Gator Press

Parking Meter Decision Looms:
Galveston City Council is planning a series of meetings to decide how the City will charge people to park on Seawall Boulevard.
One plan includes selling annual parking passes for $25 and using the money to help the strippers at the local titty bars.
A second plan would eliminate all parking on the Seawall, and tow away all cars found parking there. The vehicles would then be auctioned off, and the funds set aside to set up porta-potties on every corner in the city.
The third proposal is revolutionary, but has little chance of being approved. It would force the owners of the new Pleasure Pier to provide their own goddam parking.

Local celebrity visits with Pope:
Local musician and former porn star Richard Rhea spent a week in Rome last month, and was pleased to be granted a brief audience with Pope Benedict.
Rhea surprised the Pontoon by greeting him in Latin, reportedly telling the Pope “eezplayed ootay eetmay ooyay.”
The Pope, who is German, did not understand the form of Latin Rhea used, so an expert in Pig Latin had to translate.
Rhea has also recently signed a contract with Columbia Records. Terms of the contract are not available, but it is believed that Rhea will get eleven CDs for one cent, after which he must purchase 10 more at the regular price.

Mayor to hunt with former VP Cheney
In what is interpreted by many as the curtain call for San Leon Mayor Keith Heinz, the long-time mayor has been invited to go quail hunting with former Vice President Dick Cheney later this month.
A spokesman at Cheney’s bunker denied any rumors that Heinz would be ‘retired’ during the hunting excursion.
Heinz issued a statement saying he is honored to be invited by Mr. Cheney. “I am flattered that the former Vice President asked me to go hunting with him. I know I can learn a lot from an experienced hunter like him. He even sent me a little quail hat in honor of the event, which I will proudly wear during our outing.” The trip is set for early July.

Suspect Flees, Eludes Capture:
A high-speed chase on June 8th ended with the suspect escaping in a wooded area and remaining at large in spite of an extensive manhunt by authorities.
The incident started at the Wal Mart in Texas City, when a Wal Mart Patrol Officer noticed a man putting purchases into his car.
The suspicious officer decided to detain the man and draw DNA and blood samples from him, and approached him, saying “Sir, please come along with me…”
The perpetrator told the officer to run along and leave him alone, then jumped into his car and drove off, heading west on FM 1764 in the direction of Santa Fe.
Wal Mart Police vehicles chased the suspect, and, after covering over 30 miles, finally had him cornered in a cul-de-sac in Angleton.
Unfortunately, just as they were preparing to apprehend him, it was time for their noon lunch break, and the security men all knocked off for about an hour. Upon their return to work, the unknown man had vanished.

Police Blotter:
May 25: A Clear Lake resident complained that not enough teenagers were sneaking into his pool to skinny-dip at night anymore.
June 2: A party on Bellwether Ave. had to be broken up when it became obvious that more beer would never be arriving.
June 5: Officers responded to a noise complaint on Robertson Drive Tuesday evening and really beat the shit out of some guy.
June 9: After a high-speed pursuit, officers were forced to watch a burglary suspect taunt them from just inches across the county line.
June 10: Police responded to reports of a soaking wet naked man singing loudly at 156 Oak St. Complying with officers, the man got out of his shower and put some clothes on.

A soldier was given the job of hunting buffalo. To help him, he hired an Indian Scout. The two of them set off on their journey to find buffalo. After riding a while, the Indian gets off his horse, puts his ear to the ground and says “Humm, buffalo come”. The soldier scans the area with his binoculars, but sees nothing. He is confused and says to the Indian, “I do not see anything, how do you know buffalo come”? and the Indian replies, “ear sticky”.

There was a man in a tavern one night that got really drunk, I mean REALLY drunk. When the place closed. he got up to walk home. As he swayed out the door he saw a nun walking by on the sidewalk. So he stumbled over to the nun and punched her right in the eye. Well the nun was really shocked but before she could do anything he punched her again. This time she fell down and he staggered over to her and kicked her in the ass. Then he picked her up and threw her into the street. By this time the nun was hurt and couldn’t move. So then he stumbled over to her, put his face right next to hers and said. “Not such a badass tonight, are you Batman?”

A very homely person made an appointment with a psychiatrist. The homely person walked into the doctor’s office and said, “Doctor, I’m so depressed and lonely. I don’t have any friends, no one will come near me, and everybody laughs at me. Can you help me accept my ugliness?” “I’m sure I can.” the psychiatrist replied. “Just go over and lie face down on that couch.” A man in a bar sees a friend at a table, drinking by himself. Approaching the friend he comments, “You look terrible. What’s the problem?” “My mother died in August,” he said, “and left me $25,000.” “Gee, that’s tough,” he replied. “Then in September,” the friend continued, “My father died, leaving me $90,000.” “Wow. Two parents gone in two months. No wonder you’re depressed.” “And last month my aunt died, and left me $15,000.” “Three close family members lost in three months? How sad.” “Then this month,” continued the friend, “absolutely nothing!”

