Could the party of Abe Lincoln have sunk so low, locally, wondered this warbler?
Ready's the same twice-court-martialed ex-Marine who was recently in Omaha, Nebraska, for a brownshirt rally, as online photo galleries of the event have shown. Ready even received kudos from National Socialist Movement Commander Jeff Schoep, who cited "JT Ready/Arizona Republican activist" as a guest blowhard.
It ain't the first such shindig Ready's attended. In 2006, Ready graced the neo-Nazi National Vanguard's Winterfest event in the PHX, reportedly clad in a Scottish kilt. And sources have peeped to this tweeter of Ready's participation in nighttime pagan/neo-Nazi drinking parties, called blots (pronounced "bloats"), where Ready's guzzled mead while sporting a Viking helmet.
Sounds ridiculous, but the ridiculousness turns troubling once you know Ready's armed and potentially dangerous. When DPS stopped Ready's black Chevy Impala in April for displaying a fictitious plate, he was strapped with a 9mm Beretta. Ready was arrested, his car was impounded, and he was charged with illegally possessing a traffic preemption emitter, a device that can change red lights to green. Officers also found white-power literature in the vehicle.
Ready goes by the handle "Viking Son" on his Web page at NSM's newsaxon.com, "an online community for whites, by whites." His profile is filled with photos of himself at nativist demos. There's one of him in Omaha, stuffed into a suit, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with swastika-bearers.
The blog on Ready's NewSaxon page is regularly updated with anti-Semitic screeds and discussions of weaponry and tactics for the "upcoming Race War." In one rant, Ready claims Jews have "a rat-like appearence" [sic], and "hooked" noses "shaped like the number 6."
In another post, he spews, "The jew is the most vile parasite ever to infest this planet. All the cancer ever to exist . . . is far less to loathe than the evil of the average living jew."
This avian first thought Ready was lying about being a precinct committeeman, one of the, um, storm troopers of the two-party system. The unpaid position can be appointed or elected, and PCs usually help their party get out the vote. Ready's fibbed about his résumé in the past, specifically in regard to his criminal and military history. This, while running for the Mesa City Council in 2006.
A call to campaign finance director Kristi Passarelli at Maricopa County Elections confirmed Ready was telling the truth about his PC-ship. Passarelli informed this pelican that Ready was elected in 2006 from precinct 529, also known as Mesa 67. There were two slots open for Republicans, but Ready was the only one on the ballot in that primary. He received 36 votes.
County Republican Party Chairman Lyle Tuttle was too busy playing golf to return The Bird's call. But Sean McCaffrey, executive director of the state GOP told the Taloned One the party was unaware of Ready's Republican position. He vowed Ready will be asked to step down. If Ready refuses, the party will field candidates for his PC-ship in '08, when Ready's term's up, to make sure Ready's not re-elected.
"People that campaign on hate and people that campaign on fear, well, that eliminates neo-Nazis and Democrats from the Republican Party," McCaffrey informed this egret.
Cute comparison, Sean. But local Dems aren't the ones with an Adolf Hitler-lover in-house.
Nor does McCaffrey's cheap shot explain why the Arizona GOP didn't try to stop Ready from becoming a precinct committeeman in '06. McCaffrey's excuse was that he'd just arrived in AZ this March, and that most of his staff is new and from out of state.
But state Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen's no neophyte to local politics, being a two-time loser in the Phoenix mayoral race. Pullen can't be expected to know all the more than 3,000 Republican PCs, but Pullen and Ready run in the same immigrant-hating circles. They've spoken at the same Mexican-baiting rallies. And both have attended meetings of Rusty Childress' immigrant-bashing United for a Sovereign America.
Also, Ready's tight with state Representative Russell Pearce, who's bashed Mexicans ever since a Latino teen shot off his finger when he was a county sheriff's deputy. Pearce is a racist law machine, pumping out statute after statute targeting the brown segment of AZ's population. At a June anti-illegal demonstration at the state Capitol, Ready and Pearce worked the crowd arm-in-arm.
Remember when Pearce forwarded a neo-Nazi e-mail to supporters in '06? Pearce claimed a "friend" sent him the e-mail. Could that "friend" have a last name that rhymes with "Freddy"?
The blanket isn't big enough these days for all the bigoted bedfellows who want in on the nativist lovefest. In any other state, Pearce's ties to a white nationalist like Ready would make him a pariah, especially after the outrage over that neo-Nazi e-mail.
Instead, both Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Candy Thomas recently honored Pearce at a "gala reception" and dinner to raise moolah for Pearce's committee exploring a primary challenge to Congressman Jeff Flake, a moderate Republican who's championed comprehensive immigration reform. It was $100 a plate for the dinner, $200 if you wanted a pic of yourself with Thomas, Arpaio, or radio wingnut Bruce Jacobs. Minuteman leader Chris Simcox was on the fundraiser's planning committee.
Thomas may think he deserves slack 'cause his wife's Hispanic, but bashing brown's been on his agenda since day uno. Thomas sponsors an "Illegal Immigration Journal" linked to the MCAO's Web site, and he's led the effort to deny bail to illegals and prosecute them for conspiracy to "smuggle" themselves into the country.
Arpaio's a Joe-come-lately to the bigot parade, but he's been making up for lost time, mending fences with former rival and second-in-command Pearce. Arpaio was even on Lou Dobbs' show recently, calling it "an honor" to be labeled KKK by certain detractors. "It means we're doing something," he informed the conservative CNN pundit.
