Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November. In the wake of the stinging loss in Massachusetts, there was a moment when the president and the Democratic leadership seemed to realize the reality of the health-care situation. Yet like some seductive siren of Greek mythology, the lure of health-care reform has arisen again.

As pollsters to the past two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively, we feel compelled to challenge the myths that seem to be prevailing in the political discourse and to once again urge a change in course before it is too late. At stake is the kind of mainstream, common-sense Democratic Party that we believe is crucial to the success of the American enterprise.

Bluntly put, this is the political reality:

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

They describe the lastest Obama salvo as nothing more then fighting the last war…not the new one. The last one is lost already and they have so deluded themselves, so insulated themselves, they can’t even see the cliff approaching:

…the country is moving away from big government, with distrust growing more generally toward the role of government in our lives. Scott Rasmussen asked last month whose decisions people feared more in health care: that of the federal government or of insurance companies. By 51 percent to 39 percent, respondents feared the decisions of federal government more. This is astounding given the generally negative perception of insurance companies.

CNN found last month that 56 percent of Americans believe that the government has become so powerful it constitutes an immediate threat to the freedom and rights of citizens. When only 21 percent of Americans say that Washington operates with the consent of the governed, as was also reported last month, we face an alarming crisis.

Health care is no longer a debate about the merits of specific initiatives. Since the spectacle of Christmas dealmaking to ensure passage of the Senate bill, the issue, in voters’ minds, has become less about health care than about the government and a political majority that will neither hear nor heed the will of the people.

The authors also bring up that the only way to turn this failure around is bring the best idea’s of both parties together such as “such as purchasing insurance across state lines, malpractice reform, incrementally increasing coverage, initiatives to hold down costs, covering preexisting conditions and ensuring portability” and leave all the backroom dealmaking, armtwisting, and the corrupt attempts at getting this bill passed (ie reconciliation or holding no vote at all) behind.

But Obama and his cronies have blinders on, and whether they know it yet or not, they WILL be falling off that cliff.

Still, there were a few detecting a distinct aroma about the affair. 911 repeatedly told Sikes to utilize the NHTSA recommended, and amazingly simple solution in case of SUA (sudden unintended acceleration)… either shift to neutral, or turn off the engine.

In both cases, Sikes refused to respond, or indicated he would not take that advice.

Over a 23-minute period the 911 dispatcher repeatedly pleaded with Sikes to shift into neutral. He simply refused and then essentially stopped talking to her except to say that he thought he could smell his brakes burning.

“I thought about” shifting into neutral, Sikes said at a televised press conference the day after the incident. But “I had never played with this kind of a transmission, especially when you’re driving and I was actually afraid to do that.” Sikes, who has driven the car for two years, also said “I figured if I knocked it over [the gear knob] the car might flip.”

He told CNN, “I was afraid to try to [reach] over there and put it in neutral. I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands–94 miles an hour in a Toyota Prius is fast.” Yet for much of the ride he had a phone in one hand. And this is especially interesting: Most gear shifts are on the console, requiring the hand to drop to shift. But, as this image shows, in the 2008 Prius it’s located on the dash within inches of the steering wheel precisely to allow shifting without the hand leaving the wheel. I sat in one and did it easily.

Another unique feature of the shift is that it’s amazingly simple, with only forward, reverse, neutral and “B.” The express purpose of “B” is to slow the car while preserving the brakes, as in a steep descent. Sikes actually could have shifted into two different gears.

Moreover, why would Sikes describe shifting gears as somehow “playing with the transmission.” And apparently he’s never shifted while the vehicle was moving and thought somehow a gear shift could flip his car.

The dispatcher also pleaded with him repeatedly to hit the ignition button. Again, he says he was simply afraid to.

Early in the press conference he said it was because “There was too much traffic to just shut the car off. You know, turn off the vehicle and get hit in the rear.” But that’s always true when you slow down; just make sure nobody’s right behind you. Later he switched gears, pun not intended, saying he was afraid the steering wheel and wheels would lock up.

Instead, Sikes insists he was “laying on the brakes”, and it did nothing. Well, Fumento covers that bit of exaggeration as well.

Others have made similar claims, so Car & Driver magazine recently put them to the test. They found a V-6 Camry at full throttle could be stopped at 435 feet. But to really test the claim, they used a powerful 540-horsepower supercharged Roush Stage 3 Mustang. It took 903 feet, but stop it did. By comparison the Prius can only muster 110 anemic ponies. Further, as Newton’s Second Law reminds us, weight is inherently a factor in slowing a moving object. The Prius weighs about two-thirds of what the Roush does.