A police officer stops a blonde for speeding and asks her very nicely if he could see her license. She replied in a huff, “I wish you guys could get your act together. Just yesterday you guys take away my license and then today you expect me to show it to you.” A young blind boy is being tucked into bed by his mother. The mom says “Now Billy, pray really hard tonight and tomorrow, your wish will come true!”. Billy says, “Ok mommy.” and goes to sleep. The next morning, Billy wakes up and screams “MOMMY! I’m still blind, my wish didn’t come true!” The mom answered, “I know, haha! April Fools!”

There was a blonde and a brunette in an elevator. On their way down, they stop to pick up another person also on their way down. When the person got on, the girls noticed that he was pretty cute. Unfortunately he had dandruff. Finally, on the way off of the elevator the two girls let the guy go ahead of them. The brunette turns to the blonde and says “Oh my god! We need to give him Head and Shoulders.” The blonde then replies “That’s a pretty good idea, but how are we going to give him shoulders?”

A drunk gets up from the bar and heads for the bathroom. A few minutes later, a loud, blood curdling scream is heard from the bathroom. A few minutes after that, another loud scream reverberates through the bar. The bartender goes into the bathroom to investigate why the drunk is screaming. “What’s all the screaming about in there? You’re scaring the customers!” “I’m just sitting here on the toilet and every time I try to flush, something comes up and squeezes the hell out of my testicles.” With that, the bartender opens the door, looks in and says…”You idiot! You’re sitting on the mop bucket!”

One night, a drunk comes stumbling into a bar and says to the bartender: “Drinks for all on me including you, bartender.” So the bartender follows the mans orders and says: “That will be $36.50 please.” The drunk says he has no money so the bartender slaps him around and throws him out. The next night the same drunk comes in again and orders a drink for everyone in the bar including the bartender. Again the bartender follows instructions and again the drunk says he has no money. So the bartender slaps him around and throws him out. On the third night he comes in, the drunk orders drinks for all except the bartender. “What, no drink for me?” replies the bartender. “Oh, no. You get violent when you drink.”

The teacher wrote on the blackboard: “I ain’t had no fun in months.” Then asked the class, “How should I correct this sentence?” Little Johnny raised his had and replied, “Get yourself a new boyfriend.”

A woman went to a pet shop and immediately spotted a large beautiful parrot. There was a sign on the cage that said he could be bought for 50 bucks. “Why so little,” she asked the pet store owner. The owner looked at her and said, “Look, I should tell you first that this bird used to live in a house of prostitution, and sometimes it says some pretty vulgar stuff.” The woman thought about this, but decided she had to have the bird anyway. She took it home and hung the bird’s cage up in her living room and waited for it to say something. The bird looked around the room, then at her, and said, “New house, new madam.” The woman was a bit shocked at the implication, but then thought “that’s not so bad.” When her two teenage daughters returned from school the bird saw them and said, “New house, new madam, new whores.” The girls and the woman were a bit offended but then began to laugh about the situation. Moments later, the woman’s husband came home from work. The bird saw him and said, “New Madam, New whores. Same old customers!”

An alien walks into a bar and sits next to a drunk guy and begins poking him in the shoulder. The drunk guy just ignores him. After a wile the guy turns to the alien and begins looking him up and down. He notices that the alien has no genitalia. He then asks “You guys don‘t have a penis? How do you guys have sex?” The alien, still poking him in the arm, just smiles!

So two crackheads have been charged with possession. The judge decides to be lenient on them and not give them any time if they spend the next 24 hours reforming drug users. They return to the courthouse the next day and the judge asks them how many people they’ve gotten off drugs. The first guy says, “Twenty-four!” “Amazing,” says the judge! How’d you do it?” “Simple,” says the crackhead. “I just show them: ‘O’ – This is your brain; ‘o’ – this is your brain on drugs.” “Impressive,” says the judge. Turning to the second crackhead, he says, “And how did you do?” “Your honor, I saved 102 people from the bonds of the evil crack.” “And how did you manage that?” “Kind of the same as the other guy, ‘except I told people: ‘o’ – this is your asshole; ‘O’ – THIS is your asshole in prison.”

There’s this drunk standing out on the street corner, and a cop passes by, and says, “What do you think you’re doing?” The drunk says, “I heard the world goes around every 24 hours, and I’m waiting on my house. Won’t be long now, there goes my neighbor.”

