When I was a child my mother warned me about people who lie, exaggerate, steal, take advantage of others, capitalize on the misery of unfortunates, and say and do stupid things. “Avoid them,” she said. “They’re toxic and people like that will not do you any good, just the opposite.”

Whenever I watch the current crop of presidential candidates, members of Congress, certain administration appointees, Antifa, environmental extremists, Hollywood blowhards, economists, the media, and educators, etc. I can’t help but think of my mother’s advice.

In no particular order I’ve listed some folks my mom would have preferred I avoid. OK, this is obviously MY list, not one I plucked off the Internet or out of a book or magazine. To avoid becoming too lengthy I left a lot of folks off of who belong on it. You may notice the list is loaded with liberals, which is as it should be. Hillary and Bill Clinton didn’t make it because, well…they’re just too obvious. Everybody knows they are the two most corrupt and deceitful people ever unleashed on the American public.

The national pickings were low-hanging fruit, but next week I’ll list the Nassau County scoundrels, who, in my opinion, through their words and actions damage our neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and our local culture. If you’d like to add a name of a local for consideration please email it to me at davidnscott@bellsouth.net and tell me why you think that person is screwing things up locally and I’ll certainly consider it. I won’t mention your name unless you insist I do so. However, please do not send me the name of a neighbor you dislike because he violated your HOA rules by planting corn in his front yard and threw a party and didn’t invite you; someone whose kid bullied yours at school; or the gal that hit on your husband at the PTA meeting. This is not a forum for personal vendettas. I’m looking for public figures that you think are making a mess out of our local community and why.

After that I’ll compile a list of those locals who I think are contributing to building a strong, vibrant community, and again would like your nominees.

Here’s the national ones that my mom would prefer I avoid and would not want me to invite to Sunday lunch:

James Comey, the disgraced former FBI chief, would be at the top of my mom’s list. This is a guy that was supposed to be the most honest man in America, but who Americans of all political persuasions equally despise because he betrayed them and the good folks in the bureau he headed. The Democrats hate him because they say his public comments on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails tilted the 2016 election against her. Conservatives and Republicans hate him because his corrupt three-year phony-baloney Russian collusion-instigated investigation of the Trump Administration slowed Trump’s agenda and cost taxpayers millions. The State Department’s IG report has proven Comey, and his co-conspirators, to be dishonest, arrogant, pompous liars, and narcissistic jerks who blemished the FBI’s reputation and proved harmful to America. He’s a despicable person who should be prosecuted for his crimes and may yet be.

Beto O’Rourke, this arm-flapping, bug-eyed bizarro from Texas, is an unemployed politician who appears to struggle with mental health issues. This whacko presidential wannabe of Irish decent keeps apologizing for being white and claims he’s really a Mexican. He says that Trump is a “white supremacist” and that all Americans are not only inherently racist, but responsible for world-wide climate change damage. He offers no evidence, no facts beyond his subjective interpretation of Trump’s comments, nor can he backup his stupid racism or climate change comments. He says if elected he’ll tear down all border barriers between Mexico and the U.S., provide citizenship to the millions of illegals currently in the U.S., and shamelessly used the tragic shootings in El Paso as a money-raising campaign platform. O’Rourke is also advocating a government “buy-back” program for guns. I’ve never purchased a firearm from the federal government, have you? How can it buy-back something it didn’t sell? O’Rourke, who fills the need for an idiot in every village, is a deranged ghoul who needs to be on a leash or locked in a padded room.

Bernie Sanders is another Democrat primary contender who could use serious mental observation. This delusional Ebenezer Scrooge doppelganger, who talks like he gargles with razor blades, is a Brooklyn-born communist who never held a full-time job until he was 40 years old and that was when he was elected mayor of Burlington, VT. He’s lived off the taxpayer ever since and is now worth millions of dollars and boasts three houses. Go figure! He resembles the old-timey Yiddish seltzer man, bellowing from his hunched over position that if elected everything in America will be free – well, except its citizens.

Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, Cory “Spartacus” Booker, Joe “Sleepy” Biden are no different than the loopy Sanders and O’Rourke along with the other 20 or so mental dwarfs in this traveling comedy Democratic presidential primary tour. Hardcore Democrats supporting this clown-car contingent are similar to fanatical professional wrestling fans who refuse to believe that it’s all phony.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib: These three deviant Democrat Congresswomen would be star attractions in the freak shows on midways of long-ago state fairs. However, I doubt even P.T. Barnum or Leroy “Believe It Or Not” Ripley, would be bold enough to feature this bizarre trio, they would be too preposterous. Carney barkers standing in front of their midway attraction would shout: “Come on in ladies and gentlemen! The show’s continuous, it never ends.  And you won’t believe your eyes or your ears! They’re stupid, anti-Semitic, liars, cheats, crooks – one’s a terrorist-supporter, another and incestuous bigamist, and the other dumber than a barrel of hair — and they’re all profane anti-Americans!” And those are just a few of the more moderate labels these aberrant and dangerous women wear.

George Soros is a liberal billionaire, anti-Semitic Jewish atheist and con artist who bankrolled the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among other far left causes including Antifa and groups that support mass migration into the United States and litigate against President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. This miserable billionaire’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) is responsible for financing numerous Neo-Marxist organizations including some $2.6 billion to advance left-wing priorities which in reality promote feminism, militant Islam, illegal drugs, prostitution, and homosexuality. He has attacked Jews, falsely claiming they cause anti- Semitism. This vile leftist’s current net worth is estimated to be about $8 billion, not including the $18 billion of his wealth that he transferred to his organizations in 2017. Calls for his arrest due to currency manipulation and other crimes have reverberated around the world. Soros has been a major player in the European immigrant crisis having donated one half billion dollars for the transport and resettlement of six million illegal Muslim aliens in Europe rather than to Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States, richer countries, geographically closer, with a common Islamic culture for Muslim migrants. According to “Open Borders, Inc: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction,” a new book by Michelle Malkin. Soros organizations such as the OSF has doled out more than $50 million to the ACLU to end mass incarceration. In one particular instance, Soros’ group gave $100,000 to ACLU’s Idaho chapter to “conduct outreach, strengthen protections, and empower immigrant, refugee, Muslim, and indigenous communities in Idaho who are feeling threatened in a culture of rising hate.” The Center for Constitutional Rights enjoyed a donation of $530,000 from OSF in 2016 to support its “Human Rights Movements and Institutions” program. The Center for Constitutional Rights was involved in a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrants turned away at the southern border by agents tasked with preventing asylum fraud.

Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson are both charismatic and eloquent and could have done a lot of good had they chosen to do so. Instead they chose to become con-men and shake-down artists, playing a blame game and going on incessantly about how white racism is to blame for all the perceived wrongs in the black community. Neither of these hypocritical charlatans has done a thing to advance the cause of any minority group, much less blacks, instead they only advanced the size of their own bank accounts. To demonstrate how low the Democrat party has fallen, its current crop of presidential primary candidates fall all over themselves to appear next to Sharpton at public events. The late Booker T. Washington a great American and black educator, could have been describing both Jackson and Sharpton, when he said: “There is a class of colored people who make a living of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public, learning that they can make a living out of their troubles. These people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee are two of the dimmest and most dishonest people in America and unfortunately both of these Democrats are serving in the U.S. Congress. Columnist Michelle Malkin described Waters as “..one of the most self-serving, hate-filled, race-obsessed politicians in America” but her portrayal could appropriately describe both of these despicable women.  This year Waters publicly urged people to attack members of the Trump Administration in public places and “tell them they aren’t welcome, anymore, anywhere.” This dangerous loser calls for ongoing disruption, grievance, and special identity demands through false accusations that conservatives are racist right-wing boobs. Her solution for perceived societal problems is violence. Ms. Lee, who may be the dumbest person in Congress and Texas, wanted to know why the rover spacecraft that landed on Mars didn’t take a picture of the American flag that the astronauts left there in 1969. She also thinks the U.S. Constitution is 400 years old and wants hurricanes named after black people. Lee said when weather officials name hurricanes they should “try to be more inclusive of African-American names.” Can’t you picture the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantour, microphone in hand, standing in the driving rain on Jax Beach saying to the camera: “This killer storm – Shaniqua — is barreling toward Jacksonville …” Does she think that Hurricane Shaniqua would fill young blacks with racial pride? OK, I don’t really care, but if the weather people do that then shouldn’t we also have a few storms named Buffy, Bambi and Skipper?

