yes they are worth watching, especially since so many conservative Republican politicians like Michele Bachman have openly called for a boycott of the census, saying it was a ploy to find all the people the government wanted to put in camps and other plots.

Now we all should know the census is for no such thing and in fact, it is in the Constitution that the census must be taken every ten years.  By counting people the government keeps rack of growth rates in areas of the country so they know how much should be allocated to those areas for schools, roads, libraries, etc.  If a lot of people in your area don’t get counted then you will not be receiving as much assistance from the federal government and dollars will have to be made up at the local level.  The census is also used to determine the number of members of the House a state should have, so you can gain or lose congressional districts due to the count and by extension Electoral College votes.

The thing is, Bachman has started to back off a little since she learned her very gerrymandered district just might disappear altogether if there weren’t enough people there.

So , yeah Texas don’t answer the census.  I’d love to see you lose a few districts due to your stupidity.  If you don’t figure so prominently in the Presidential election because you lose electoral votes, that wouldn’t make me sad.  I might not feel the same if you all didn’t keep talking about seceding from the country.  Actually I care about you guys about as much as you care about the rest of the country.  I’ll return to you the same Christian kindness that you show to others.  You can keep your wing nuts, birthers and deathers all to yourself.  You never need to count them or the tea baggers and the Bush family.

But be careful Texas, because it seems you really don’t ever know what you are going to get from that box of chocolates.

Texans, its fine to remember the Alamo. Its not fine to stay in its century. Try the modern world, you might learn to like it. Oh silly me, what in the world am I thinking?

By BobbiV

Whether you are Republican or Democratic, politics can be a dirty business.  If you are an elected official, your job and your need to keep up appearances can make it really hard to parent your children.  But parent you must and most will choose to teach their children the lessons of life and responsibility for their actions, no matter what it might do to appearances or what the press might have to say.  The children growing into productive and responsible citizens trumps all else in most parents minds, even those of politicians.

However, that is not the case for Sarah Palin and her kids.  It seems in there world its appearances and money first.  The hell with everything else.  Especially when Mama is trying to negotiate a reality show so she can get even richer.  So your kids learn never to take responsibility for their actions, they’ll have money.  So what if they get pregnant as teenagers, they’ll have lots of attention.  So what if they are spoiled brats, we can cover up, bully or lie our way out of anything, you betcha’.

Consider this from the immoral minority;

On December 13, a Wasilla homeowner discovered that the home they had for sale, but were no longer living in, had been broken into and vandalized.

The lock had been forced, five wooden doors had been so badly damaged they needed to be replaced, the walls and floors had been gouged with knives, and vodka and orange juice containers were strewn all over the house. It also appeared that sexual activity had taken place on some of the beds, and a computer, some winter gear, and clothing had all been stolen.

Calculations are that the home suffered between twenty to thirty thousand dollars in damage. Sources say it appeared the teens stayed in the house for several hours, perhaps even overnight.

The Troopers were quickly notified and the investigation began. And at first there were very few leads.

Then in January some information came to light which identified one of the perpetrators. This led to the revelation that the participants were 12 local teens who had used the empty house for a party, a party which had clearly spun badly out of control.

As you have undoubtedly surmised by now one of the teenagers identified was Willow Palin.

As the investigation progressed the children’s parents were notified one by one, including the Palins.

Read the rest here.

It really seems as though Sarah Palin thinks of her family as props in the play of her life.  That means all of them, including the kids.  Its no way to raise them into fully functioning adults.  But in Sarah’s mind the attention should be on her anyway and she will have enough money to buy both herself and them out of any mess.

This woman is in for a very, very rude awakening.  For the younger kids sakes I hope it happens sooner rather than later.

Well hey! this flag pin is bigger than anybody elses so that proves I'm a good mom and a good American.

By BobbiV

I don’t think I have ever left any doubt about my feelings when it comes to Sarah Palin and her tea bagger comrades.  But, just in case there is any doubt in anyones mind…I don’t like them.  In fact, I think they are mostly older, mean spirited white people who draw a government pension and use Medicare while they scream about keeping the government out of their lives.

