So as I sit here waiting for my pie crust to chill so it can be rolled out, and prepare to stick my extremist pumpkin pie and extremist turkey breast in the oven, along with all the other fixings that I'm preparing for dinner today, I thought I'd muse a bit on what we should hope for out of our CHRISTmas this year.

Hope, of course, is one of the three things that all organized religion attempts to teach.  The other two are faith and love.  But do we really find them in organized religion - of any stripe? 

There have been many times over my life that I've doubted the existence of God.  But never more than in the last few years, as the trappings of what our nation began with, The Constitution, drawn by a few dozen wise men, guided by provenance, has been systematically shredded into confetti and used for toilet paper.

To be sure this is not exactly a new thing.  Our tripartite system of checks and balances was utterly trashed in days gone by, with two of the most-egregious examples being FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court and the introduction and passage of the 17th Amendment, which instantly and permanently eviscerated the 10th Amendment - part of the grand bargain by the colonies for the adoption of The Constitution in the first place.

Indeed, if one looks back through the outrages of Federal Government expansion, you'll find they pretty much began with the 17th Amendment, and the reason is clear: Its passage removed the ability of The States to block federal legislation.

Yet that fundamental construct - a modest and weak federal government and a comparatively strong set of state governments, is exactly what all those in our nation signed up for roughly 235 years ago.  The Constitution is in fact a contract - but like all contracts, it is only as good as the willingness of the parties to enforce it.

Liberals of all stripes talk incessantly about "The living Constitution."  That, of course, is a crock.  The Constitution is a set of black letters arranged on a very-dead tree.  Yet it is not inflexible - the means to amend it to suit the needs of the day is embedded within.  For better or worse that path was allowed, and in some cases, such as the 17th Amendment, I argue we so amended it foolishly, in the heat of political "wedge issue" arguments that in fact date back to the founding of politics itself.  Yet when a liberal wants something he can't have under The Constitution he typically ignores the constraint - such as those who argue that the black letter language of The Second Amendment means that only "The National Guard" has the right to bear arms never mind that The Constitution was drawn when "The National Guard" was comprised of every able-bodied man, keeping and bearing his own arms suitable for military purpose (which most-certainly include rifles and handguns), whether organized into military units or keeping their own homes and land safe from potential - and actual - marauders.  Such a force comprised of all citizens willing to bear their own arms in what we now call The United States in fact dates back more than 370 years, to the 1630s!  In 1903 the "organized" role of the National Guard was subsumed into the Army Reserve force, where it remains.  But the original militia envisioned by the founders did not (of course) disappear - it remains in the form of every citizen willing and able to bear arms in defense of the nation, of the state, and of him or herself.  It's just inconvenient to acknowledge that fact when you've got a particular agenda you want to pursue - like Statist or even Marxist control of the people.  How soon we forget that one of Hitler's first acts was to disarm the population, and that this almost-certainly made possible mass-murder of Jews and dissidents.  In short, The Left keeps some damn strange bedfellows.

Conservatives of all stripes talk incessantly about "The Rule of Law."  That too is a crock, considering that The Rule of Law most-certainly includes all of The Bill of Rights - not just the parts congruent with what they want to do if and when convenient.  The Constitution provides, among other things, that in all matters of controversy that exceed $25 in value, and for all criminal offenses no matter how petty, you have a right to trial by jury.  Try to assert that right for a traffic offense carrying a $200 fine and see how quickly you're ruled against.  The 4th Amendment prohibits searches and seizures without a warrant specifying probable cause and the specific item(s) to be searched for and seized under that probable cause, yet I don't recall the last time I saw an alleged Conservative actually demand that all of the illegal searches and seizures that take place every day in this country cease.  The Constitution also provides for explicit equal protection under the law, yet we have a multitude of Statutes that explicitly violate same, not to mention blatant refusal to prosecute black-letter crimes - even admitted crimes - when the criminal is some powerful institution like a bank.  The Right keeps some damn strange bedfellows too, when one considers the admitted and alleged crimes involved - organized tax fraud, breaking and entering, burglary, theft, money laundering in support of drug running and terrorism - to name just a few.