Other insolent, abusive, vociferous, dim, infantile, hysterical and venomous anti-American extremists who belong on the list but didn’t make it this time due to space limitations include New York Times columnist and “economist” Paul Krugman; NY Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger; CNN commentators Chris Matthews, Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow; entertainers Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Alec Baldwin, Rosie O’Donnell, and Robert Die Niro, all scatological rappers, and sadly, too many more.

Next week the local “Least Wanted” list.

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Profound Coaching Comments: “The only difference between me and General Custer is that I have to watch the films on Sunday.” Rick Venturi, Northwestern football coach.

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And Now For Something Completely Different: Nobel Peace Prize nominee and newly arrived Amelia Island resident Ken Timmerman, will be the guest speaker at the next “We The People” event to be held Monday, October 7 from 5-7 p.m. at the Osprey Village Wellness Center.

Ken, who was a member of the 2016 Trump National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, will speak on “The World According to Trump: A National Security Perspective.”  Beer, wine, and heavy hors d’ oeuvres will be served, and admission is $30 per person.

To make reservations contact Deb Boelkes by October 4 at 904/310-9602 or Deb.Boelkes@BWRising.com.

Ken, who is a nationally recognized investigative reporter and war correspondent, was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in 2006 for the work he has done to expose Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Since 1995, he has run the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (iran.org) and regularly meets with Iranian dissidents overseas. He lectured on Iran at the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Intelligence Training Academy, JCITA, from 2010-2016.

His latest book, ISIS BEGINS: a novel of the Iraq war, is based on recent trips to Mosul and Amman, Jordan.

For the past thirty years, Ken has covered both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, interviewing radical imams and would-be suicide bombers in Gaza, while reporting on a plight of Israeli citizens during the Hezbollah missile attacks of the 2006 war. As a young reporter in 1982, he was taken hostage by Palestinian guerilla fighters in West Beirut.

Famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said of Ken, “I have spent my life tracking the murderers of yesterday. Mr. Timmerman is tracking the murderers of tomorrow.”

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Drinking, Dining & Dancing: With fewer tourists prowling the beaches and downtown, local Amelia island bars and eateries are once again offering annual incentives to entice locals to venture to their joints more often. The Sandbar & Restaurant at Main Beach is featuring $8.00 lunch specials Monday through Friday from 11 a.m.to 2 p.m. that includes fish & chips, an eight-inch wood fired pizza, soup and ½ a sandwich, and a shrimp entrée with a choice of a side. For college and professional football fans it features a weekend “Tailgate” menu with loaded cheese fries for $10, a soft pretzel stick for $8, pizza egg rolls, $8, mini corn dogs, $8, mozzarella sticks, $8 and what I think is the best deal of all – three sliders (pork, chicken, or beef) for 10 bucks. (On a personal note, there’s no way I am ever paying eight bucks for a pretzel no matter how big or where it’s served. Most of the pubs on the island are serving them and I understand the margins are terrific, but Hey, folks, it’s just flour and salt.) The South Fetcher Surf Restaurant & Bar is advertising that it’s once again under new management and unveiled a weekday happy hour that includes a 3-6 p.m. Happy Hour with $2 & $2.75 domestic draught beers, one-half off well drinks, $3 house wine, $1 off bottled beer and a dollar off appetizers. They also say they have a new menu and will feature live music during happy hour. I assume the reason I discovered an invitation tucked under a wiper blade is because my car sports a Florida State University license plate. The invitation alerted me that FSU fans meet weekly at the Sandbar & Restaurant to “socialize and support our team for away game gatherings.” Those games are September 14, October 12, October 19, November 9 and November 30. For more information contact Tom and Stacie Linley at tom@linley.us or call them at 850/510-7818. Still the best peel and eat shrimp deal anywhere around is the Salty Pelican’s $10 for a half-pound and $17 for a full pound, a price that other area restaurants haven’t come close to matching. I’ve heard the Pelican sells enough of those eight buck pretzels to subsidize the low shrimp prices, so I’m encouraging folks to keep munching those pricey pretzels so I can keep enjoying those tasty shrimp.