Three kinds of Democrats

Looking across the political spectrum you have Democrats, you have Liberal Democrats and then you have the Moonbats. Regular plain no hyphens Democrats have feet that touch the ground, a strong grip on common sense and usually a sharp if somewhat cynical sense of humor. They usually drive American cars, some even drive pick up trucks. They often talk with a regional accent and even hint at blue collar or country heritage, they don’t blush or feel queasy when they say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag or observe common and accepted patriotic rites and gestures. Real Democrats think Republicans are tight wads who begrudge the poor a minimal level of social services but are not hopeless, just inhibited by their party’s terminal stuffiness. Real Democrats love a good fight, in fact feel uncomfortable if things get too lovie dovie, because they know in their hearts the Liberals and Republicans are cunning upper middle class smoothies who are always willing to go bipartisan if it screws the working class.

Liberal Democrats read the New Republic and other slick paper up scale publications Vanity Fair and hip life style and how to magazines, they like you to think they can speak at least one foreign language, dress with a touch of old money style or what they think is old money style combined with a bit of hipster chic and they are never at a loss for fluent cocktail party chat. They never own an American car but they are up on current food fads, food no-no’s and know when certain things are hot and when they are not. While they can always come up with politically correct reasons to look down on blue collar, Southern and rural folks, they are helpless before minority ethnic firebrands and almost always get rolled even when they know better.

A Liberal Democrat will do everything possible to push up Black and Latino college enrollment percentages while at the same time be coldly ruthless in squashing the percentage of Asian heritage students. Only a liberal could tell Asians they have been demoted to White and do so with a straight face. A Liberal Democrat will also ignore bad news, like the very high drop out rate of minority kids who are enrolled without the academic background to keep them enrolled. The single worst moral flaw common to Liberals is their willingness to let good intentions trump good results. The other thing Liberals do is run the word “unconscionable” into the ground. Nobody to their right or left ever uses the word. It is their word and theirs alone.

When push comes to shove in foreign policy Liberals will spot dictators and terrorists one chance to roll them. That is how they demonstrate their diplomatic skills. The next time the bad guys try to roll them, they will bomb the bastards, even send in the Marines. Bill Clinton actually bombed more countries in his eight years than George W. Bush. Liberals will always come up with a “multilateral” strategy that will leave the the heavy lifting to the American Military with token assistance from a small number of nations and the advice of those who are unable to do anything but talk. The deepest and darkest fear of older Liberal Democrats is that somebody will look back and discover the Vietnam War actually was their idea.

What makes me real nervous today is that President Obama has rediscovered and brought us the old liberal dream of government by our “Best and brightest.” He can be forgiven because he was an infant during the Kennedy and Johnson years. That time, the best and brightest fucked up big time and then denied they had anything to do with it. Right now the Harvard and Goldman Sachs alumni in his government seem to be doing the same thing to the American economy and maybe militarily in Afghanistan too. I’ve seen this movie before, it ends in tears.

Now we come to the Moonbats. These are people whose feet don’t touch the ground. Their Burkenstocks, Ugh’s and sandals might, but they don’t. Facts, reality, common sense and rationality have no measurable effect on them, ever. Where real Democrats view Republicans as tight wads and Rotary Club stalwarts while Liberal Democrats look on them as tiresome but energetic “C” students, even if they attended a prestigious college or didn’t sit in the back row snickering, mocking or peppering the good students with catcalls and spitballs. Moonbats see Republicans as criminals at best, by definition both ignorant and stupid, if not demented. In the worst case they view Republicans as a species of hateful and dangerous sub human primates that should be exterminated.

To be fair it should be added that Moonbats consider ordinary Democrats as little better than Republicans. If you doubt this, just try to imagine a Berkeley Moonbat trying to talk with a Teamsters Business Agent. Liberals Democrats are almost the very worst possible thing to Moonbats since they could and did vote for Bill Clinton and then compound it by voting for Hillary. The Moonbats not only want to jail George W. Bush for the Iraq War and not singing Kumbaiya with Osama Bin Lauden, they would put every single so called liberal Democrat that voted for the war in the cell next to him.