Financial Advisers:
When you are approached by or introduced to a Financial Adviser, you should be aware of several important facts: First of all, he (or she) is probably NOT a “real” financial adviser. Most likely he is an life insurance salesman with an investment gimmick attached to his policies. Which is bad, because investing is taking a financial risk, and insurance is the opposite – it eliminates financial risk. So, when you combine the two, it becomes a zero-sum game, and you lose. But the salesman gets to put his hands into both of your pockets at once! He wins every time.
But even if you have a “legitimate” financial adviser, one without an insurance license, you are still going to get screwed. Remember, these guys aren’t paid to grow your money. They don’t get a cut of your gains or share in your losses. They get a flat rate, a percentage of whatever they can get you to spend.
That’s why they are always saying now is a good time to buy stocks. Whenever the market goes down, they say “Get in there and pick up some bargains” and when the market is up, they say “Blue sky, don’t miss the ride!”
These fuckers also profited from Enron and other debacles, but they never had to disgorge any of the billions they milked out of the middle class through their financial advising.
If you’re crazy enough to buy stocks, you don’t need some dickhead who didn’t see the sky falling last time around, and won’t see it next time either. This is an occupation comprised mostly of greedy scoundrels, with any exceptions being very few and far between.

The guy who donated a porno collection to the Goodwill Store:
A local Goodwill received a donation of a porn collection (over 100 DVDs), with a note enclosed that said “Due to my new religious beliefs, I cannot keep these, but they are quite valuable. Hopefully you can sell them for a lot of money to help your group.”
Wow, thanks a lot. These will be a big hit in the retail shop. Such a large selection, everything from granny porn to bondage.
What were you thinking? If your religious beliefs won’t let YOU keep them, why in the figgldy fuck would you want someone ELSE to burn in HELL for all eternity?
Besides, you stupid ignorant fucknut, the Goodwill store threw them in the trash, so now no one will be able to enjoy them, even those whose religious views allow them to enjoy adult entertainment. What a waste.

Landlocked relatives:
Every time there’s the slightest chance that a hurricane might come within a thousand miles of here, I start getting calls and text messages from kinfolks who live north of I-10 as far away as Iowa..
“You better evacuate early, so you won’t get caught up in the traffic mess”
“Y’all are crazy to stay there with a storm coming. You must got a death wish.”
“UR CR8ZY. U SHD LV” (via text)
Hey, I’ve been here for fifty fucking years.
I know all about hurricanes.
I am the Dos Equis Man, the Captain Morgan, of Hurricanes. I know when to hold and when to fold. There might come a time when I say, hmmm, time to haul ass away from the Gulf for a few days. But if and when that time comes, I’ll know. I won’t need a farmer in a corn field to clue me in!

People who hate people who hate cats:
It is a God given right to hate cats. Or bugs, snakes, spiders, rats, worms, or the color green. But if you hate cats, there are mean people who hate YOU out there.
There’s no politically correct way to hate cats. You can tell about the diseases they carry, the native bird populations they decimate, the vandalism they commit, and the deaths of newborn babies attributed to them, and the goddam pawprints they put all over your car.  It does not matter. If you hate cats, you are hated by those who hate cat haters. And there‘s a lot of ‘em.

Illiterate bastards:
which clearly does not include you, since you’ve made it this far.

from our last issue of NightMoves:

Fidel Castro’s Last Friend In America, Robert McKeown

In September of 1961 Hurricane Carla devastated the San Leon and Bacliff communities in Galveston County. Utilities were off and many people had lost everything they owned. In the midst of the relief effort was a Bacliff man, 48 year old Robert McKeown. Arriving at Captain Henry’s on Bayshore Drive with a truck filled with blankets and food for the victims, McKeown went to work. For several days McKeown, his wife, and several friends ferried relief supplies and people using a Rambler station wagon and a borrowed truck. Few of those who met Bob McKeown in 1961 knew very much about him, except that he owned the J & M Drive Inn, a beer joint on Red Bluff Road. No one would have guessed that he was possibly the only man in America that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro counted as a friend.