We have Statutes that are wantonly and willfully violated without recourse every single day.  One such example is The Federal Reserve Act which explicitly mandates price stability.  Those two words are clear and bear no interpretation or argument.  Yet Ben Bernanke and those who have come before him have continued to hold the office while asserting that "2% inflation annualized" meets the mandate.  Really?  In 1776 an 8th grade education was sufficient for anyone to know that over a mere 50 years such a mandate would result in the devaluation of saved capital by 63%, and over 100 years, almost the duration of The Federal Reserve to date, it would result in an 86% devaluation.  Never mind that the actual rate has been closer to 3%, resulting in a devaluation of about 95% over that time. Such is the nature of compound functions.  How this sort of thing comports with the word "stable" is beyond anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size. 

That we, the people, have and do permit this is proof positive that our shoe size exceeds our intellect.

Then we have so-called "Security Apparatus" such as the TSA.  A pilot was recently "disciplined" for disclosing via videos what I've talked about repeatedly since 2001 - The TSA provides no security of meaning at all.  Proof of this is found in the fact that airport employees simply go through a card-reader door to get to "sterile" areas of the airport and are not searched on the way in - or the way out.  This, of course, leaves a wide-open path for someone to either impersonate a worker (trivial if all you need to do is duplicate or steal his access card) - or bribe him or her.

A baggage screener was arrested in 2008 for stealing more than $200,000 worth of electronics from the pass-through X-ray belt that your carry-ons go through.  She was caught when she allegedly stole a camera belonging to CNN, which they found listed on eBAY for resale.  Oops.  Nor was this the only incident of this type - as of 2008, 465 "officers" have been fired for theft.   Left unsaid, of course, is that if I can steal something from your bag I can put something in it too, and that "something" might be a bomb.

Then there's the fact that just a few days ago a man accidentally carried on a handgun - it went right through the security check at the airport X-ray machine.  It wasn't a little gun either - it was a .40 pistol!  Experts tell us that the "fail" rate to catch weapons carried on approaches and in some cases exceeds 70%.  Are these people sleeping at the monitor?  Again, if that's the "accidental" failure rate how hard is it to bribe one of the men or women watching that X-ray machine at an "appropriate" time if you have nefarious intent? 

We're told that we should "submit" to full-body X-rays which will do nothing about this problem, since a carry-on bag isn't, of course, on your person.  And we continue to accept that the "underwear nut-burner" would have been "caught" with such screening even when 70% of the time guns, which are a hell of a lot easier to spot than a splotch of explosives splayed around one's genitals, are missed by people using the same technology at much higher power levels and resolution with your carry-on bags and despite the fact that the crotch-bomber was walked around security and check-in formalities by someone - therefore, scanner or not, competent operator or not, he would not have been caught by it!

The truth is this: While there are plenty of terrorists nearly all of them are cowards.  Oh sure, they'll try to send a bomb in a toner cartridge from Yemen (exactly how many toner cartridges are manufactured in Yemen, may I ask?) while they sit on the ground chortling at their grand attempt to blow a plane up.  There are terrorists who will pack a van full of what they think are explosives and park it near a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, intending to kill dozens if not hundreds of people, including children, by remote control using a cell phone while safely beyond the expected blast radius.

There are damn few terrorists, and most of them seem to have an IQ well below room-temperature, who are willing to die in the commission of their intended act.  This appears to be a matter of innate wiring of the human brain, and is a good thing.

But in our mass-hysteria we allow "Big Sis" to tell us that a risk that is 100 times less likely to result in our injury or death than the simple drive to the airport to catch our flight suddenly requires that we forget that the 4th Amendment to The Constitution exists.  Never mind that nearly all of the arrests and prosecutions that the TSA manages to actually commence (despite their bungling success ratio) have nothing whatsoever to do with airline security - the arrestees are, by and large, busted for things such as drugs. 