The group that we call tea baggers counts among its ranks racists, white supremacists,hate mongers of all stripes, militias, gun lovers and just generally crazy people.  They cry for a country that was supposedly taken from them.  The country they cry for never existed.  Its a ephemeral mixture of The Andy Griffith Show and Father Knows Best.  Those were television shows and they were funny at times.  They produced  a lot of Awwwww moments, but they were no more real than Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.  If tea baggers really think that was the way America was then they are deluded.  Just like their half term governor idol Sarah Palin.

Speaking of Palin, there is an interesting take on this woman in Pravda.  I would expect this newspaper to be hard on the half term former Alaska governor.  However, they went even further than I would in talking about her.  Not that I haven’t thought these things, I just have never come out and said them.

As an instance here’s a little bit from Pravda; (brace yourself)

What is wrong with the Republican Party of the United States of America? After eight long years of the Bush regime insulting every fibre of the Founding Fathers’ precepts, the Grand Old Party is now reduced to one screaming and intellectually challenged female called Sarah Palin.

Sarah Hockey Mom Palin, Sarah Tea Party Palin, Sarah OMG I don’t have a clue what I am talking about Palin is Middle America’s answer to President Obama. Barack Obama is intelligent, articulate, focused, and worldly-wise. Sarah Palin is…er….
….Snip….

One insolent, ignorant backstreet guttersnipe with as much intelligence in her brain as a squashed syphilitic slug. A sawdust-headed simpleton who cannot even manage her own family, the failed ex-Governor of Alaska now drums up support for John PharmaLobby McCain. So when this….female…opines that Obama’s healthcare plan is evil, when it brings affordable healthcare to 30 million Americans, one begins to question, who is behind the death threats to those who backed the plan?

And as for the GOP, they can spend trillions of dollars on getting Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan but they cannot spare a few hundred thousand to keep Americans alive at home?

Read the rest here.

Well, how about that?  Looks like Mrs. Palin isn’t any too respected by that pesky Russian press.    The really sad thing is they are right about her.  Now if we could just remove the scales from the eyes of her followers.

One can hope.

By BobbiV

The Chilcot Inquiry has been going on for quite some time now in the UK.  It is an inquiry into the Iraq War and the lead up to it.  They are attempting to sort the truth from the lies about why Britain went to war and why Tony Blair seemed to followed George W. Bush blindly.

Many things have come out that are not flattering to either countries leaders.  Among those things are very questionable intelligence that was operated on without hesitation and blind religious fervor on the part of both Blair and Bush.  At the very least it seems both men had some inkling that what they were doing was not right but it was overridden by a surety of their place in history and ambitions to be as great as Churchill and FDR when that history is written.

Now we have a new twist in the inquiry.  Sometimes politics can take strange turns and this appears to be one of those times.

The Chilcot Inquiry wants testimony from the top officials of the Bush-Cheney administration, maybe even including from Bush himself.

From the Telegraph in the UK;

Sources in Washington said the inquiry sent out emails “about three weeks ago” to senior officials in Mr Bush’s government including, it is believed, the former president himself.

Other requests are understood to have been made to Dick Cheney, Mr Bush’s vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, and Stephen Hadley, an ex-national security adviser – as well as to their deputies and senior assistants.

Members of Sir John Chilcot’s panel are believed to be willing to travel to the US to take evidence – almost certainly in private – on the administration’s policies between the 2003 invasion of Iraq and 2009.

While the most senior figures are reluctant to give evidence, Washington sources claim about 10 former officials, most involved in the post-invasion period, have agreed to do so.

The surprise development adds to the chances of Sir John’s inquiry producing a “smoking gun” on the key questions of whether Britain and the US adequately prepared for the conflict and whether it was justified under international law.

Interviews with US officials – even held in secret – could play a major part in Sir John’s final report, expected by the end of this year.

Read the rest here.

I won’t presume to know how anyone else feels about this.  Simply put, because I believe that many in the Bush-Cheney Administration should at least be investigated concerning war crimes and be held accountable, I think this is a wonderful development.

It seems that President Obama and his Justice Department are loathe to look into this.  They say they wish to look forward and not back.  Maybe the Brits can shame us into doing something about the Bush gang and their crimes against humanity.

Only time will tell.

By BobbiV

Today President Obama, the Democratic Party and the rest of the country have to put up with a fringe group called the teabaggers.  But is this another case of history repeating itself?