Days later, Arpaio tried explaining away the Klan remark, but this worm-wrangler thinks Arpaio was right from jump. There's precious little shame in the game of certain Republicans these days. That's why virulent anti-Semites like J.T. Ready are able to infiltrate Republican ranks. And it's why racists like Russell Pearce are feted as heroes.
EMPTY PLAUDIT
When it comes to taking a stand against the seething bigotry and intolerance in Sand Land, Governor Janet Napolitano ain't no profile in courage. In fact, a line she spouted recently on CNN concerning her decision not to endorse anyone in the crop of presidential contenders pretty much sums up her political career.
"I'm going to ride my horse in the middle of the river," she proclaimed.
So what else is new? Google "spinelessness" and you're sure to come across the schmuckish mug of the quisling Dem. So far, her greatest accomplishment in office has been not getting impeached or indicted like her predecessors. She's certainly been miserly with all that political capital she's banked since whipping Len Munsil's fanny in '06 by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
She could have vetoed Russell Pearce's racist employer-sanctions law, aimed at driving the immigrant population of Arizona back over the border. Instead, Nappy bided her time, waiting to see if immigration reform would survive in the U.S. Senate, thus giving her a political CYA. When that didn't happen, she signed the bloody thing, despite noting numerous problems with the legislation.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent people stand to lose their jobs because of this travesty — made possible by a Democrat. Businesses fear for their livelihoods. Economists break into panic attacks anticipating the fallout. But don't look to Nappy for anything beyond her usual, stultifying inaction. After all, she wants to run for the U.S. Senate, or snag a Cabinet post in a new Demo administration in Washington, which means she'll be sitting on her hands.
So why did the AZ Anti-Defamation League just honor the guv with its highest honor, the Jerry J. Wisotsky Torch of Liberty Award?
"You look at one bill," admonished Bill Straus, the AZ ADL's regional director, after The Bird mentioned the Pearce legislation. "We're looking at her career. She has pretty much established a framework of trying to unite disparate groups. Even her motto, One Arizona — it's pretty much the walk she's walked."
Granted, this beak-bearer would rather have Nappy as guv than a Taliban Republican like Munsil. And when this goose takes a gander at the previous recipients of this same AZ ADL award, it feels for the ADL's dilemma in roping in a deserving, marquee name for its big fundraiser. Past honorees include union-buster Eddie Basha; sports wheeler-dealer Jerry Colangelo; and Republican Senator Jon Kyl, formerly known as the Prince of Darkness.
The ADL polished off a Torch of Liberty for Kyl before he pulled his own JFK moment by trying to help pass comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate. Kyl was pilloried by extremists in his own party as a result. Like Janet, he too had just won re-election in '06. Maybe you can argue that Kyl has a six-year cushion, and no higher political ambition. Still, he bravely added his name to the fight.
What The Bird wants to ask Nappy is, what's the point of having power if you decline to exercise it in sensitive situations? Particularly when the authority you wield could assist the persecuted?
Pardon this penguin for getting all literary on your ass, but in Dante's Inferno, cowards are punished before the gates of Hell by swarms of stinging horseflies and wasps. Sorry, but that's a reward more suitable for our Cowardly Lion of a chief executive than any Torch of Liberty.
SUBPOENA HUNT
So why is New Times' grand jury file missing subpoenas sent to this paper and to reporters John Dougherty and Paul Rubin?
That's what Superior Court Judge Anna Baca wanted to know in a recent minute entry demanding that the County Attorney's Office file a supplemental report on the search for the lost docs by November 21, and that an office rep appear in court on November 26 to discuss the matter.
County Attorney Candy Thomas won't have to bust out the good wingtips. Rather, Chief Assistant County Attorney Sally Wolfgang Wells (real middle name, BTW) will likely be in attendance for him.
It's Wells who had the uncomfortable task of telling Baca in a recent report that — as Baca requested back on October 24 when the judge unsealed the grand jury files — the County Attorney's Office had obtained the prosecution file from former special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik. After searching the file, the CA's Office determined that "no documents were located in that file that should have been part of the Clerk of the Court's file."
The Bird wasn't the only one scratching its head feathers at that one.
"It is not clear what documents are referred to as 'documents that should have been part of the Clerk's file,'" wrote Baca in response to Wells' elusive verbiage. "The court now clarifies its prior order and directs the MCAO to supplement its . . . report to the court."
By the time this column hits the boulevards, the MCAO will have made its supplemental report. But why would anyone have, er, misplaced the original subpoenas? Copies of the subpoenas are attached to other docs in the court file, and the infamous, overly broad subpoena against New Times and its readers was published by The Bird's bosses Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin in their cover story "Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution" (October 18). You know, the one that got Sheriff Joe's Selective Enforcement Unit slapping the cuffs on the duo in the middle of the night.
Lacey wrote in his November 1 column, "He Just Doesn't Get It," that Wilenchik "anointed himself the grand jury," instead of facilitating the grand jury. The special prosecutor was required by law "to report to the grand jury foreman and the presiding judge the existence of a subpoena within 10 days of issuing it." Wilenchik didn't do that.
Could the subpoenas be missing because they might offer proof that Wilenchik did not play by the rules?
This songbird doesn't want to cast aspersions. Maybe it's just a lil' legal mix-up. After all, law offices, including esquire Wilenchik's and the MCAO's, must be choked with paperwork.
Plus, can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, either Dennis Wilencheckbook (who's raked in $2 million in county funds and counting) or the CA's Office being less than 100 percent honest? Perish the thought, Portnoy!