Isn't it funny how the "Security Theater" game, complete with entirely-inept employees that can't detect a gun 70% of the time in a carry-on bag, thereby rendering them in my opinion unfit to ask "would you like fries with that", manages to get us to give up one of our fundamental rights by waving around a risk that is documented to be 100 times less likely to kill you than the drive to the airport?

Who's the dummy when our collective IQ is so low that we fail to detect and refuse to accede to this obvious and intentional lie?

So as we celebrate CHRISTmas this year, let us pray that should God actually be out there that we not receive material gifts under our tree, or even the love of our fellow man.

No, let us pray that the New Year brings a sense of outrage.  A demand for justice.  A bent to prosecute, not loot.  A demand that each and every of our Constitutional Rights be respected and that those who try to abrogate them be ejected from public service and jailed.  That we become a people unwilling to sit still and twiddle our thumbs (or other bodily parts) while the roughly 6% of our population that is psychotic and malevolent strips the productive people and assets of this nation to the bone, then throws what's left into our own funeral pyre and uses what's left of The Constitution to ignite it.

We have the ability to demand that these acts stop and that those who committed them in the past, throwing people from their homes, blowing serial asset bubbles through lies and obfuscations, stealing through misrepresentation and fraud or making promises that were known to be fundamentally unsound and impossible to keep be identified in public, indicted, prosecuted and imprisoned.

We, the people, can take this nation back.

It is within our power.

We only need the will, and the Grace of God, to do so.

A reprise from my personal blog in 2006, before The Ticker began publication...

Ok folks, in commemoration of Thanksgiving, while I sit here trying to figure out how eating a plate full of turkey has suddenly made me feel like I gained 10lbs (it couldn't have been the stuffing, fixings and cookies, could it?) I thought I'd put this out there to dispel some of the myths surrounding this holiday.

As we are told, the first settlers to this country (from Europe, natch) faced a horrible first winter, lost many of their people, and the native Americans (aka "Indians") that were here helped them the following year and thus they were able to survive and ultimately prosper. They gave thanks for their harvest and invited their Indian friends to dinner.

Well, ok, that's part of the story.

Now let's talk about the rest.

The colonists did not have money, of course. Merchants in London paid for their journey, but this put each of the colonists heavily into debt - a debt which they intended to pay off through their fruits in the New World and, they hoped, through the discovery of gold.

There was no gold (well, not on the east coast anyway.) Before the colonists arrived in Cape Cod they penned the Mayflower Compact, which you can find at The Mayflower Compact

You might recognize some of the language in that document - it is strikingly similar to the writings of Carl Marx many years later!

In part, it read: "....And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

The first winter was disasterous - nearly half of the Pilgrims died of starvation, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Many claim that Bradford's first wife perished that first winter, but that is not quite true - she actually fell off the Mayflower quite close to land and drowned, never making it to Plymouth (he later remarried.)

During the first two years the colony lived under what could only be called Communism, enshrined in the Mayflower Compact. Each person was accorded a "share" of the totality of what was produced at the colony, and each person was expected to do their part in working toward the common good. The land, and that upon it, was owned by the colony as a collective.

It not only did not work out, it nearly killed them all.

William Bradford wrote in his diary "For in this instance, community of property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit and comfort. For the young men who were most able and fit for service objected to being forced to spend their time and strength in working for other mens wives and children, without any recompense. The strong man or the resourceful man had no more share of food, clothes, etc., than the weak man who was not able to do a quarter the other could. This was thought injustice.

After the second winter, realizing that the colony had survived only through the friendship and largesse of the native Americans, and would soon perish if changes were not made, Bradford tore up the Mayflower Compact. He instead assigned each family a plot of land to be their property, to be worked as the family saw fit, and with the fruits of that land to be their own. It was the beginning of private property rights in the New World.

The result? Again, from his diary: "It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could devise, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better satisfaction.