Robert Ray McKeown was born in Houston in 1913. He grew up in Galena Park and Pasadena, back when Spencer Highway was paved with oyster shells. Nothing is known about his childhood, except that he graduated from high school in Houston in 1931. His police record started the same year, when he was arrested in LaPorte for assault. Charges were dropped and he stayed out of trouble until August of 1933, when he and another man were charged with the armed robbery of a payroll courier in Baytown. McKeown was given 5 years in Huntsville for his part in the robbery. While in prison, McKeown was assigned to the machine shop, where he learned to operate a lathe and other equipment. By the time he was paroled in 1937, McKeown was good enough to get hired by Warren Machine Works in Houston. He stayed out of trouble, and married Ethel Jane Etie of Seabrook on Christmas Day of 1939.
· When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred two years later, Robert McKeown immediately tried to enlist, but was turned down because of his status as an ex-con. Never one to be deterred, he went to Galveston, where he enlisted in the Army under the assumed name of a high school classmate, J.T. Brown. Within a few weeks, the Army discovered McKeown’s true identity, and gave him an undesirable discharge. Within days, he was in Tulsa, enlisting in the Navy under another alias, H.J. McAllister. This time he got away with it, and was sent to California and on to the Pacific. After the war, “McAllister” was discharged as a Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class, and offered a job with Bethlehem Steel in Beaumont. He moved his wife and two daughters to a shotgun house on Riverside Drive in Orange and went to work. One weekend in early 1947, “McAllister” and his family vanished from the house. Over $20,000 worth of machine and fabricating tools were missing from the job site. Warrants were issued for “McAllister”, but he had ceased to exist. Bob McKeon next arrived in Pasadena, where he opened McKeown Fabricating Co. in the fall of 1947.
· McKeown then began using the name “Max” McKeown. The business received a contract from Hughes Tool Company the following year, and was soon one of Houston’s busiest shops. McKeown and his wife bought a house in the Shady Lake area of Pasadena and business boomed.
· One day in 1950, a man named Van Zeivander came to see McKeown about building a machine he had created that improved the process of cleaning coffee. The process was very successful. During this time, much raw coffee was processed and packaged in Santiago, Cuba. McKeown and Zeivander went there in 1950, where they set up a plant. Within the first year, they did over $2 million. Soon the McKeowns were well known in Havana and Santiago. McKeown became an investor in casinos, and became friendly with Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarro.
· In 1952, Fulgencio Batista overthrew Prio’s government and became President of Cuba. Prio fled to Miami, but retained ownership of business interests in Cuba. There is evidence that Prio, with McKeown’s help, transferred $19 million in cash to a Miami bank controlled by the mafia.
Batista, aware that McKeown had helped Prio, started extorting money from the Texan. When the demands became too great, McKeown made plans to move his business to the Bahamas. Batista got wind of it and deported McKeown to Miami, seizing his manufacturing plant and bank accounts.
· McKeown went to lawyers, crooks, and the government, seeking to have his business returned. His entire fortune had been taken away, and he was determined to get it back, with some payback for Batista. In Miami, former Cuban President Prio took his friend in and offered to help. The pair believed that only a coup against Batista would restore their fortunes in Cuba. At the time, Batista was having trouble with a group of revolutionaries led by brothers Raoul and Fidel Castro. They found that an organized crime figure in Tampa named Nelson Italiano was already assisting Castro’s forces with small arms and ammunition. Remember, at this time Castro was not affiliated with communism, and was considered a “freedom fighter”.
· In 1956, Castro came to Houston, where he met with McKeown and Prio at the Shamrock Hotel. At the time, Castro had just come from Mexico, where he was training his forces to invade Cuba. He needed a ship. Using Prio’s money, McKeown bought a Chilean freighter at the Port of Houston, which was later used to carry Castro’s army back to Cuba.
· McKeown may have first met Jack Ruby in Miami. Ruby owned half of a Hallandale Fla. night club called the Colonial Inn. His partner was Bernard Baker (later arrested as a Watergate burglar, and also identified by Deputy Constable Frank Weitzman as one of the fake Secret Service agents in Dealey Plaza). Baker was Prio’s “straw man” – Prio was Ruby’s true partner.
· Prio’s money and McKeown’s energy were put to use on behalf of organized crime figures. A meeting was held in May ’57 with an attorney from Tampa named Henry Gonzales. Gonzales single client during his career was South Florida crime boss Santo Trafficante Jr. The group started sending weapons to Castro through Valenti & Sons, a fruit shipper located at the Port of Tampa. Cash payment for the weapons was found by McKeown in a safety deposit box at the Pan American Bank in North Tampa. The other key to the box belonged to Henry Gonzales.
When Tampa voters elected a personal friend of Batista to be Mayor (Nick Nuccio), police put the heat on support for the revolutionaries. McKeown suggested moving the operation to Houston, and this was done by December of 1957.
When Tampa authorities discovered the operation had moved, Mayor Nuccio (who had a lot of law enforcement contacts) turned over their investigation to the Feds, who had been watching Prio for several years. Acting on information provided by the Tampa cops, the FBI set up a surveillance of McKeown from a house on the Seabrook waterfront.
· On February 18, 1958 they sprang the trap. McKeown’s yacht, the 38 ft “Buddy Dee” was seized by US Customs and the Coast Guard near Port Bolivar carrying a large gun shipment to Cuba. The Feds arrested McKeown for violating the US Neutrality Act. Arrested the same day were former Cuban President Carlos Prio, McKeown’s wife, and several others.
While he waited to go to trial, McKeown and former Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Carl Jarrett opened the J & M Drive Inn, a bar/marina located on Red Bluff Road at Taylor Lake (later known as Cecil’s Red Lantern). The money to open the club was provided by Prios through Barnard Baker. Because of McKeown’s charges, the place was licensed in Jarrett’s name.
McKeown received 5 years probation for gun-running in October of 1958. His yacht was seized, and once more he was nearly broke. However, Castro had the ship, and the invasion went forward as planned.
· On New Years Day of 1959, Castro’s revolutionaries arrived in Havana to find Batista had fled, and the casinos had been locked up. Two days later, the Houston Post carried a story titled “Convicted Gunrunner Hails Castro Victory” about McKeown.

