Now this nostalgic nightingale has a new set of knuckleheads to observe, though they're not nearly as laughable as the original Stooges, because this time, their shenanigans may involve your personal financial data. The Bird's referrin' to LifeLock marketing director Robert "Moe" Maynard Jr., LifeLock CEO Todd "Larry" Davis, and LifeLock radio shill and presidential candidate Fred "Curly" Thompson.
The Tempe-based anti-identity-theft firm LifeLock was the subject of a recent New Times cover story exposing Maynard's duplicitous past ("What Happened in Vegas . . .," Ray Stern, May 31). See, Maynard Jr. was the frontman for a deceitful credit-repair firm in the mid-'90s that obtained customers' checking account numbers and used them to steal their scrilla. As a result, he's been barred for life from the credit-repair biz.
Worse even, Moe-ron Maynard's a deadbeat with multiple bankruptcies on file and a trail of unpaid creditors. Also, Maynard lied and continues to lie about how LifeLock was founded, twisting a true tale of him welshing on a Vegas casino marker into some fantasy about having his identity ripped off.
Even Maynard's pappy, Robert Maynard Sr. , has accused his sketchy son of identity theft. Court records show that an American Express card in Maynard Sr.'s name was shipped to an address used by one of Maynard Jr.'s businesses. A six-figure debt was racked up on the card. Maynard Sr., a local eye doctor, says the perp was Maynard Jr.
In a half-assed attempt at damage control after the New Times piece, CEO Davis told the L.A. Times that his business partner chose to step down from his position with the company "so no one can question the integrity of LifeLock."
Uh, 'cept for the fact that Maynard hasn't left the beleaguered enterprise. In articles about the reported resignation, LifeLock executives admit they're going to let Maynard Jr. keep his "less than 10 percent" of the business. Also, Maynard Jr. will do pretty much the same thing he was doing previously as LifeLock's chief marketing officer.
And these are the people who want you to trust them with your vital financial statistics? Why, this birdbrain wouldn't give these dillweeds a copy of his bus pass, much less his Visa and Social Security number. Besides, why pay $10 a month for a service — putting a red flag on your account with one of the big credit bureaus — that you can easily do on your own?
Better ask Fred "Curly" Thompson that one. You know, the Law & Order star, former U.S. senator from Tennessee, and presidential hopeful who wants Republicans to believe he's the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. As The Bird reported in its June 7 column, Fred Flintstone (so named for the rocks in his head), shills for LifeLock in radio ads airing nationwide. Other celebs do so, as well, but they're not running for freakin' president!
You'd think Thompson would've had enough sense to vet the company before becoming its pitchman, but in a June 9 L.A. Times follow-up to the NT story, titled "An awkward ad by Fred Thompson," Thompson flack Mark Corallo squawked that the adverts were part of Thompson's contract with ABC Radio.
"You can't expect the individual on-air personality to do research on every company," screeched Corallo.
Maybe, but ain't the bar higher for candidates for the highest office in the land? Especially those claiming to be the next Ronnie-boy? Also, this patriotic pigeon finds it particularly disgusting that Thompson uses a tale of heroism in Iraq and the offer of free service to military personnel to help sell LifeLock's snake oil to the masses.
Maynard's not the only deadbeat dumbass at LifeLock. Davis filed for personal bankruptcy in 2000. And blog.wired.com recently reported that Davis, who stupidly gives out his Social Security number in company ads, has been jacked by an identity thief. Seems someone used his data to get a $500 loan, despite LifeLock's vaunted guarantee.
These ne'er-do-well nudniks make the original Stooges look like frickin' astrophysicists. As the real Curly would say, "They resemble that remark. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."
TURD REICH
As if this tweeter needed more proof that AZ's nativist movement is riddled with racists, rednecks, and raving wing-nuts, the anti-immigrant protest at the state Capitol on Saturday, June 16, featured a rabble-rousing speech by none other than the Ernst Roehm of the East Valley, the Martin Bormann of Mesa, everyone's favorite fat-boy fascist, J.T. Ready.
That's the same J.T. Ready outed by this pugnacious plover and the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist; the one who's kept a page on the neo-Nazi Web site newsaxon.com (now newsaxon.org), a racist MySpace "for whites by whites." Ready reportedly attended last year's PHX Winterfest event, hosted by the neo-Nazi National Vanguard, and he's posted white supremacist messages on the blog of The Bird's doppelgänger, Feathered Bastard.
Nonetheless, the failed Mesa City Council candidate was welcomed, cheered, and embraced by a crowd of about 300 on the Capitol lawn, a crowd angered whenever the term "racist" was used to describe their movement. A regular Nuremberg rally for numbskulls. A true Triumph of the Swill.
His massive frame shoved sausage-like into a dark suit, J.T. palled with bosom bigot buddy state Representative Russell Pearce (wearing an American flag shirt) before and after Ready spoke during the five-hour prejudice powwow. On the podium, Ready was easily the most popular speaker, aside, perhaps, from the Yosemite Sam-like Buffalo Rick, a gimpy, grumpy ol' coot who looks like he, in the words of the classic SNL skit, "lives in a van, down by the river." Buffalo may not be a crazy homeless man, but he could pass.