From the very day that Bradford tore up the Mayflower Compact, Plymouth began to prosper. Within a year the colonists found themselves with more food than they could eat. Flush with a bountiful harvest far in excess of their need for food and having bartered for all the goods they needed to get through the winter, they had a feast of thanks with their Indian trading partners.

Within a couple of years the colonists paid off their debt to the London Merchants and became, in fact, free men.

The story - and reason - for their success is not told in our government schools, for were every American child to be made aware of precisely why we have this nation today, and to understand just how close this country came to extinction 150 years before the Revolution, they would grow up understanding exactly how dangerous liberal and socialist thought - and the punishment of industry and capital through punitive tax policies - truly is.

Today, we live in a society that is increasingly suspect of private property rights. We no longer own our property, we effectively lease it through ad-valorem property taxes. Our right to keep to ourselves or consume as we see fit the fruits of our labor is increasingly taxed away and given to others, who do not work for their rewards at all. Nearly half of all in the United States today can in fact "vote for a living", in that they pay no federal income taxes at all, and a good percentage are actually paid to exist through the Earned Income Credit.

When Plymouth Colony was founded, the population was small and the effects of such foolishness immediately apparent. When you only have 150 people, half of them dying is by no stretch catastrophic, and immediately obvious.

This evening as we eat our feasts, let us not forget what Thanksgiving is truly for giving thanks for. It is not that the Indians saved the colonists from certain starvation.

No, it is that one man - William Bradford - saw the wisdom of private property and free enterprise, and the folly of socialist society, and through his wisdom - far before the Founding Fathers - he took action to save his people and lay the groundwork for what would become America.

As we loll around the house this evening, plump with our turkey feast, let us hold in our hearts that much of what we have in this nation does not comport with this very basic, fundamental principle. Our Constitution, written by men far wiser than us, has been twisted, contorted and tortured to permit all manner of socialism and communist action in the guise of "the greater good", whether it be Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, government schools or prescription drug cards - and that it is our duty, as citizens of this great land, to do that which is necessary - and possible - to turn away from that which has, in the course of human events, been proven never to succeed.

Finally, make sure you tell your children the truth about Thanksgiving, for they are the future, and without the truth about the past, cannot be expected to make good decisions as they grow up in the world.

The following was said on my forum today:

But if you want to keep the party in power that passed health care - is continuing to spend like a drunken sailor - just do what you are doing. Way to go - whatever.

This is called in psychological terms transference - and it's a bogus debating technique. In a formal debate class such a line of argument will get you "called out on points" - you'll lose, basically.

But in the court of public opinion and 30-second soundbites on TV, this is what we hear. 

From both sides.

Let me tell you how I see it.

In 2007 and 2008 (and who was President then?) I was all over this issue.  I wrote letters to our President, I wrote letters to John McCain, and I paid to attend a McCain campaign event - over $2,000 of my own hard-earned money - in Washington DC.  Why?  To press flesh with Governors Ridge and Keating, and hand them a DVD with a short video and outline of exactly what had happened.

What happened?

Nothing, of course.  I'm a tiny fish in a damn big ocean.  But if you want proof, go to that link right up there and browse through the Archives.  Pay particular attention to 2008 and both who and what I was criticizing.

But it was John McCain that turned TARP into a campaign event, and guaranteed its passage by doing so.  And let us not forget who his running mate was at the time:

Sarah Palin.

That was a douchebag act on John McCain's and Sarah Palin's part.  A calculated political act that threw us all under the bus for the benefit of a handful of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street.

Yes, I know, they claim "we were going to have another Depression and we avoided it."  Oh really?  We avoided it eh?  We're spending 12% of GDP on the federal credit card to avoid admitting it, but we in fact avoided exactly nothing in terms of economic outcome - we have 20 million Americans out of work and 40 million+ on food stamps. 

But for government "handouts" there would be tent cities in every major population center in this nation right now, and there has been zero progress on reducing that dependency over the last three years. 

ZERO.