· After the story was published, Jack Ruby came to visit McKeon. He offered McKeown $25,000 to introduce him to Castro. He told McKeown that he had some surplus Army jeeps in Shreveport he would like to sell – and asked McKeon to assist in getting Santo Trafficante Jr. released from a Cuban jail where he was being held. McKeon met with Ruby at the Edgewater Club in Kemah. Some say they made a deal, some say they didn’t. Anecdotal evidence is that Ruby rented a two story house on Kipp Street in Kemah and shipped the jeeps to Castro within a few weeks.
· In April, Castro arrived at Hobby Field on his last visit to America as a non-communist. His reason for visiting the US was to see Robert McKeown of Bacliff. The Houston Chronicle photographed Castro and McKeown together, and reported Castro had offered McKeon the job of Minister of Industry. McKeon’s probation officer and the FBI told McKeown he would be arrested if he tried to leave the US. Castro told the Chronicle reporter that without McKeon’s help, there would have been no revolution.
Apparently at this meeting, Castro agreed to some kind of ransom terms for Trafficante, but the Mafia suffered a major fiasco in trying to meet them. In early May, 1959, the Mafia allegedly stole $8.5 million from a Canadian bank and also stole a large number of weapons from the Ohio National Guard. A police investigation showed that mafiosi Norman Rothman had spent $6,000 of the money to rent airplanes to smuggle the arms to Castro’s forces in Cuba. On July 3, Rothman was arrested for this series of crimes.
· Within a year, Castro learned that the CIA was trying to kill him, and allied himself with the Soviet Union. McKeown, when he heard this, reportedly exploded. He knew that the possibility of regaining his Cuban business was now practically zero. Like other Cuban exiles, he believed that only a US invasion would suffice. The election of President John F. Kennedy was a further setback. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy made it obvious that he would not be launching an invasion of Cuba.
· The CIA however, continued to train exiles at camps in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. CIA-trained insurgent Sergio Arcacha Smith traveled to Houston in March of 1963 to work with ex-President Carlos Prio, Robert McKeown, and the Free Cuba Committee. The group met at a private club in Dickinson owned by Galveston’s Maceo Brothers. A trailer park compound with a rifle range was set up in Algoa (near Alvin) where potential Cuban liberation forces were indoctrinated and trained by Smith and others, including CIA operatives. Segio Arcacha Smith has been identified by biometrics as one of the men in the “three tramps” photo from Dealey Plaza. McKeown wasn’t personally concerned with the ideology, according to his daughter, Margaret Britt. He just wanted his business returned and was willing to fight for it.
· In September of ’63, a man calling himself “Leon Oswald” visited McKeown at his home on 1st Street in Bacliff, accompanied by a Latin man named Hernandez. The man asked about obtaining bazookas & machine guns. McKeown ran the pair off, but five minutes later they returned and Oswald asked McKeown to acquire 4 Savage .300 automatic rifles with telescopic sights, for which he would pay $10k. Sam Neill of League City was there and has corroborated the story in sworn statements to the FBI. Both said the man was identical to the Oswald they saw assassinated on television by Jack Ruby six weeks later.
· The next time McKeown was reportedly sighted comes from an FBI document that says that two Dallas homosexuals, Breck Wall and Joe Peterson, on Saturday, November 23, 1963, at about 6:00 pm, left their rooms at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, picked a man named William Seymour up at the Abundant Life Temple, and drove him to the Driftwood Motel in Galveston where they turned him over to David Ferrie, Robert McKeown, and others at about 11:00 pm. Seymour was to hide out at McKeown’s house in Bacliff, until a few days later when he would return to his sister’s home in Phoenix, Arizona. Jack Ruby called McKeown in Galveston around midnight of the 23rd to check on Seymour. William Seymour is the man who conspiracy theorists refer to as the “2nd Oswald”, an FBI informant and petty crook who was a ringer for Oswald. McKeown later denied this ever happened. Records showed the room had been rented on that date in the name of H. McAllister, McKeown’s old Navy alias.
· Two weeks later, McKeown’s probation expired and he was a free man once more. However, the JFK investigation brought him back to the FBI several times to answer more questions about Ruby and Oswald. After testifying to the Warren Commission, McKeown moved to Miami, where he and his wife remained close to former Cuban President Carlos Prio. In 1977, Prio allegedly killed himself because of business misfortunes.
· After losing a lung to cancer, McKeown moved in with his daughter in a Miami suburb. In 1989, Robert McKeown died there of emphysema.
· Did Bob McKeown participate in the plot to kill Kennedy? Nobody knows for sure. If he did, he certainly wasn’t in Dallas that day. He was visited by his probation officer, Joe Fields, an hour before the assassination took place. He was no admirer of Kennedy by all accounts. McKeown felt that as long as Kennedy was in office, he would never get his coffee cleaning business or casino shares back. If he didn’t help kill Kennedy, he wasn’t all broke up about the assassination. Despite all efforts, he never did regain his lost fortune in Cuba.
Even if Robert McKeon didn’t help kill Kennedy, he did do a lot of other things that make him one of the most colorful figures in the history of the Bayside area.