Hermann Goering-esque gasbag J.T. whipped the audience of white-trash wackos into a frothing-at-the-mouth furor, denouncing AZ Republican Senator Jon Kyl as a traitor for supporting immigration reform, and giving the audience his four-point program for an all-American authoritarian state, presumably with jumbo J.T. as its flabby führer:
"All the politicians wanna say it [immigration] is a complex problem," yelled Ready. "Well, I got it for you, one, two, three, four. Ya ready? Number one: Put the 1st Marine Division on the southern border. Number two: Put the 2nd Marine Division on the northern border. Number three: Put the 3rd Marine Division at our ports and shores. Number four: Our 4th Marine division needs to be within the interior moppin' up these gangbangers and takin' 'em out of here."
Of course, military-lovin' Redneck Ready never mentioned that he was court-martialed twice and kicked out of the Marines with a bad conduct discharge. Or that in 2006, he was replaced as the master of ceremonies for Mesa's Veterans Day parade after vets discovered the truth of his piss-poor service record. He's also had, and continues to have, run-ins with the police.
On his Newsaxon Web page, Ready listed National Alliance founder William Pierce's The Turner Diaries as one of his favorite books. The Turner Diaries is an apocalyptic tale of race war, one that inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Here's hoping no one rents Ready a Ryder truck.
After J.T., the fun continued, with scraggly snagglepuss Buffalo Rick taking the podium, shouting at the top of his lungs like some deranged lunatic. Recognizing this plumed penman standing in the crowd, he announced:
"There are people among us today who call themselves journalists. They call themselves reporters — basically people like The Bird down here from the New Times, who seems to think we're all racist bigots. I got news for ya, if we were racist bigots, you'd be hanging from that tree."
In other words, a good, old-fashioned KKK-style lynching.
For the rest of the event, this wacky warbler challenged folks about Ready's presence. Some claimed not to know who he was, though he'd just been up there leading them in chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A." Some defended him. Still others seemed to think his white nationalism didn't matter.
This beetle-eater missed a chance to buttonhole former Congressman J.D. Hayworth about his guilt by association, but did get to chat with mayoral hopeful Steve Lory and PHX City Council candidate Jack Watson. Both said they were not aware of Ready's racist activities. Surprisingly, both said they would have taken to the stage and spoken even if they'd known.
Lory claimed it was a freedom of speech issue.
"You're gonna get that at any event," he tutted to this toucan. "What are you gonna do if you're organizing this event? You say to someone like him, 'I don't like your views, you're out?'"
Um, yeah. That's exactly what you would do if you didn't want your name or movement linked to him. Look, Lory's no racist. The nightclub he ran until it was forced to close by the city, Blaze, catered to a black and Hispanic crowd. But if you're appearing at a rally that features an unabashed white supremacist, it begs the question: At what point do you say it crosses the line? What if Ready showed up in a brown shirt and swastika armband, for instance?
Lory can't say Ready was the only one there espousing such views. The Bird spotted skinheads in attendance, and there was one Scottish bloke who even defended the racist shorthand of 14/88 (88 being code for HH, or Heil Hitler, and 14 being the famous supremacist slogan uttered by neo-Nazi David Lane). Braveheart-boy also called the Holocaust a "hollow hoax," a belief right at home in the doofus' hollow head.
And these idjits in the anti-immigrant movement can't figure out why they get tarred with the racist label!?
PUPPY CHOW
As a voracious vulture who's sunk its beak into the flesh of many an unfortunate mammal, this omnivorous avian's been scratching its feathered noggin' about this situation involving Glendale resident Joseph Beadle, a three-week-old puppy dipped in cooking oil, and a malnourished red-tail boa constrictor.
Beadle pleaded guilty last week to feeding the live, greasy pooch to the serpent while two 15-year-old boys looked on. Though the snake did the devourin', Beadle, 40, was sentenced to 90 days in the slammer for felony animal cruelty.
So maybe Beadle shouldn't have fed the reptile little Fido in front of the teens. But dagnabbit, they're 15, and they're gonna have to learn about this snake-eat-canine world eventually. Plus, there's worse interspecies eatin' to be seen on The Discovery Channel.
C'mon, it was a dog, people! You know, the critters who get hit by cars all the damn time? The ones local animal shelters have to put down for various reasons? To listen to the bunny-huggers from the AZ Humane Society boo-hoo about it, you'd think Beadle had fed TomKat’s baby Suri to a bleedin' crocodile.
"This man subjected an innocent puppy to unspeakable, unnecessary suffering and a terrible death," blubbered Cheryl Naumann, the society's president and CEO.
Yeah, but he also gave a reptile a happy meal it'll never forget.
Hundreds, if not thousands of cute, furry animals in the Valley disappear down the gullets of hungry pet serpents every day. And snake owners may not be as particular as Naumann when it comes to a rabbit, a rat, a small goat, or even a 20-pound pre-killed pig.
"The disturbing part was the people he allowed to watch — it wasn't done in an educational manner," John Bergman of the Mesa pet shop Reptile Adventures told this worm-swallower. "Being a snake guy, if something was wrong with the puppy — why not? At least it's recycling."
Indeed, Naumann's Humane Society announced earlier this month it may have to euthanize hundreds of kittens overcrowding its shelter.
This sapsucker suggests that Naumann and Valley snake owners get together for some all-natural "recycling."