Never mind that those who make such claims are asking you to prove a negative - which is almost always impossible.  That is, you can't falsify their claims - which is damn convenient for them.

Then don't complain anymore - because you were part of the change that wasn't, isn't and will never be - because you deluded yourself into thinking you are the originator of something you weren't. Sending in tea bags is a totally different thing than people twittering, organizing into groups ( many different groups ) and the first one to utter tea parties probably did it as an insult, and the label stuck.

Bah.  You've done nothing except support and promote those who pulled a train on your ass with an entire corral of wild Arabian Stallions. 

Now you claim I'm getting screwed with health care?  Well, yes - I'm getting assfucked by the jackasses in power right now.  But guess what - I don't even feel it, because that particular assault is small compared to the one that was served on me before.  Hell, in my charitable moments I might even call the undulation that I'm taking exercise at this point; the stick in my teeth has long since ceased to be necessary.  I'd sure like the assault to stop, but those on the Right asking me to support "their way" aren't giving me anything that makes me believe it will if I vote for them this time around - and I hear those Arabians neighing again!  You want me to vote for that?

Now it's true that The Democrats haven't done a damn thing about cleaning this up either, and our Dear President has fellated Lloyd Blankfein and friends just as much and as often as did George W. Bush. 

Indeed, he's raping every person who got sold a bubble house via some hinky OptionARM or Subprime mortgage deal just as much as Bush did, and I have been tireless in my commentary on that point.

But telling me that I'm voting to "fix things" if I go to the polls and vote Republican in a couple of weeks is a flat lie.  I will get no such thing, as the standard-bearer for the Right-Side Party, Tea or otherwise, at this point is Sarah Palin who I remind you suspended HER campaign along with McCain's to blow Lloyd Blankfein and company in 2008.

There are those who say I am endorsing the Left with this.  Nope.  I most-certainly am not.  President Obama and the Democrats had the opportunity to earn that endorsement.  Indeed, they've had two full years with no opposition - a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and command of the House.

They could have repudiated the Standard-Bearers for the Right on the theft, fraud, financial rape and screwing issues - that is, put back in place Glass-Steagall, break up all the big banks, close Fannie and Freddie, repealed the Bankruptcy Reform law (and put in place a special, one-time option so citizens could toss off their excess indebtedness on the people who recklessly lent without concern over repayment) and more.  They could have declared fraud and theft in all it's forms a prison sentence instead of a wink and a smile, sent Bill Black into all the banks and issued thousands of indictments, starting with those at the top who have mercilessly screwed every American not once but twice in the last decade.

Instead they shoved mark-to-fantasy down the throat of FASB, put one of the chief architects of the rape in charge of Treasury - a guy who is an admitted tax cheat himself - and have continued the policies of the Bush administration in exact goose-step when it comes to deficit spending and debt idiocy.

Then, to add whipped cream to the sundae, they just allowed a bank to withdraw 102,000 affidavits used to evict people from their homes that the institution admitted were not actually verified and attested as they claimed - that is, 102,000 counts of alleged perjury and injury to citizens in this nation - without a single finger being lifted to tender over an indictment.

The cherry was the statement from that very same Administration that the servicers would fix the problems with foreclosures whenever they feel like it.

Due process of law?  What's that?  I guess after 20 years of using The Constitution to wipe one's ass, yet another brown stain right across the 5th Amendment doesn't really matter very much.

It doesn't stop there, of course.  Today we find out that students are graduating from college with record amounts of debt.  Who hasn't acted on that - to stomp on the banks and colleges that are raping students and their families?  That would be The Left, which could have, with a wave of a hand, stopped all of it by withdrawing the "special" non-dischargable nature of student loans.  Poof!  Out goes the money, down comes the cost.  But the banksters wouldn't have that, would they?  No, and neither would Obama and the Left - say much less the Right.