The pure and ardent Moonbats fit the bemused description George Orwell wrote in the 1940’s about the far left fringes of Britain’s Labour Party -- they burn with odd enthusiasms, they dress in awkward and often impractical clothes, they advocate a wide range of distinctly minority opinions, they are often eccentric in their dietary preferences and frequently have highly unorthodox religious views. They combine a highly demanding set of ethics on almost everything except sexual behavior with the aggressive moral imperatives and heresy suppressing zeal of a Counter Reformation Dominican Friar freshly arrived in town with a wagonful of seasoned firewood and a list of suspects.

Real Democrats sit down to a steak at Peter Luger’s without the slightest moral scruple. They also gobble up bratwursts at a NFL tailgate party and drink name brand beer without shame. A Liberal Democrat can eat sushi and allowing for a few moral hiccups, a Liberal Democrat could even go so far as to eat veal. Goose liver or Fois Gas, in its common French name, would never ever pass their lips unless Anthony Bourdaine was present and ready to denounce them as philistine idiots if they didn’t eat it. While a few might eat free range organic meat and get away with it, most true Moonbats pose as or claim to be vegans or vegetarians. Many of them go far beyond those two diets. adding to them every sort of marginal food fetish. They attribute many good things to various rare fruits or vegetables, they believe in the near miraculous power of rare and exotic tinctures and extracts, they of course have not a shred of scientific proof for any of this, but Moonbats still passionately believe it anyway, especially if it rooted in the most distant third world folklore. The one trouble with these bean, grain and greens diets is the unfortunate side effect of considerable if not heroic flatulence. In the human gastrointestinal system the typical vegan diet produces enough methane gas to power a small car. Raw grains, organic heirloom beans and Brussels Sprouts as a steady diet could create enough natural methane gas inflate a Goodyear blimp.

The Las Vegas Mob Mo.

Buried deep in the fine print of the current Economic Recovery act are a cruelly wonderful collection of absolutely necessary life enrichment projects that will goose the economy back to life and enrich the cultural and recreational life of hundreds of cities and communities. There are bike and walking paths on old railway right of way’s, there are beaches where citizens can take their dogs and allow them to run free, there are restored landmark homes and commercial buildings, railroad stations restored to gaudy three color Victorian glory, 19th century churches converted into hipster friendly restaurants, wine bars and hang outs.

Of all the life enriching projects one stands out. The City of Las Vegas Nevada proposes a national museum of organized crime. This project jumps off the page at you, it’s not just another city beautification dream. This museum grabs you by the lapels and says in soft but ominous voice, “You got a problem with that?”

Please join me in my time travel speedster and let me give you the highlights from a long review of the newly complete National Museum of Organized Crime, or as it is called by everyone in Las Vegas, MOB MO.

You approach the domed three story monument on a long fountain lined arcade. The large building is in tasteful classic forms inspired by the 16th century Italian architect and author Antonio Paladio’s Venetian country villas. Three balanced wings extending from the central rotunda but the finish and feel is very elegant Ocean Liner Arte Deco, reflecting the 1930's golden age of organized crime.

On entering the building you proceed to the soaring rotunda. In niches in the four piers that support the dome are bronze busts of Alfonse “Scarface” Capone, Meyer Lansky, Giuseppe “Joe Bananas” Bonanno and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. A pair of marble staircase fall gracefully into the rotunda. Each of the wings is dedicated to one branch of organized crime. To the right is the Cosa Nostra wing honoring the titans of Italoamerican crime, to the left is a wing dedicated to the great Jewish criminals while passing through the rotunda is the Gangsters All wing honoring a wide variety of historic American felons, thieves, murders and criminal giants. In the basement is the Garage, which has a collection of thirty important automobiles. Additionally, there are a bookstore on one side of the entrance vestibule and On the other side, a delightful New York style trattoria, “Mama Gambino’s.” The New York Chopped Salad and the hand made veal and spinach ravioli are amazing as are the authentic scungilli fritters. (Italian for meat of the spiral shellfish Conch. Pronounced: Skun'GEE'lee.)

