The Bird wonders why Nazi-huggers get a free pass in Arizona and reveals yet another piece of the Russell Pearce puzzle

This seasoned sapsucker's nested in many a state. But he's never found one quite as hospitable to Adolf Hitler-worshippers and other varmints of the white-power type as here in Sand Land.

Granted, The Bird's always figured that no place could be so tolerant of white supremacy and neo-Nazis as the Deep South, whence he sprang.

But in fabled Dixie, certain things are just not done. Even if certain Southerners would like to see Confederate President Jefferson Davis reincarnated for a third-party run against John McCain and Barack Obama.

Being photographed with known National Socialists is one of those things that ain't done — especially by legislators and wanna-be congressmen. You might be a big ol' bigot like the recently croaked U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, an unrepentant segregationist 'til his dementia-addled demise in July, but being pictured with a not-so-secret swastika-wearer? That'd be the proverbial double-pucker of death for a mainstream pol below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Not that white supremacists never snake their way into modern-day Southern politics. Take former Klan leader David Duke's 1991 run for Louisiana governor. Still, back then, nearly everybody but the ofay bottomfeeders that voted for him was raising bloody Hades to make sure Duke went down. And down he did go.

We have our own version of David Duke here in the Zona, and his name is Russell Pearce. That's not to say the Mesa state Representative has ever been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, or a neo-Nazi organization. He just snuggles up to their ilk, like a rattlesnake next to a warm body in the desert. That, and he sponsors the kind of legislation they dig: economy-punishing employer sanctions; laws against renting to the undocumented; apartheid-like marriage laws; and a proposal to deny birth certificates to American children born to undocumented parents.

It'd be bad enough if Pearce were just suggesting a revival of Mexican-roundups like Operation Wetback, as he did in 2006. But Pearce has taken further steps, like forwarding an e-mail from the neo-Nazi National Alliance to his supporters, also in '06. He's curried the favor of brown-bashing organizations such as ex-KIA peddler Rusty Childress' United for a Sovereign America, the most vile anti-immigrant hate-group in the Valley. And he maintained relations with an avowed white supremacist, long after that racist freak was outed as such.

The Bird's talking about Pearce's association with lard-ass stormtrooper J.T. Ready, with whom The Bird watched Pearce work a crowd back in June 2007. Pearce listened and applauded as Ready rocked the rabble gathered on the Arizona Capitol lawn that day. In his speech, Ready spoke of jerking black-robed jurists around by their collars and said he and his comrades had been "treasoned" by U.S. Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain. Ready also outlined a plan for the Marines to close off all ports and borders and start mopping up the interior.

Onstage, Ready never mentioned that he'd been twice court-martialed and booted from the Marines, as revealed by the East Valley Tribune back in 2006, not long after his failed run for the Mesa City Council. Pearce must have known about Ready's ignominious exit from the armed forces (unless the guy doesn't read his hometown newspaper). Still, he hung out with him that day, as if he were the younger man's political mentor.

The Anti-Defamation League had already made a very public connection between Ready and white supremacy during a March 2007 seminar on the tone of the immigration debate put together by state Representative Kyrsten Sinema. Is it possible Pearce was unaware of Ready's unsavory affiliations? Was he ignorant of Ready's attendance at a 2006 neo-Nazi bash called Winterfest — and of Ready's page on NewSaxon.com (now NewSaxon.org), "an online community for whites by whites," where Ready's known by the handle "Viking Son" — despite the ADL's discussing such facts during the March seminar?

"I find that very hard to believe," Sinema told this tweeter. "The entire Legislature was invited to the event. The whole thing was videotaped, and you can watch it on our archive. And I reported it on the floor [of the state House]."

Since spying Ready and Pearce's palling around in 2007, The Bird's been spewing disgust far and wide and wondering why the dailies have ignored this nefarious link. After the June event, The Bird and his blogging cousin Feathered Bastard reported Ready's attendance at a September neo-Nazi rally in Omaha, Nebraska.

In previous columns, The Bird also revealed that Ready was quietly elected a Republican precinct committeeman in 2006. That Ready distributed anti-Semitic and racist literature at a meeting of the Maricopa County Republican Party. And that Ready had been arrested in 2007 for displaying a fictitious license on his vehicle, and having an illegal preemption emitter. That's one of those devices that allow firemen to speed through lights.

Ready was also in possession of a 9-millimeter gun and white-power literature. Given the fact that, in 2006, Ready got into a strange shootout with an illegal alien strapped with only a BB gun, one wonders what Ready was on the prowl for the night he was taken in.

This persistent pelican buttonholed Pearce at a roast for our corrupt top constable, Joe Arpaio, late last year in Sun City, but when asked about him being BFF with a National Socialist, Pearce took up for J.T., kinda-sorta.