There are those on both sides of the aisle who don't like my rather-direct language.  I'm sure I'll get more complaints after this column.  That's nothing new.  I'm both not running for office now and have no plans to do so in the future, never mind that I have a 20+ year record of saying exactly what I think on The Internet and elsewhere.

If you want me to stop using such metaphors for what government and Wall Street are doing to the people then stop treating the American people in such a fashion that they're the most-appropriate analogue that describes the insults!

This crisis happened due to millions of fraudulent mortgages.  The lending industry extorted FASB and Congress.  The Fed and Hank Paulson extorted Congress.

Where are the indictments - and the calls for them - from either party?

Missing, that's where.

If any political party wants my endorsement, say much less my vote, they're going to have to fix that.

Until then?

Ballot

When you just can't vote for the lesser of two evils any more.

Yes, I mean it.

Here's a "reprint" of my interview with Dylan Ratigan last night:

I, and FedUpUSA, ought to sue anyone using this moniker for their so-called "political affiliation" for defamation.

Yeah, that's a joke.

But so are you.

All of you.

Especially Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, and douchebag groups such as the "Tea Party Patriots."

Let's look at their mission statement:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets

Really?  That sounds pretty good.  But did you read "Free Markets"?

Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government's interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.

Oh, oppose government intervention eh?  You mean, you oppose stringing up the people who break the law and steal people's homes and wealth?  Private business is only private up until it rips someone off.

Notice what's missing from this mission statement and principles: Any mention of why I and others led people to mail tea bags to Congress and our President in the first place: rampant theft of over taxpayer money propping up FAILED private businesses.

Then look at what's over at TeaParty.Org: you'll find the usual pablum.  Guns, gays, God.

Heh, I like talking about Guns, Gays and God too.  Let's talk about all of them within the context of The Constitution, which is what the Tea Party was supposed to be about.  In short:

• Guns.  What part of "shall not be infringed" didn't you bother to read?  That one's simple.  And yes, this means that under The Bill of Rights there should be no Brady Law nor any bar on a convicted felon who has served his time buying or owning a weapon!  I know what the current law says and I understand the reasoning behind it.  But you can't square it with the clear language in the Second Amendment.  Our entire system of criminal justice rests on the premise that if you are convicted of a crime and serve the time for it, your debt to society is paid.  If said convicted criminal is still dangerous to society (and thus shouldn't have a right to self-defense) why are we letting him out so he can victimize other people?  Sentences should reflect this; you should not be released until you are no longer a danger to society - period.   Prison is often debated as to whether it's about rehabilitation or punishment - I argue it is neither, it is and should be about removing those who harm others from society until they are no longer a threat to others.
  
  
• Gays. What part of "what you do in your bedroom is none of my damn business" didn't you bother with?  You can find that in the 4th Amendment as well as elsewhere.  In terms of public space what is your private sexual preference and life doing in the public space in the first place?  200 years ago we called such people perverts and stuck them in the stocks.  You want to address this problem?  It's simple: That's a gay (or straight) person's private life and its none of anyone else's damn business what two or more consenting adults do behind a closed door on private property.
  
  
• God.  What part of the Establishment Clause didn't you bother to read?  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"  You want prayer in the schools?  Not unless I can lead a prayer to Allah should I so choose; it is not Constitutional to favor one religion over another.  Therefore, you either keep it all out or you keep none of it out, and my preference is to keep all of it out, although I'll settle for none - either position is Constitutional.  No other position is, and that's the beginning and end of it.  The same applies to any other publicly-run and funded space.  What people do on their own private property with regard to how they worship is none of your damn business. 

Now that we've dispensed with Guns, Gays and God in the context of what one of the founders of the Tea Party Movement believes, I'll deal with the rest.

The Tea Party was initiated as a political protest against the unlawful and in fact unconstitutional usurpation of power from the Congress and The People in the form of extortion-led bailouts of enterprises that had engaged in acts that I, and many others, believe were at least civilly actionable and in many cases crossed the line into criminal activity.

