If this report is accurate, we have a serious problem on our hands folks:

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol buildingsomething that didnt end up happeningone Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: Use live ammunition.

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were political enemies and thugs who were physically threatening legally elected officials. In response to such behavior, he said, Youre damned right I advocate deadly force. He later called me a typical leftist, adding, liberals hate police.

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

We saw exactly that in Egypt.

It's illegal for a private citizen in Egypt to own a rifle.  Yet there were people being sniped - shot in the head from a long distance - during the protests.  Who was doing the shooting?  Obviously it was government goons as they were the only ones with the requisite weapons.

Now we see advocacy of doing exactly the same thing right here in America.

An apparent government employee - a Deputy Attorney General no less - appears to have publicly advocated firing on protesters. 

We've got Mubarak's police force - here.

Isn't it funny that all the Nazi signs, all the threats, the fact that Madison's Assembly was shut down due to threats of violence are all coming from the political left?  And now we have a Deputy DA advocating the shooting of protesters.

Let me repeat this just so you don't misunderstand: If this report is accurate, a deputy district attorney is advocating the shooting of civilians exercising their First Amendment rights by the cops.

It's not just your dog that's going to get shot any more.

The left is always the side that wants people disarmed entirely.  The Right seems to favor "reasonable" restrictions on firearms (wouldn't it be convenient to declare everyone one of the "prohibited" under those "reasonable" restrictions?) The cops always want to have SWAT-style weaponry "at the ready" - and they use it regularly too.  Why would all that be?

It wouldn't be so they can shoot at you and you, as an ordinary civilian, won't be able to shoot back, would it?

How soon we forget what happened in Germany - and a lot of other places as well.

Unfortunately this is here, this is now, this is America - or what's left of it.

If you want to know why I advocate that the Second Amendment means what it says - the right to keep and bear arms without tracking, registration, regulation or other interference by government is necessary, despite the fact that criminals use guns, the proof of my argument is right here in the form of advocacy of the unlawful use of deadly force by a government employee.  Those who argue otherwise are arguing for you to be a target when, not if, that unlawful use of force occurs.

As far as I can determine the original report is authentic.  I found the tweets on his timeline.

Update: It appears he was just fired.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The Indiana Attorney Generals office announced Wednesday afternoon its deputy attorney general is no longer employed by the agency, after reviewing political website Mother Jones' published allegations that he advocated the use of force against protesters in Wisconsin.

It took less than six hours for me to be able to wave the "told 'ya so" flag:

An early push by New Jersey Republican Rep. Scott Garrett to add some teeth to the GOPs new Constitution rule requiring every bill cite its specific constitutional authority failed in a Republican conference meeting Tuesday.

What was the rule?  That you couldn't claim "general welfare" or "necessary and proper" as justification - you had to point to an actual enumerated power.

The very so-called "Tea Party" and "Conservative" members of Congress could not even agree to cite a specific clause in The Constitution that enabled legislation to be brought to the floor.

Oh, it gets better.  The actual proposed rule would not have prevented passing something that nobody could manage to find a clause in The Constitution that enabled the bill.  It in fact only required that a point of order be raised if the language was not present, allowing a gigantic and overwhelming 20 minutes of debate (10 each side) before a simple majority could vote to table the objection and move forward anyway - Constitution be damned.

The Committee rejected that watered-down milquetoast rule!

That would be enough to call the Tea Party and so-called "Conservatives" we sent to Washington a failure on the day they took their oaths of office all by itself.

But no, that wasn't enough for them.  They had to make damn sure that I could get out the megaphone and holler from the rafters that every single thing we were sold by these clowns during the campaign - the entire Palin thing, the entire "we're gonna take back Washington!" screed was an out-and-out fraud from the very first breath that passed their lips.

Remember, the claim by the Republicans (including but not limited to The Tea Party) was that they would cut the budget by $100 billion?  Which, I might remind you, would have been less than five percent of the deficit this year.

Well, it turns out that was a lie too.

Even some Tea Party types who are sticking to the original goal concede that it'll be hard to reach as long as the GOP exempts -- as it plans to -- funding for defense, homeland security, veterans and entitlements.

So we simply exempt the more than half the budget, then say "well, we can't get there."

By how much can't we get there?

And over in the Senate, a top GOP aide told me that the real bottom line is a max of $30 billion for the rest of this fiscal year.

What was the deficit again for the calendar year that just closed?

Oh, that was $1,700 billion, give or take a few.

So we're talking about.... one point seven six percent of the deficit?

Yes, 1.76%.

Really.

Washington spends that $30 billion, incidentally, in roughly three days.

LIARS and FRAUDS, every last one of you. 

Anyone remember this Ticker?

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."

Or the follow-ups to it, like, for instance, this?

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.

Right up above is your "fix" that we voted for.  That America sent The Faux Tea Party to Washington DC.  The above is the "result" of "America speaking loudly at the ballot box."

I was called all sorts of names by other so-called "Tea Party" folks after my string of posts, from people who said I had no right to speak at all and those who simply said "you're wrong - we'll do it - you'll see."

Admit it you jackasses, every last one of you: You were dead ****ing wrong, you were lying to the American public the entire time, and I was right.

It took less than SIX HOURS after the swearing in of the new Congress to prove you were full of crap.  You couldn't even manage to wait for one day before repudiating the two most-important things you claimed you were going to do - quit blowing money we don't have and actually follow The Constitution.

When the market figures out that irrespective of the grandiose claims you were completely full of crap, expect the bond market to go bananas.  Or Bernanke will go bananas and so will the commodity markets. 

Doesn't really matter - either way the American People - especially the middle class and below - are going to get financially raped.

Again.

And this time, it's your - and only your - responsibility, because you told us you'd stop it.

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 ass****ed 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******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******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.