But while these other cars were brought to full stop, Sikes says he couldn’t even reduce his speed. A video on the Web also demonstrates a 2008 Prius easily slowed to a stop with the accelerator fully depressed.

An assisting officer said he saw Sikes apply the brakes and smelled them. But of course that was only when he drew close to the vehicle. The officer doesn’t know what Sikes was doing before he arrived on the scene.

To make the web of deceit even more dense, Sikes insisted he attempted to reach down and phyically pry the supposed stuck gas pedal up from the floor…. saying “… It didn’t move at all; it was stationary.”

As sleuth Fumento notes, he couldn be bothered to shift into neutral, three inches away from the steering wheel while holding a cell phone, but he can reach down and fiddle with the pedal at 90+ miles per hour? So Fumento decided to duplicate his claims:

I tried to imitate Sikes’ alleged effort in a 2008 Prius. From the front bottom of the steering wheel to the front bottom of the accelerator in up position it’s 28.5 inches; while fully deployed it’s 2.5 inches farther away. I have average-length arms (33-inch shirt sleeve) and no gut. But even though the steering wheel was as flush to the dashboard as it goes, it prevented me from all but touching the accelerator in the up position.

To reach behind a deployed accelerator and get any kind of a grip you’d have to add at least three more inches. In my case, it required squashing my face against the radio and completely removing my eyes from the road. Only the tallest men could physically do what Sikes claimed he did and no press accounts refer his being exceptionally tall. But to settle this issue (albeit not the others), Sikes would simply have to sit in his Prius and show he could reach behind the pedal while it was fully depressed. Why has nobody asked him to do so? Moreover, even for an orangutan it would be an incredibly awkward move for somebody afraid to pop a car into neutral or hit the ignition button.

Once Fumento came to the conclusion this was all a bunch of hoo hah… he turned to motivation. 15 minutes of fame? What?

How about cash? In these times, that’s a hefty motivation, and certainly Congress and Obama’s WH have been painting a huge bullseye on Toyota. So Fumento credits a couple of other blogging sleuths at the websites Jalopnik and Gawker.com for digging into Sike’s personal past. Apparently real estate and business weren’t going so well.

Sikes and his wife Patty in 2008 filed for bankruptcy and are over $700,000 in debt. Among their creditors is Toyota Financial Services for a lease on a 2008 Toyota Prius, with value at time of bankruptcy of $20,494. The Jalopnik Web site shows a copy of Toyota’s secured claims form, though when Jalopnik questioned Sikes by e-mail he denied being behind on his Prius payments.

Sikes also has a history of filing insurance claims for allegedly stolen items that are slowly coming to light. In 2001 he filed a police report with the Merced County Sheriff’s Department for $58,000 in stolen property, including jewelry, a prosumer mini-DV camera and gear, and $24,000 in cash, according to Fox40 in Sacramento. His bankruptcy documents show a 2008 payment of $7,400 for an allegedly stolen saxophone and clothes.

For what it’s worth, Sikes owned and operated a Web site called AdultSwingLife.com…. More salacious material on this man will continue to pour in.

But wait… this gets better since Matt Hardigree at Jalopnik finds his ex-partner ditched Sikes for his “numerous incidents of fraud and theft”.

William Sweet says he went into business with Sikes, together opening up a paralegal services company called “AAA California Aid” in 1997. Sweet operated the main office and Sikes ran one in Los Banos, California. Sweet alleges numerous incidents of fraud and theft involving Sikes led him to dissolve their partnership, including an incident in which Sikes sent an employee to break into the main office to steal payment records.

“I had him on video where he would have one of his employees from the Los Banos office go through our files and he would pull out cases that have balances on them and he would go collect the money,” said Sweet, now sole owner of the company operating under a new name. “He would take the money over in Los Banos.”

Disagreement over the business finances wasn’t the only issue Sweet had with Sikes as he echoed reports of mysterious thefts involving Sikes and claims his former partner stole office supplies.

“We’d buy paper for the office ten reams at a time, and within two weeks he’d be totally out. According to the cameras he was hauling boxes out three-or-four at a time. He was feeding his other two offices.”

Jim Sikes apparently was displeased with Sweet over the installation of a security system and security cameras, but since Sweet ran the office there was nothing Sikes could do.

It comes as no surprise that when Sweet heard it was Sikes on the news, his mind immediately raced to a scam operation.

“As soon as i heard the words “Jim Sikes” I immediately woke up out of a dead sleep and thought “uh oh what the hell is this guy up to now?” He’s trying to do a scam, and get in on that lawsuit for the Toyota thing, that’s immediately what I thought.”

Sikes… originally quite happy to be in front of the cameras, is now staying extremely low profile.