This indictment is not limited to the nation's large banks, although it certainly starts there.  The corruption of our economic and monetary systems runs the gamut from Fannie and Freddie through their ties to Congress (including literal sexual encounters in some cases), banking interests selling trash securities to everyone from pension funds on down, judges who don't judge but rather protect monied interests on Wall Street, The Federal Reserve intentionally debasing our currency and monetizing government debt, government spending that is running 40% above revenues and much more.

In short, The Tea Party was and is about the the corruption of American Politics and the blatant and outrageous theft from all Americans that has resulted.  It is about personal responsibility and enforcement of the law against those who have robbed, financially raped and pillaged the nation.

Yet today we hear literally nothing about these issues among the so-called "Tea Party" candidates and their backers.  Sarah Palin has not said one word about locking up the banksters that brought up on the housing bubble and economic collapse.  Not one word about Bernanke's out-of-control Fed and the arguably unlawful monetization of Fannie and Freddie paper, not to mention the monetization of the Federal Debt.  Not one word about throwing judges such as this one:

in the dock - although that, ladies and gentlemen, is a statement of felony judicial corruption.  If you as an investor run into trouble with a commodity or futures trade and sue you will not get your day in court - a literal "green light" to rob the people by the big banks with official judicial sanction.  And you wonder how Hillary Clinton managed to "win" in her Cattle Futures trades eh?  Wonder no more.

Tea Party my ass.  This was nothing other than The Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with The Republican Party's own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the fucking money!

You want me to support The Tea Party as it is currently constituted? 

Do all of the above, do it now, and apologize for attempting to perpetuate the financial rape of this nation.

Publicize the following as your LEAD:

STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING

And finally, one more:

ALL FIVE OF THE LARGEST BANKS ARE RESOLVED AS OUR FIRST ACT IN CONGRESS. 

They caused it, they pay for it.  Period.

Until and unless you do?

You're not going to want to hear this.

Nonetheless, you have to.

If you want to win - indeed, if you want to make any sort of serious inroad into the American Political Process, you need to read this, you need to listen, and you need to adopt this path.

If you do not, you will be marginalized into irrelevance, no matter what else you do.

Here it is:

You must discard - intentionally - all "wedge issues" as points of debate, discussion, or campaigning.  You know what these issues are - they fall broadly into the category of religion in one form or another.

These are issues such as abortion and gay rights (in all it's forms, including marriage debates), but is by no means limited to these two.  In short, if there's a religious basis for your position, you must not campaign on it, and indeed you must pointedly refuse to discuss it.

The Tea Party began as a protest over bailouts and handouts - that is, theft and corruption within our markets, government and economy.  This is a winning position with 90% of the American Body Politic. 

Any candidate who runs on these issues - and these issues alone, promising to stop it and lock up the scammers - all of them - wins.

As soon as you bring the other issues that everyone wants to talk about into this, you will lose.

Here's why.

These are called "wedge issues" for a reason.  There is about half the population, for example, that will rally around a position of "Abortion is Murder."  There is also about half the population that will say "well, maybe in some cases, but in others no", all the way down to "you can abort any time you want prior to the first breath."

What you personally believe is irrelevant to the political process.  These issues are used by the two main political parties to get the electorate to divide on a 50/50 basis - thus leaving them having to persuade exactly one person of their position on some other issue to win.

You cannot win such a contest.  At best you can force one of the other parties - the one that most agrees with you - to lose.  The reason is simple - you will split that half of the electorate, which means the other party - the one that disagrees with your position on those issues - wins the election.

Drill this into your head folks:

If you allow these issues to become part of your campaign, you will not only lose you will cause the party that most-agrees with you to lose.

I know this is going to be unpopular, but it needs to be said.  I've seen this happening in some of the local Tea Party groups, and it saddens me.  The local Niceville branch here featured people talking about "natural law" as an important qualifying factor for political candidacy, as just one of many examples. There were times I felt like I had walked into a Baptist sermon.