There have always been fringe elements on both the right and the left.  However, during the 1930′s under the administration of Franklin Roosevelt we had a group that certainly resembles the teabaggers of today and they practiced a lot of the same tactics of  intimidation  and propaganda.  Glenn Beck even refers to their leader in his rantings on Fox News.

This group that is so teabagger like was called the German American Bund.  They were the American Nazi Party.  Just thinking of the similarities between the GAB and the teabaggers makes for a great deal of cognative dissonance when you see the posters carried by teabaggers that bear the likeness of Obama as Hitler and compare him to a Nazi.  It is really rather comical because these knuckle draggers probably never heard of GAB and would be outraged to know how much they resemble that group.

Some background on GAB from Wikipedia;

Arguably, the zenith of the Bund’s history occurred on President’s Day, February 19, 1939 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Some 20,000 people attended and heard Kuhn criticize President Franklin D. Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as “Frank D. Rosenfeld”, calling his New Deal the “Jew Deal”, and stating his belief of Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. Most shocking to American sensibilities was the outbreak of violence between protesters and Bund storm troopers.

The Bund was one of several German-American heritage groups; however, it was one of the few to express National Socialist ideals. As a result, many considered the group anti-American. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist Dorothy Thompson, fifty leading German-Americans including Babe Ruth signed a “Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry” condemning Nazism, which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers. In 1939, a New York tax investigation determined Kuhn had embezzled money from the Bund. The Bund operated on the theory that the leader’s powers were absolute, and therefore did not seek prosecution. However, in an attempt to cripple the Bund, the New York district attorney prosecuted Kuhn. New Bund leaders would replace Kuhn, most notably with Gerhard Kunze, but these were only brief stints. Martin Dies and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) were very active in denying any Nazi-sympathetic organization the ability to freely operate during World War II.

Read more on Wikipedia here.

Perhaps what makes me most put these two groups in the same category is their intolerance and lack of critical thinking.  Here is an example of what I am referring to from longwood k12;

Karl: Gus you know what Hitler is doing in Germany is a good thing.

Gus: I don’t understand, please explain?

Karl:  It’s the Jews. They ran all the banks, controlled all the money, what with Rothchild and the others like him.  They ran all the businesses.  Hitler changed all that and put the Germans in charge.

Gus:  You think this is good?

Karl: Yes, and the same thing is happening in this country.  The Jews control the banks and most of the businesses and are telling those in Washington how to run the country. Roosevelt is one of them.  His name is not Roosevelt, it is Rosenfeld.

Gus:  You have a great dislike for the Jews don’t you?

Karl:  And you know why?  They are Semites which means half white.

Gus:  Karl, are you a Christian?

Karl: Yes.

Gus: Are you a good  Lutheran?

Karl: Yes.

Gus: Do you believe in Jesus Christ?

Karl: Yes, of course.

Gus: Do you know Christ was a Jew?

The conversation ended abruptly, Karl never spoke to me again.

Read the rest here.

Really, can’t you see a modern teabagger having this conversation?  I realize you will have to change some of the people and groups they reference.  But the intolerance and hypocrisy come through loud and clear.

Please compare the pictures below from 1939 to today and you might get the same feeling of deja vu I have.  It is particularly interesting to note how the Nazis used the same appeal to the trappings of patriotism. Note the huge image of George Washington in the rally in the Madison Square Garden photo. Also note the ‘appeal to Americanism’ in the poster and the large number of American Flags prominently on display in the parade.  The rally also has a prominent display of various flags from our country’s history.

Its like the song says everything old is new again

Rally at Madison Square Garden 1939.

Rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939.

Parade in New York City on East 86th St. Oct. 30, 1939.

Poster of a German-American Bund Rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939

By BobbiV

The cowardly Fox newscaster Sean Hannity teamed up with Oliver North of Iran Contra fame to be respectively, the spokesman for and the honorary chairman of a charity. Ostensibly this charity, called Freedom Alliance, is to aid wounded veterans and to help in sending the children of vets killed in action to college.  Freedom Alliance has raised quite a bit of money.  But a very, very small percentage of the dollars raised has gone to vets or their kids while the bulk of the funds appear to have been spent on ferrying around Hannity, his entourage and family.  Money has also gone to keep them in high style.