One would have to wonder about the faculties of a man who seems capable of running multiple businesses, handling finances and the futures of homeowners, but is too “scared” to follow simple instructions over 23 minutes to simple shift to neutral… three inches away from his fingertips, the press the ignition “Off” button.

Scam for cash? Looking pretty good for that one. And kudos to the independent blog world journalists for doing the work the main stream media should have been doing during that 23 minutes. Apparently they are such slow learners that lessons from the “Balloon Boy” episode still escapes them.

And we wonder why people have no faith in the media anymore? heh

Also blogging:

Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential

AP’s Elliot Spagat

Michael Hagarty at Tirekicker blogspot

Another from Tirekickerk where Sikes swears he never planned to sue Toyota… uh huh

USA Today

Advocating the use of budget reconciliation in order to get disputed portions of the reform package through the Senate on a simple-majority vote, President Obama stated, “I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform.”

Assuming that he was, in context, actually referring to the American people and not merely their duly elected doubles, it seems to me an odd statement to make. The fact of the matter is that, according to the most recent Gallup survey the majority of Americans do not want the proposed healthcare reform, at least, not as it stands today. Be that as it may, it has become painfully obvious that our President has designated this particular bill as the rock upon which he will build his legacy. Perhaps firmer footing should have been found.

As early as next week, could come a vote on this piece of legislation. This, in spite of the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has yet to determine what the “reform” will actually cost. The initial projection of “only” $985 Billion over the next 10 years failed to clarify the point that the vast majority of the costs will only begin when the program takes effect… in 4 years. So if we were to honestly review the costs over the first 10 operating years, the number will look more like $2.3 Trillion in increased government spending. Quite a tab to ask the American People to pick up, good thing no one is asking.

Though it would seem that the fire is full to the brim of irons already, Congress has decided to tag another bill onto the already ballooning healthcare monstrosity. Student loan reform. In a surprise move to some, Ms. Pelosi announced that a proposed Student loan overhaul would be attached to the package. This too, is obviously much needed legislation, according to our President. As one of the planks in his campaign platform, the American People are all too aware that this system too is need of government assistance. Despite this public outcry for help, most agree that this bill would be hard to pass in the Senate without riding the coattails of the fast-tracked healthcare train. This could be, in part due to the recent revelation that such reform will now increase deficits by approximately $5 Billion over the next decade, according to Democratic sources.

All of this action, perhaps not surprisingly, comes at a time when President Obama’s approval rating has fallen to 46%. Though his lowest number yet on a rapidly declining scale, he still garners an astounding 91% affirmative response among African Americans. This number has not gone unnoticed either, as the pro-Obama group Americans United for Change is spending in the neighborhood of $500,000 to encourage African Americans to support their House representatives who vote for healthcare reform. This too, comes on the heels of the recent polling showing that nearly 80% of the black adults are likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. The topic foremost in their minds? Healthcare reform. Though exploitation of a supporting group is hardly new to the game, this particular move is perhaps a bit more transparent than most. One can only hope that such trust will not lead ultimately to disenchantment with the system itself.

Our system of government was built upon the backs of great men attempting to do even greater things. They saw in our world a chance to begin again, to establish a new world order. In our system, every American has a voice and vote. Recently, those voices have all too often been silent. In a time of great change and uncertainty, the right words at the right time may, in fact, change the world. In the words of Dylan Thomas, let us not go gentle into that good night.

Biscuit’s people were a promiscuous bunch that liked the passages about hunting and killing whales, they loved the Shakespearean stories about issues of love and lust. Their ability to learn and grasp English was astonishing, they would mimic my soft slow way of speaking to each other in memorized passages from my reading and then break into wild laughter.

As a culture they were locked into a time warp between the stone age and the 20th Century. Yet some of them were among the most intelligent people I have ever met. They could grasp complex concepts while learning the language at the same time, my initial feelings of being from a superior culture began to wither away, unlike those of the male nurse.

He was the harpoon tip of an effort, by Leftist Political types, that wants to bring minority type peoples under a protective umbrella of nurturing and care. With the benevolence of a Big Brother image, these primitives are seduced with the promise of acquiring the amenities of the twentieth century by assuming a welfare type mentality; although, they are capable of assuming roles in the 20th Century with just a little guidance and a leg up.

These people had at least two genetic infusions at some point in the past. The body type we referred to as Chips was obvious, (short for Chippewa, I suppose) these people are huge, the men are often over six feet tall and weigh well over 300 pounds. They don’t appear to be athletic or particularly strong, but some of them can move with the prowess and speed of a cougar and have the strength of a bear. There was also the influence of French trappers or traders, they possessed family names like Napoleon, Bonaparte, Louise, Bastille and several others, (obviously, these were Frenchmen with a sense of humor as well as a healthy sexual appetite). Their language had been peppered with French words and phrases for so long (at least a hundred and maybe two hundred years), that they were unaware that these were foreign influences.