In the cosa nostra wing are some fascinating displays and life size portraits of leading mobsters. In the center of the grand gallery is the barber chair where Albert Anastasia got whacked. At the far end of gallery is a fresco of Joey’s Clam House the night Crazy Joe Gallo was machined gunned. On the second floor on the right side of the gallery is a large hands on display of Bootlegging and Speakeasies. On the right side is a definitive display of weapons of the Mafia, s superb collection of pistols, sub machine guns, sawed off shotguns, knives of every sort including beautifully made Parthenopian (The region around Naples, Italy) stellettos, switchblades, and "butterfly knives. Also are other things like car bombs, garote's and special piano wire implements and last but not least baseball bats and other clubs. On the third floor is a dazzling 1930’s night club based on the elegant main dinning room of the French Line flagship, Le Normandie. The rest of the floor is dedicated to fashion displays of famous mistress, or as they were called at the time, “Gun Molls.” Strippers and whores, moonlighting librarians, society girls out for trills and of course leading Strippers and torch singers.

Across the rotunda in the wing of Jewish Gangsters is a large display honoring Las Vegas promoter, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. This display shows the great compelling vision of the New York born and bred mobster. On the other side of the hall is a large display dedicated to the long fruitful career of Meyer Lansky (born Majer Suchowliski in Poland), the J. P. Morgan of crime. It includes his 1960 Plymouth sedan and a reproduction of the modest home he lived in Miami in his sunset years. At the far end of wing is a café, actually a reproduction of small deli in the Bronx where all the favorite delicatessen comfort food is available, soups, sandwiches, desserts and other Gotham City favorites. Additionally, the Jewish wing includes a display noting that the last big time Capo of New York crime, John “The Teflon Don” Gotti was in fact half Jewish by virtue of his mother who was the daughter of a minor Jewish gangster.

In the central wing, "A Diversity of Gangsters Hall" are two displays: On the right hand side, Irish gangsters are remembered. The Hell’s Kitchen gangs, the Five Points gang and the O’Bannions of Chicago and their cohort "Machine Gun" Kelly. Included is a tableau of Valentine Day’s Massacre where Capone’s guys settle score once and for all with the Northside O’Bannions. Across the way, on the left hand side, the outlaws of the old west are honored: The James Brothers, the Dalton Gang, John Wesley Harden, Butch Casady and the Sundance Kid, additionally their enemies are also noted: Judge Roy Bean, Judge Parker, the Texas Rangers and the Earp Brothers.

Upstairs there are displays on other ethnic gangs: the Chinese Triads, the Japanese Yukusa, the Filipino “White Flower" Gang, Chicano gangsters, the African American Crips and the Bloods, American Indian and French Canadians bootleggers and smugglers, red neck moonshiners from the South and river pirates from the great Mississippi.

On the top floor are various financial crooks: Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, Mr. Ponzi and Mr. Madoff his greatest successor. Then there is a fascinating display of the great bookies and gamblers, centering on Arnie Arnstein and how he fixed the 1919 World Series and led to the conviction of seven players on the Chicago White Sox.

The final display is in honor of little known felons, the Midwest’s unique and entprising criminal figures, the German American and Scandinavian American Margarine runners. These bold Lutheran mobsters in their hot Studebakers and Hudson Hornets would smuggle colored margarine from Des Moines and Chicago into Wisconsin and Minnesota where state laws made it a felony to possess or traffic in margarine. The Supreme Court threw out the anti margarine laws in the early 1960's.

All in all, the tasteful museum provides a look at a colorful if lethal slice of American life.

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