Most of us associate Thanksgiving with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast.  And that did happen – once.
The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to  England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped.  By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language.  He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags.
But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest.  But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought.
In 1637 near present day  Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside.  Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.
Cheered by their “victory”, the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered.  Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.
Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now  Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of “thanksgiving” to celebrate victory over the heathen savages.  During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls.  Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts — where it remained on display for 24 years.
The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War — on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
This story doesn’t have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast.  But we need to learn our true history so it won’t ever be repeated.  Next  Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their lives and raise their families.  They, also took time out to say “thank you” to Creator for all their blessings.

“The Federal Reserve Bank is not federal, has no reserves, and is not a bank. It is an illusion,  like Doctor Phil, who is not really a doctor, and whose name is not actually Phil.”

The world’s largest scam, explained:

The Federal Reserve Bank is not federal, has no reserves, and is not a bank. It is an illusion,  like Doctor Phil, who is not really a doctor, and whose name is not actually Phil.  The Fed is not a part of our government and is not controlled by our government. Our own government does not issue currency and does not print money. They do not control the printing of money. All of our money comes from the Federal Reserve. So when you hear someone say that Obama or the government is printing money like crazy, they are uninformed.
The Federal Reserve Bank is 100% owned by private banking interests. Several international banks control it and share in the profits that it earns by manipulating our financial markets.
When the Federal Reserve prints $10, they do not “give” it to our government. They loan it to the government and to the taxpayers. They charge us interest on this loan. So when they print $10, we immediately owe them  $11. Since this is more money than they have actually printed, we will always owe the Fed more money than they have ever actually printed. Paying off the National Debt is therefore a mathematical impossibility. This interest continues to snowball, until the amount of the debt finally surpasses the ability of the people to pay, and the Federal Reserve is left with only one option: Squeeze the people tighter and tighter in order to postpone the impending and unavoidable systemic collapse that must eventually occur.
That’s where the nation of Greece is right now. That’s where Iceland was a couple of years ago. That’s where Europe is heading; and that’s where we are about to go in America.
We are being squeezed down into lesser jobs and lower standards of living, in order to make sure that the Federal Reserve gets paid. “We will loan you some more money, but you’re going to have to cut back on living expenses so you can make higher and higher payments to us!”
Some people say that’s how capitalism works. Bullshit. This has nothing to do with capitalism.
It’s actually about an unconstitutional private group of billionaires who control our country.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.  If the Fed were actually a federal agency, the government could issue US legal tender directly, avoiding unnecessary interest-bearing debt to private middlemen who create the money out of thin air themselves. Among other benefits to the taxpayers, a truly “federal” Federal Reserve could lend to state and local governments interest-free, cutting the cost of infrastructure in half, restoring the thriving local economies of earlier decades. The trillions of dollars of US debt could be exchanged dollar for dollar with real US currency as the debt becomes due. There would be no inflation because there would be no additional currency in circulation. The tax burden could be cut if we took back the Fed and this would cause our economy to rapidly expand.
The Federal Reserve is the largest single creditor of the United States Government, and they are also the people who decide how much the average persons car payments are going to be, what their house payments are going to be, and whether they even have a job or not.
Not only do they have too much power, but that power is not granted by the Constitution.
They are illegal, interloping, blood-sucking parasites. They are a criminal enterprise.
Incidentally, this is the only common ground between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements.  Both groups know that the Federal banking system is the real problem.
On this, if nothing else, ultra conservatives and ultra liberals can find agreement.
In Iceland, when their own version of the Federal Reserve defaulted on loans owed to the IMF (International Monetary Fund – the global Fed), the voters banged pots and pans in the street until the government scheduled early elections. 90% of the voters said “no” to bailing out the banks. The president of Iceland afterward said “The banks are privately owned. The people are not responsible for private business failures.” The money-changers were aghast, and predicted Iceland would become a third-world country within a few months.  Instead, the economy of Iceland is recovering quite nicely. The economy is steadily growing and there is a boom in small businesses. Unemployment has dropped from a high of 9.9% down to 7.3% this year.
In Argentina, where the government defaulted to the tune of $100 billion, and rejected the idea of paying an insurmountable debt to foreign banks, there is a major economic boom going on. Things are going so well that the Argentine government is providing free laptops, health care, child care, pay raises and pension raises to all. Unemployment is at an all-time low.
In America, in 1963, President John Kennedy wanted an end to the Federal Reserve System, which had a strangle-hold on the United States and virtually the world. By a stroke of the pen, President Kennedy dismissed the Federal Reserve System and ordered the US government to restore its Constitutional mandate of controlling the currency. He ordered the Treasury Department to start printing debt-free US currency. President Kennedy was dead three weeks later. When President Lyndon Johnson took office, he immediately rescinded Kennedy’s order and the “Kennedy notes” were quietly and quickly removed from circulation.
In New York City, in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln showed up with his hat in his hand to ask the Fed banksters (then known as the Associated Banks) to lend money to the government in order to preserve the Union. The banks demanded 20-30%, thinking they had Lincoln over a barrel. The new president declined the usurious offer. An old friend of Lincoln’s, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago, was put in charge of solving the problem of how to finance the war. His solution was: “Get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender notes and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.” When Lincoln asked if the people of America would accept the notes Taylor said. “The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution.”  Lincoln agreed to try this solution and printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back to distinguish them from other notes.  He explained it thusly: “The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity.” The solution worked so well Lincoln was considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy. Lincoln’s opposition to the central banks is well documented. He would certainly have killed off the national banks monopoly had he not been killed himself only 41 days after being re-elected.
The same solution could and would work today. People are starting to realize that in the final analysis, the Federal Reserve banking system is the problem.
Thomas Jefferson stated, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
This prophecy by Jefferson is being fulfilled right now, in our generation.
It is time for the American people to demand that the Federal Reserve Banking system be made fully accountable to the people or abolished entirely. We should not have to pay interest on our own money. A private group of investors should not have absolute control over our national economy.  Our tax dollars should never be used to bail out private monopolies.
Neither political party is innocent. Both are guilty of selling our country to Wall Street, an act of treason for which they should be held fully accountable.