Despite the seemingly hybrid vigor of these healthy intelligent people, the Liberals were encouraging them with a sense of entitlement and the idea of perpetual care. The catalogues with pictures of goods they couldn’t power without electricity were intriguing. They began to long for the amenities that were so familiar to people in the cities, while Gregory, always ready and willing to be the middle man, the enabler; always setting the trap of victim hood with the bait of entitlement. This group was even more unique, since Biscuit’s father or grandfather, I could never figure which, was a veteran of WWI and an ‘Oil Indian’ from Alberta, he was receiving royalties from oil and gas. He was essentially wealthy, with no place or reason to spend money other than clothing and a few necessities of life.

Thus I walked in on a culture in the initial stages of transition; from a self-sufficient group that was healthy, intelligent, and dynamic turning into a dependent group of entitled victims. The transformation or what I refer to as the debauch of a culture was surprisingly easy, it was so easy that I unwittingly participated.

This group of Indians was a Matriarchal group, Leadership was determined through the female line and the man who married the Princess became Chief and their daughter would one day marry the man who would become Chief. It worked as well as any hereditary system, but Biscuit’s oldest daughter became the object of all the young men. She was not only beautiful, but she was in line for Biscuit’s oil royalties.

I learned a lot before Gregory returned with all the supplies in the tribe’s flat deck. With a crew of forty men we set to building the foundation. I actually had too much help, but I pretended that every man was useful and needed. One of the biggest men whom I called Griz, because of his size, a name that morphed into ‘Grease’, was the official hod carrier, a position he assumed literally and proudly.

There were about six men mixing the concrete in a wheel barrow, in a few minutes they would have a wheel barrow load ready and since Grease was the Hod Carrier, he would pick the wheel barrow up and run with it over to the concrete form and dump it in and run back to the mixing men. I tried to explain that he could wheel the wheel barrow over, but he knew that since he was a hod carrier that he should carry the concrete. There are always problems with communication when you only know a portion of the other man’s language. The form was done in two days, the floor took another day and the eight inch by twelve inch logs went up in another two days, The roof took another two days and then we started putting in the doors and windows. I did it, because I was the best carpenter we had and I had done it before. They were not like a sharp professional had done the work; but they functioned properly.

The house looked pretty good, the wood cook stove would hook up to a metal pipe chimney along with the wood furnace. I was fast using up my time for my senior trip, but I was having a good time and figured I was doing something meaningful.

In the mean time I was doing cooking demonstrations for the women and the food was getting to be better and better.

While we were moving furniture into the house, one of Biscuit’s younger daughters came to me all excited. I heard Tiger raising Hell with someone and ran to the corrals to see sullen Indian getting ready to shoot Tiger. The Indian had walked my horses over from Biscuit’s corral to a community corral: I had no idea what was going on, but if a man shot Tiger, he would die that same day.

The Indian, in his mid-twenties was stout and weighed at least 250 pounds, he was trying to get a bead on Tiger who was rushing in to get him and had already bitten the man at least twice. I pushed the man and took his rifle away and promptly hit him with the rifle butt in the chest to make him keep his distance. He was screaming and I had no idea what he was talking about; several of his friends were standing with him and they began to circle around me. The situation was about to escalate into a serious confrontation.

Biscuit and Gregory walked down to the corrals along with most of the village. I was relieved, my protagonist was emotional and pleading his case to Biscuit. Biscuit listened as if he was Solomon, looked at me and then turned to Gregory to explain the details.

Gregory broke into a big grin, and I thought the situation was defused. He then explained the situation to me. Woolens, his name as I heard it, wanted Vase for his wife so that he would be Chief; she was paying me too much attention, he stole my horses to humiliate me. According to Tribal Law, they were now his.

They were the envy of everyone, being twice the size of these Indian ponies, I could see why he wanted my horses, but there was no way in Hell I was going to walk home. However, the horses weren’t the real point of contention: Vase was falling for me and had even started to visit me in the middle of the night, Woolens was jealous and figured he had to make his move or lose his future.

I told Gregory that I had no intention of giving up my horses to any man alive.

Again there was serious consultation between Gregory and Biscuit. Gregory turned to me and explained my options. If I wanted to keep my horses there was to be a fight immediately. I could also gather my horses in the middle of the night and slink off with my livestock, but I would be leaving my pride.