The Tea Party and other political expressions like it are, of course, free to run on whatever platform they'd like, and to back candidates based on whatever they'd like.  But if you're going to do this, then you'd be wise to try to take over the Republican Party instead of being "independent" or any other sort of "outside" influence, because it is the only way you can win with this approach.

That is, you can try to turn the Republican Party into The Tea Party, and then apply your litmus tests.  Now you have your 50%, and you need to persuade only one voter.  That's a winning strategy, if you can pull it off.  But to pull it off you will have to displace all of the "money men" who corrupted the Republicans - let us not forget that the Republicans were the ones who brought Henry Paulson into the Treasury after he, as Goldman's chief, set up lots of dodgy financial instruments, and then protected the banks who did those deeds from being smashed when it all blew up in their faces.

Not that the Democrats are blameless, of course. "Who is Chris Dodd and Barney Frank" would be a good starting question on that side of the aisle, and of course it doesn't stop there.  Nancy Pelosi and illegal immigrants anyone?

The Tea Party infiltrating The Republican establishment is a long shot.  Witness John McCain, who made a campaign spectacle out of bailing out the banks.  How's JD Hayworth doing in challenging him?  He lost, right?  How'd that happen?  The same way it always happens: Hayworth let the campaign's terms include those wedge issues, and then got tattoed by the guy with the bigger warchest and the ability to threaten people politically.

You either change the terms of the debate and the issues upon which the election is decided or you lose. 

It's that simple.

The candidate that says this to the TV cameras and his opponent wins:

I am running on fiscal responsibility which I define as (insert your platform), and on the removal of embezzlement and fraud from our government and financial system, (insert your platform), including the reversal of the bailouts my opponent voted for and supported.  Where fraud and embezzlement took place I will do everything in my power to see that each and every person involved goes to prison, starting with those at the top of these large corporations and, when necessary, current members of our government.

If you insist debating other issues the microphone is all yours, and you may monopolize it all you want.  We may agree or disagree on those issues, but that's not what I'm here to discuss, and it's not what I'm running on.

If you elect me you will get the following (list of corruption and fraud that you intend to excise, along with your fiscal responsibility promises, including charts, facts and figures.) 

I understand that these other issues are important to virtually everyone, but I also understand that almost exactly half of you who hear me speak now are on each side of these issues and none of you are going to change your mind.  Therefore, the question I ask you is this: Are those issues more important than getting rid of the fraud, corruption, and scamming in our government and economy?  If they are, no matter which side of those issues you happen to be on, then I'm probably not your candidate.  If, on the other hand, fixing our economy, locking up the fraudsters and putting a stop to the rampant theft from each and every citizen in this room, which has personally indebted each and every man, woman and child in America by more than $40,000 over the last three years, is the most-important issue before you as you head to the polls, then I ask for your vote.

If you don't do this as a third-party or "outsider" candidate, you lose.

You need to appeal to the 90% issues and ignore the 50/50 ones. 

On purpose.

Oh sure, there will be some people who won't vote for you without those answers to the questions you refuse to entertain and waste your time on.  The siren song from those organizations, whether they be "Focus on the Family" or "Planned Parenthood" is strong.  But their siren song is false, for every voter you attract by appealing to them comes with one who will vote against you with rabid furor, and the direction in which you declare your intentions on these issues doesn't matter - there is no winning in those points of debate no matter how you approach it.  You can only lose and worse, cause those most-aligned with you to lose.

In short those who think that $40,000 is less important than your stance on abortion will split their vote for and against irrespective of which side of that issue you come down on.  Your opponent that is closest to your personal position on abortion will thus lose, and so will you!

The only way you can avoid this happening is to not allow the debate to go down that road, and you must be steadfast and studious in rejecting all entreaties and attempts to get you to speak on those issues, because the two major political parties know this is how they get you to forfeit your ability to win - the fact that you stand and run on an issue they cannot agree with and yet which 90%+ of the population sees your way!

The Tea Party will not listen to this, but until they do, they will be insignificant, and the two primary political parties know it.