Dying To Get Into Jail, Old Man Knocks Off Bank for $1.00
James Verone had $16 in his pocket when he left home one morning a few weeks ago.
He cleaned up and put on his nicest shirt, then called a taxi.
Along the way, he stopped to mail a letter to the newspaper, then went on to the local bank, where he apologetically and politely robbed them of one dollar.
Then he sat down and waited for the cops.
At the age of 59, James Verone had found himself unemployed after layoffs eliminated his job as a delivery driver. He also lost his health insurance.
James looked for work, but no one wants to hire guys his age, and eventually, his unemployment benefits ran out.
He found a part-time job as a clerk in a small convenience store, but found it impossible to get by on $145 a week take-home pay.
For awhile, he lived off his savings and the remnants of his 401k Plan. Then he started to have health problems.
Arthritis, foot troubles, and back problems finally resulted in Verone applying for Social Security Disability, but he was denied.
Then, on top of his other illnesses, he discovered a painful lump growing on his chest.
He tried to get medical treatment, but the emergency rooms only referred him to doctors who insisted on being paid, money Verone simply didn’t have.
Believing that he had cancer, suffering from intense pain, and unable to find any medical help, James Verone carefully weighed his options. He first considered committing suicide, but decided that would create a burden on the few family members he had left – folks not much better off than himself. Then he had another idea: commit a crime and get set up with a place to stay, food and doctors.
So it was that James Verone decided to become a criminal. He had never before been in any trouble with the law.
Now he hoped to be booked as a felon and held in prison where he could be treated for his physical afflictions.
Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how. He handed the teller a polite note demanding one dollar. He calmly told her he would sit in the visitors area and wait for the police. When they arrived, he went along with them quietly and peacefully.
Verone says he’s not a political man. But he has a lot to say on the subject of medical care. “If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” said Verone.

James had high hopes for his incarceration.
The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest.
Verone expected to be charged with bank robbery. He would serve a few years in prison and get out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.
But it wasn’t to be. Because he only demanded $1, he was charged with larceny from a person. The count doesn’t carry as much jail time as bank robbery.
The bearded, gray-haired man plans to represent himself in court. He wants to prepare a statement for the judge and then take whatever active sentence he is given.
Verone is considering an ultimatum if the penalty isn’t great enough, he said.
The crime will happen again.
Since Verone’s arrest, his $100,000 bond has been reduced to $2,000. He doesn’t intend to pay it. His residence is now the county jail.
He has no regrets about the robbery or where it landed him. “I did what I had to in order to stay alive” he said.