I asked what kind of fight, Gregory asked Biscuit and turned to me with the answer. “It is a knife fight, a way to save face for both of you, he who draws first blood is the winner; but men have died in these fights”, Gregory shrugged and said, “It’s your call”. I looked at the men gathered around and many of them had a scar on their face, I now realized these were from dueling.

This had turned into a nightmare, I had never been in a fight in my life. I had milked cows, fed 350 cows off a bob sleigh in 4 and 5 foot of snow during the winter, and logged with a cross cut saw and an ax, and ran a huge trap line; but I had never been in a fight. I was much stronger than nearly any man and physically fit like a trained athlete: there was now way that I wanted to hurt this man nor get hurt myself. Everyone was waiting for my answer, pride can be a dangerous attribute, I was trying to think of the correct path to take, my emotions were aflame.

I thought of Vase, she would come to me at night and together we explored a surreal world of love. She was innocent, yet very passionate, at the height of her arousal, I would whisper the words that the tribe considered so funny. She would laugh at her peak and be in a state of hyper sensitivity and eroticism. Together we explored the mystic spirit world, beyond heightened sensitivity, beyond the boundaries of everyday life. I was in love with her like no other, not before nor since.

I came out of my deep concentration, that was like a trance state, and without a second thought, I said, “We fight”.

Biscuit grinned with satisfaction and walked away to his house. He returned a few minutes later with a roll of moose hide. Wrapped in the leather were two very old knives, I thought to myself, these two knives have caused most if not all the scars around me. I picked one up and felt the weight. It seemed like a good knife, with an antler handle and brass bolsters. I walked over to my pannier boxes and pulled out my sharpening stone. My sharpening skills had already made themselves known, by me sharpening all the kitchen knives. I now sat down to begin sharpening this dueling knife.

I know that people respect a sharp knife and a man who can put a razor’s edge on a knife can intimidate other men. Slowly and methodically I sharpened the knife. I asked one of the twins to get a piece of paper from a writing tablet. It is a cheap trick, but a fairly sharp knife can slice a piece of paper in half if you hold the paper so that it is stiff and then either push or pull the knife as you cut through the paper. It’s impressive if you don’t know how to do the trick.

After I cut through the paper, there were oohs and ahs from the crowd. This was all planned to give me a psychological advantage over my opponent. I looked at him and he didn’t have the same confidence he had in the beginning.

Biscuit called us together and grasped our left wrists shoulder high, he then tied our left wrists to each other with a thick moose hide thong that left about a foot of leather between us. This was something I didn’t count on.

Biscuit had the leather piece that separated us in his left hand and was counting to three. I knew this guy outweighed me by at least 50 pounds and was going to try and pull me to him from the get go. Rather than resist, I was going to be pulled to him and hopefully throw him off balance.

Biscuit raised his hand and stepped backward. My opponent yanked hard and I jumped forward and snatched my left arm hard to the left and half spun Woolens to his right. I used the butt of the knife and hit him hard in the temple, he winced from the pain, I threw an overhand right to the jaw that landed like the blunt edge of an ax, his body went limp and I knew he was either dead or knocked out. He hit the ground in a heap on his belly with me on his back, I brought his left arm behind him until I heard and felt the shoulder dislocate. I grabbed his long hair with my left hand and brought his head up off the ground, there was a huge intake of air from the crowd, I cut him from one cheek to the other across the bridge of his nose. He would have the best scar in the tribe.

I cut the thong and dropped the knife, I walked away shaking while Gregory instructed a few guys to carry Woolens into the clinic for repairs.

Some of you readers might think of me as mean, please remember, I never cause a confrontation and never walk into a bar and risk the possibility of a confrontation; but when a push deserves a shove, I shove back with a vengeance.

Later that night, Biscuit came to me with a proposal. I could marry Vase and later on the twins when they were old enough. I could become Chief and inherit his oil and gas royalties. A simple plan with complicated details, I was astounded at the opportunity; yet I knew I should talk over the situation with my dad. I thanked Biscuit and told him, I would need to return home, before I could agree to anything.

I left a few days later, the twins must have known all the details, they followed me around and were always pulling on my hands and being extra cute and friendly. It was hard saying goodbye to Vase, she cried and kissed me over and over when I left.

On the way home, I hardly noticed the beauty of the mountains or the Big Horn Sheep, Mountain Goats, Grizzlies or Elk that were running around in the mountains. I was thinking of my dilemma and of my true love.

I arrived home early, my dad was not to happy, he had written my uncle and they were expecting me. I only made it half way.

I explained the situation and my marriage opportunities. Of course my dad looked at me as if I was a village idiot and provided a rancher’s version of reality.

