Well CONgress is on break, and everyone's -- well, almost everyone's -- CONgressman and SINator has winged their way back to their home state.  Predominantly this is a time of local fund raising and back slapping. But there is the phenomenon of the Town Hall.  A usually staged setup where the politician's supporters show up and for an hour the politician who are already a pro at schmoozing the crowd makes the "public" feel like their CONgressman is alright while the rest of the elected oaficials are crooks.

This time a tea party has broken out.  As you have read the past few days on Freedom's Phoenix, Town Halls are getting downright testy.  Perhaps even dangerous to one's health if elected.  How ironic the topic chosen for these Town Hall's is health care.  The elected have already created the Social Security bucket to funnel money out of your paycheck and into their pockets.  They have already created the Medicare bucket.  The Medicaid bucket.  Now they want to create the Healthcare bucket.  And when that gets full enough of your earnings it will get dumped into a few pockets.  And you will have less and in the end be left with nothing.

So Saturday I decided to go to my CONgressman's Town Hall.  Oh, not to attend. I could care less what he has to say inside.  But to wave a sign.  My CONgressman is John Shadegg.  And I already had a sign made last year when he betrayed his oath of office to the American people for yet the thousandth time.  My sign read "SShadegg Bailout Traitor" on one side and "SShadegg $700,000,000,000" on the other.  I will never forget.  Thief!  Crook!!!

Now the Town Hall didn't start until 11AM.  But I wanted to get a head start, and since my bank was a few blocks past the event location I figured I would leisurely pass through, check out where to park and any obvious media and police hot spots.  Grab some cash and then return.  It was ten minutes before 10AM when I went by.  There were already cars lined up the length of the street and more pouring into the parking lot.  I knew this was going to be interesting.  It was going to be big.

The auditorium was at a school.  I hoped my friends who pack guns didn't get into trouble if they showed up.  I hurried to the bank and upon returning parked in the shade near the main intersection where most of the cars would come from.  Chugged down two bottles of iced tea...it is Phoenix, AZ, it will get darned hot walking the picket line.  For the next 75 minutes I greeted passerbys, hundreds of cars coming to the event, and plenty of others passing by on the busy main street.  People were coming up to me offering bottled water.  There were many, many people packing the auditorium and they finally would allow no one else in.  Most of the patriot types were perfectly happy to remain outside waving American flags and Gadsden flags.  Really nice Gadsden flags.  Plenty of homemade banners and signs in evidence.  No organized signs were seen by me.  This was not the GOP out front.  Maybe they were inside.  But the local GOP is not a fan of neocon Shadegg. 

I have done a lot of pickets.  A lot.  I have often chuckled at being flipped off or having curses yelled at me.  This time was very, very different.  I had people come up and ask me about my sign.  I had horn honks, thumbs up, hand waves.  I never receives one single negative comment.  Not one.  Shadegg is in trouble. 

In talking to people showing up we had Democrats, we had a lot of Republicans.  We had people who were really pissed off.  I did my best to plant the seed that Shadegg is going to try to shift the blame on Obama.  But if his vote was needed you can count of it being there in support of stealing from your wallet.  He has a history of that.  I didn't get any argument from people.  I only had one lady who agreed with me on most of what I said tell me she supported the original bailout because the banks would fail without it.  I pointed out to her the banks that received the money are not the banks people have deposits in, but banks in name only.  They are corporations that were granted bank status because of favorable regulatory rules that allowed them to loot the stock markets, and now that their investments have gone bad they are using you to bail out their unwise decisions.  She went away unsure, but still believing without the bailout the stock market would crash...pssst, it will anyway. 

I ran into people who came from CONgressmen Harry Mitchell's and Ed Pastor's Town Halls held earlier in the morning.  They said Mitchell's drew a good crowd, but Pastor's was nearly empty. 

About 11:10AM I moseyed down the side street to the entrance where the Town Hall was taking place. I joined the throng of protestors outside.  Lots of pamphleting was taking place.  Frankly it was fun.  Nobody seemed to care they couldn't get inside --- because quite frankly who wants to.  What amazed me was for the I am guessing couple of thousand people that showed up [the news media estimates 700], I did not see a single Scottsdale cop or cop car the hour plus I was picketing two hundred yards away at the intersection.  Not even a drive by.  And when I got to where the entrance was there were two uniformed cops, two squad cars, one detective and a couple of fire engines who showed up in case anyone standing outside needed medical assistance (or to hose us down if we started rioting -- just kidding.  Just). 

Ed Vallejo was there offering water to the crowd.  Eric and Sandy Cartridge were there handing Freedom's Phoenix items and other stuff out to  the crowd -- THANK YOU!  Chris was there.  And Laura was our spy on the inside. Sorry if I missed anyone. There were a few hundred people outside there folks. And they knew enough to not care about being inside.  Very little media in attendance. 

I split at 11:40PM.  My work done.  I hope you will give  your elected piece of crap a mindful if he deigns to give you a forum.  Don't let it stop you from giving any other elected crap hound the same if they are within driving distance.  And make a sign...because you sure as heck won't be given a microphone.  I know in Phoenix, CONgressman Jeff Flake's Town Hall is Monday. ;-)