So does this mean that Sean Hannity and his cohort Oliver North don’t really support our troops and aren’t really all that patriotic?  The answer would seem to be….yes.

From Veterans Today dot com;

I began investigating these claims, and lo and behold, I discovered that Freedom Alliance gives very little money to the children of slain troops to pay for college and even less to wounded troops.  The stories of injuries to troops and how much Freedom Alliance gives them–$200 for a soldier from a poor neighborhood who lost three limbs–is heartbreaking.  Soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, severe wounds to the face from disfiguring burns and explosions, and multiple amputations got $1,000 or less, with only a handful of exceptions.

The tax forms available to the public for the Freedom Alliance–for the years 2006-2008–paint a tragic story, a story of a charity that makes gazillions and spends very little for the purposes it claims, a charity that spends millions more on its small staff and crony consultants than it ever gives in scholarships to the children of the fallen or severely injured troops or in aid to the injured troops themselves.  While Hannity’s Freedom Concerts take in millions, only a few hundred thousand go to the claimed intended recipients.

Over a year ago, when I began looking into this story, I contacted both Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance seeking comment and an accounting for where the money went.  Both declined to answer any of my questions.  Hannity refused to respond to an inquiry I sent to his personal private e-mail address asking him about the lavish expenses described in the e-mail above.

Freedom Alliance press secretary Alan Moore scheduled an interview for me with Freedom Alliance president Thomas Kilgannon, who in the past used Freedom Alliance resources to promote a book he wrote on the United Nations.  But when Moore asked me what the interview would be about and I answered truthfully, the interview was not granted, and my calls to him were never returned thereafter.  I told him I’d be asking Mr. Kilgannon about the expenses paid for Hannity and about the paltry percentage of Freedom Alliance funds actually going to the kids of fallen troops, to severely injured troops, and to anything other than expenses, consultants, and printing.  I wanted to know why Freedom Alliance had spent $60,000 for “aviation services” in 2006.

Read the rest here.

After reading the article, I must say I am not really surprised by this.  However, that does not mean it doesn’t make me angry.  I have always believed support for our people in the military by chicken hawks like those at Fox was all talk.  Speaking as a citizen whose family has served in every war this country has fought all the way back to the Revolutionary War against Britain, I know that it takes more than talk to support our troops.  I also know that anyone who would make money for their own gain off their pain and suffering is the lowest form of human scum.

Mr. Hannity, you support torture and say waterboarding is not a form of it.  You went so far as to say you yourself would be waterboarded.  Then you chickened out.  It is my understanding you never served in the military.  This all leads me to believe you are as they say, all hat and no cattle. You are an empty suit who pontificates about patriotism while ripping off the most patriotic of our citizens.

More information is coming out about this rip off and this is not the last you will hear about it.

From True Slant dot com;

Since first posting my initial story on this breaking scandal two days ago, more information has come to light on the subject while much still remains to be discovered.

It turns out that this is not the first time Freedom Alliance – the military charity whose honorary chairman is Oliver North and whose celebrity cheerleader/promoter is Sean Hannity – has been called out as a suspect organization.

In a piece published in The Washington Post on December 13, 2007, Philip Rucker reports on a study released by the American Institute of Philanthropy, calling into question the business and donation practices of certain charities claiming to benefit veterans and troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 12 charities rated as failing by the institute — including the Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation, the AMVETS National Service Foundation and the Freedom Alliance — collected at least $266 million in the past fiscal year.

Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, which rated Freedom Alliance an ‘F’ on the A-F scale, went on to comment,

They know how to work the system, and they seem pretty good at not going over the line, although it is pretty outrageous that so little money is actually winding up benefiting charities.
Via Washington Post

Read the rest here.

As I am sure everyone who cares to really take a look can see, these people do not deserve any contributions and are making money off the backs of wounded vets and the children of these brave soldiers.  They need to be exposed and driven out of charity work and maybe out of the country.  We would be a better society without them.  Hey, maybe they can take the other wing nuts, birthers and the tea baggers with them.  They certainly all deserve one another.

Sean Hannity from Wikipedia

Oliver North Mug Shot