“Yes, the culture was being debauched, not only by Gregory and agents that I didn’t meet, who were usually the lowest scum on the face of the earth; and I was also ready to debauch the culture, a culture that had thrived for hundreds if not thousands of years without the White Man and his gadgets. Who was I to change their cooking skills and dietary habits, was I so much better? Why did I think they needed to be exposed to English and English Literature, was that not a sign of a superior attitude? And what did I suppose I was going to do for the next 60 years, live on the bravery of a vet who was long gone? I had a ranch and a position in life, what was I to those people? Nothing but an interloper who would eventually cause problems. (I didn’t tell him about the fight)

I had a scholarship at a major University that I had earned. My destiny was to be decided there, not in the distant mountains.

I acquiesced to my father’s wishes and then realized, I didn’t have the address for Biscuit and Vase.

My college was nearly four thousand miles away, the flight there was the loneliest trip I had ever made. I found the courses to be much easier than my dad’s home schooling curriculum. My friends were usually my instructors, I didn’t really fit in with the students with their sharp, expensive clothing. I found an old horse shoer and nailed shoes on for him on the weekend. He spent all week making these beautiful horseshoes and I would nail them all on for five dollars a head, he made seven dollars on each horse and we became great friends. He had been a farrier in the National Guard and I listened to cavalry stories and then I would tell him about mountain horses.

If any riders were having trouble with their horses, I was often asked to try and correct the problem in the afternoon. One day, an attractive woman about 35 years of age asked me if I would ride behind her and watch her seat to see how she was doing. I was paid extra for all this work so I did what she asked; although, I was mortified. In the English world, a seat refers to how she sits in the saddle, I thought she wanted me to watch a particular part of her anatomy. After the ride she asked what I thought, I told her it was just fine; later on, Matt my farrier boss filled me in on the distinction in between his fits of insane laughter.

I made more money than I could spend, so I bought a pair of Western Boots and a Triumph Motorcycle. At the cycle shop, right after the purchase, the owner showed me where all the components were and I drove away without a hitch. Later on, he said I was the first one to ever do that on a first ride. Compared to logging with horses, motorcycles are easy and safe. I wore moccasins and overshoes until there was nothing left, and since there were no moose in the country side, I had to begin wearing my new western boots to class.

In English class I excelled, I was asked by my instructor and the head of the department to choose English as a Major. I laughed at them, politely of course, I told them, I didn’t really consider English a Major. I was moved up to the senior level classes anyway, in the forlorn hope that I would change my mind. I scored well and found things to be relatively easy.

Then in May I received a letter from Gregory that had been redirected from the home ranch. Apparently, Vase had been pregnant when I left the village, a few weeks ago, she had a difficult labor for 48 hours, the baby was born breech and suffocated in the birth canal, Vase hemorrhaged afterwards and passed away the next day. He said at the last, she was asking for me.

I was reading the letter while walking to class, I laid my books down on a stone wall, I asked another student to give my books and the letter to the campus police and left with my motorcycle heading West.

I stopped in Kentucky and worked breaking race horses for a month or so and then continued West to Sheridan, Wyoming. I broke and trained polo horses until fall and then joined the military. I finished up my University training later on with six years of education. I didn’t return to BC for over ten years, many of my human friends and all my animal friends had passed away.

Debauching a culture is easy to do even with good intentions: unfortunately, often you end up debauching yourself, despite your best intentions.

We have minorities in North America, they have swum in genetic pools like the rest of us, some are brilliant, some are slow, that is life; if you have personal drive and integrity, you will improve your life: if you want to wallow in despair and self-pity under the blanket of victim-hood, you will become a perpetual ward of the state.

There will always be a number of weak people who lack the drive to succeed, they are not defined by race unless they want to be, and apparently there will always be politicians and bureaucrats ready to exploit the weak and lazy; they are always there to offer the easy alternative of dependency, thus guaranteeing political survival for the parasitic politician for his own benefit, thus they create and define barriers that don’t necessarily exist, except in the mind of the exploiter who becomes a parasitic creature who thrives on misery and shame.

With that said I would welcome any suggestions for a new layout. The authors and I have discussed many new features but maybe there is something we missed so send in your ideas or put em’ in the comment section of this post.

Finally, the cost of this new site I estimate to be in the 800-1000 dollar range. The design should be around 300-400 dollars and transferring that design from the PSD to actual code will be in the 500 dollar range, a bit more expensive then the other updates I have done because I want this new design to be as professional as possible. I have put up a donation meter in the sidebar for those who would like to donate to the cause. It would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE

Goal reached in five days!

I am humbled and honored that the readers of Flopping Aces gave so freely of themselves to get us over the top. I’m in the process of interviewing different designers at the moment and will keep everyone updated as we move forward. As before, if you come up with some good ideas please jot em’ down in the comments or email me.