Wall Street Protesters Are Legitimate American Heroes
The media wants you to think of the kids who are protesting at Occupy Wall Street and similar protests as wacky hippie types. They have zeroed in on the more lurid aspects of this massive upheaval, without paying serious attention to what the protests are really all about.
The Republicans are trying to portray Occupy Wall Street as being cooked up by President Obama and the Democratic Party. The Dems express “solidarity” with the protesters, hoping to somehow scoop up another new clique of potential voters to add to their “rainbow coalition.” All of them are wrong. All of them are cynical parts of the same fucked up establishment which is actually the target of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
These kids are getting clubbed on the head and pepper-sprayed. They are frequently arrested. Their names are being added to the “no fly” list, meaning they can never board a commercial airline flight. They are not being paid to be there, and many of them are there at great personal cost. They are doing this because they believe that the problems which have sent this country into the second Great Depression have been caused by Wall Street, The Federal Reserve Bank, and our corporate system. In short, they are patriotic Americans, doing what Americans do when they see injustice. Not only do they have the right to protest, but, in this case, they are absolutely correct. They have accurately identified the guilty party, and stand outside it‘s doors demanding justice for all. Wall Street is responsible for what is wrong in America.
If you are among the very wealthy, the last thing you want to see is more jobs for working Americans. More jobs cause inflation. Inflation eats away at the fortunes of the rich. More jobs also drive wages higher, increasing costs and reducing corporate profits.
As long as unemployment remains high, inflation will stay under control. Wages will stay low, reducing labor costs for the huge corporations who make up the companies traded on Wall Street. With inflation under control, the cost of borrowing for giant corporations remains low, and they are able to borrow – while fewer and fewer Americans can even qualify for a car loan.
And if you think the kids at Occupy Wall Street are Democrats, think again. Effigies of Obama are seen in the marches. These kids know that neither political party is willing to challenge Wall Street. There are no significant political figures from either party out there representing the protesters. Not a single politician there. Don’t you think Jesse Jackson or Sarah Palin would be there, soaking up the media exposure, if they thought they could get away with it?
Politicians of both parties have found that they are unwelcome and unwanted.
Hurray for those kids! You guys are right, the politicians ARE all crooks!
Of course all of the leading conservatives defend the Wall Street elite. But so do all of the leading liberals, and President Obama is at the top of the list. His top campaign contributor is Goldman Sachs. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and named an executive of JP Morgan Chase as his chief of staff.  Then he appointed Timothy Geithner Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner arranged the bailouts of Bear Sterns and AIG and supervised the massive bank bailout program. Obama is working for the dark side. He might talk about jobs, but he isn’t going to do a damned thing to actually create employment.
The President and his administration claim there is a recovery going on. This is based on the fact that “productivity” continues to improve. It’s often called a “jobless recovery.”
What does it mean when they say productivity has improved? It simply means that the profit margins have gone up. In this case, labor and borrowing costs have gone down, driving up “productivity.” So corporations make more profits because labor and borrowing costs have gone down. That’s what we are supposed to believe is a recovery. What a pile of bullshit!
That’s why this alleged recovery benefits no one but the very wealthy. And that’s why the kids on Wall Street are absolutely correct in targeting Wall Street.
Virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street has been embroiled in truly obscene criminal scandals that have impoverished millions and destroyed trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth, yet nobody goes to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a wacky flamboyant pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other wealthy and famous people. And he was self-employed, neither an actual broker or banker.
The rest of them, all of them, have gotten off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up the scams involving the mass sale of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities has ever been convicted. Their names are familiar: AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, Chase Bank and Morgan Stanley. These firms were directly involved in fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers intentionally hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses to executives. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the toxic mortgage deals it was selling. None of the executives who committed these crimes have ever faced justice.  Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and brokerages that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get away with it.
In fact, they have been treated to trillions of dollars of OUR money in the bailout schemes by both the Bush and Obama regimes, effectively rewarding them for their thefts!
Every now and then, the federal government has “fined” someone.  What good is it to fine a billionaire who stole $100 million a trifling $25,000?  If you really want to make them do right, send a few of them off to an east Texas “Pound ‘em in the ass” prison!
But our government can’t do that, because Wall Street has taken control of our government, both parties, both houses, and the presidency. They have overthrown our republic with dollars stolen from we the people. No matter who wins the nominations of the two major parties, Wall Street will own the eventual winner. And they will press on to their goal: 30% unemployment.
At 30% unemployment, corporate financial experts say, the proper balance of productivity and demand is reached, and large corporations enjoy maximum “productivity.”
At 30% unemployment, “will work for food” is no longer a slogan, it is a way of life.
The Wall Street protesters are the only group in America who are actively fighting this agenda.
Because these Wall Street protesters are right, all good Americans should support them.
At least they have the courage to stand up for the truth. And it is clearly the truth.
All of us have watched as huge corporations have swallowed up American small businesses. We have watched as salaries, pensions, and employee benefits have shrunk. We have watched American jobs outsourced to foreign countries in the name of “productivity.”
We have changed presidents and parties, but the one thing which remains constant is that our government is supporting those who are stealing the very bread out of our children’s mouths.
The protesters on Wall Street are fed up. They refuse to go along with it anymore.
Because they are NOT politicized, they all have different ideas about how to fix the problem, but they all agree that there IS a problem, and that the heart of the beast is Wall Street.
They are paying the price because they want to see Americans take back our country from the criminal financial gangs who have taken it over, lock stock and barrel.
They are surely as deserving of the same kind of honor and respect from this country as any of those who have served in the defense of liberty from Thomas Payne until today.
They are soldiers fighting against the enemies of America. They do so without pay, and against impossible odds. They are American patriots driven by a thirst for justice.
A new generation of heroes has arisen in New York City. Long live the USA.