Thanks guys and gals!

UPDATE

Just wanted to give everyone an update on where we are at. The new header art is done and now I am interviewing different designers. Pretty jazzed about the new artwork.

Thanks again to all who donated and now on to the new design.

It’s now 7+1…..and that +1 is a doozy:

The Justice Department has admitted that Eric Holder failed to tell Congress during his confirmation process that he had contributed to a legal brief which argued that the President lacks authority to hold Jose Padilla, a U.S citizen declared an “enemy combatant,” indefinitely without charge. The Justice Department has also acknowledged what is obvious — that “the brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process.”

DOJ contends that the failure to disclose was not intentional. It says that “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.”

Some Senators will view this claim with skepticism. The Padilla case was, after all, an extremely high profile matter. Moreover, as Andy McCarthy notes, Holder wrote a letter to Senator McConnell a few months ago discussing the Padilla case at length and in a manner similar to the arguments in the brief he had worked on. This event should have reminded Holder of his involvement with that brief and should have prompted him to correct his erroneous statement during the confirmation process.

Senator Kyl:

“Are we expected to believe that then-nominee Holder, with only a handful of Supreme Court briefs to his name, forgot about his role in one of this country’s most publicized terrorism cases?”

In that brief filed to the court Holder even acknowledged that his position may cause terrorists to stop providing intelligence but after the Christmas bomber his tune had changed:

I am equally confident that the decision to address Mr. Abdulmutallab’s actions through our criminal justice system has not, and will not, compromise our ability to obtain information needed to detect and prevent future attacks.

~~~

Neither advising Abdulmutallab of his Miranda rights nor granting him access to counsel prevents us from obtaining intelligence from him.

Complete and utter nonsense, but here we are with an Attorney General who covered up the fact that he filed a brief for a very well known and public case.

After President Obama nominated Holder to be Attorney General, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a 47-page questionnaire, including a request for any briefs he had filed with the Supreme Court “in connection with your practice.”

In response, Holder said he participated in a total of five such briefs, none of which dealt with terrorism-related issues. He did not include the Padilla brief, and he signed a statement saying the information he provided was accurate and complete “to the best of my knowledge.”

Jonah Goldberg on the al-Qaeda 7 and the hypocrisy of the left:

Then there’s the twofold issue of these lawyers working for DOJ and the administration keeping their identities a secret. How is this not a legitimate issue? I don’t get it. As USA Today concedes, lawyers who defended al-Qaeda suspects need to recuse themselves from these matters. Everyone concedes that there are conflict of interest issues here. Are we to suddenly believe that Congress has no right to inquire about such things? Tell that to environmentalists who want lawyers for “polluters” kept out of the EPA. Seriously, has no one listened to Henry Waxman for the last 30 years? Do Obama’s countless promises to be “transparent” have no validity when it comes to these lawyers? Why on earth would that be the case?

And yet, to listen to Holder’s defenders, the people who ask these questions are being denounced as demagogues and (Joe) McCarthyites. This is coming from the same crowd that wanted to criminally prosecute Bush’s lawyers? Spare me.

Is this really a standard the Left wants to establish? That policymaking lawyers inside the Justice Department will hence forth have a cloak of invisibility about their previous activities? That’s going to be tough news for any number of left-wing activist groups come the next Republican administration.

So, we have 8 lawyers in the DOJ who have represented the enemy of this country, and one of them is the highest ranking attorney in the land…..and on top of that he covered up this fact.

Outrage from the MSM commencing in 3…2…1

Yeaaaahhhh.

If we can’t get outrage on this can we get at least get some indignation about the DOJ shutting down legitimate investigations?

If this is true, and there is no reason to doubt it, then mere words cannot express my revulsion:

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

There is just no way to express how vile these people are.

Is there?

For those keeping score at home, the Stupak amendment is legislative language which would prohibit federal funds from being used for abortion.

h/t – Ace

I am one of those “typical Americans” who has lived much of my life in a political dead zone. Life has been good, and “Politics” have been in the distant background most of my life. There were stretches when I didn’t even vote. I was oblivious.

Fast forward to 2008. I smelled snake oil with Obama and I couldn’t put my finger on it, other than the shady connection with ACORN. At that time I was only getting my news from the lame stream media. The week before the election my brother & I were celebrating our birthdays, and I realized that everyone in the room (except me) was seized by the fever of Obamamania. And then my brothers liberal girlfriend singled me out by saying “with your feelings about guns do you have to vote for McCain?” Bitch, I thought. Time to educate myself about what I knew I didn’t like, but was unable to articulate.

I began to realize that it was a luxury to take for granted our constitution and all the freedoms that I enjoyed. Perhaps in the past I was living in a more innocent time. Or perhaps not. But today that luxury has vanished. Today we must be vigilant to the forces that are FAST at work to destroy our way of life.

Now I understand how insidious this president, and all the radical leftists he surrounds himself with, really is. I can more readily recognize his deeds, and his blatant disregard for the constitution that is crafted to constrain him and the congress. I can see that no president has the power to fire the CEO of a private corporation. There is no authority to take over a car company & blow off the stock holders & hand the keys to the UAW. There is no company who is too big to fail. There is no debt that can be resolved by borrowing more money to become solvent. There is no such thing as zero consequences for reckless deficit spending and printing trillions of dollars of freshly minted paper, with nothing to back it up but more debt to China. Capitalism is not a bad thing, our country has grown & prospered because of it. The quickest way to kill our economy is to insist on policies of “equality” which really mean redistribution of wealth. There is no constitutional mandate to require citizens to purchase any good or service simply because they are citizens. There is no country on this planet with open borders. There is no sense in pushing “climate” legislation based on junk science. There is no morality in using executive orders to bypass congress to allow the EPA to set restrictive economically stifling rules about carbon emissions. The is no logic in designating carbon dioxide, the gas we breathe out of our own bodies with every single breath as hazardous!! It is insanity for our own government to power grab our lands and waterways and to refuse to allow our own abundant gas & oil reserves to be explored and used responsibly for our own country’s welfare, while we are simultaneously loaning Brazil billions of our tax dollars to drill for oil in their country. And to turn a blind eye to Islamic extremism even in our own military, just for “political correctness” is one of the stupidest things in the 21st century, to be sure. And it is nothing but tyranny to hear that our own government is contemplating taking over our private IRAs & savings “for our own good” because we must be too stupid to manage our own money. This is so Orwellian that even George’s head must be spinning!

“if you are not outraged then you are not paying attention!!!” I wish for my 20~something niece and her generation to be aware. To be vigilant. To be stewards of our future. I want her and all of us to be smart and strong and educated. All Americans who treasure liberty & freedom must never forget that freedom & liberty once lost are rarely restored.

Lowest poll numbers from Gallup yet. Yeah, I know, shocking it isn’t but let’s look at the Washington Post when Bush hit 46 the first time:

Friday, May 14, 2004; Page A01

Six months before the November election, President Bush has slipped into a politically fragile position that has put his reelection at risk, with the public clearly disaffected by his handling of the two biggest issues facing the country: Iraq and the economy.

~~~

Bush’s approval rating in the Gallup poll fell to 46 percent this week — the lowest in his presidency by that organization’s measures. Fifty-one percent said they disapprove — the first time in his presidency that a bare majority registered disapproval of the way Bush is doing his job. A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday pegged Bush’s approval at 44 percent, with 48 percent disapproving.

Page one news.

How about when he hit 45 for the first time….the next stop on Obama’s trainwreck of a Presidency.

USA Today:

President Bush’s approval rating has fallen to 45%, the lowest point of his presidency, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.

Another article from the Washington Post the very next day is here.

Oh yes, how about CNN? The poll numbers were highlighted during a Anderson Cooper segment and a Jack Cafferty segment that day.

Ok, ok….so the big news of that drop was the Schiavo case so lets give the MSM the benefit of the doubt and check when he hit 45 again…June of 2005.

CNN:

Poll: Disapproval of Bush at high point

(CNN) — The number of Americans disapproving of President Bush’s job performance has risen to the highest level of his presidency, according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.

According to the poll, 53 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush’s performance, compared to 45 percent who approved.

Anderson Cooper again:

VICTORIA CLARKE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, Cooper.

COOPER: Hey. Torie, let me start off with you. In the latest CNN- “USA Today” Gallup poll, President Bush’s approval number is down to 45 percent; 37 percent say he has a clear plan in Iraq. That’s down from 49 percent. How worried is this White House?

CLARKE: Well, they’re not worried about their polls. They’re worried about having a really serious and honest conversation with the American people…

COOPER: Wait a minute, you are telling me they’re not worried about the polls?

CLARKE: … about what’s going on in Iraq. I can’t speak for all of them, but I can tell you what they worry about more, which is what is going on in Iraq, and having a very serious conversation tonight with the American people. What’s going on, where the challenges are, where progress is being made, because there is some progress being made, and a caution to the people that this could last for sometime and it will be very, very tough. That’s what they’re really focused on.

COOPER: Paul, do you believe that?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, yes, in part, but, at the same time, they have to be focused on the polls, because that’s how we gauge whether the public supports it.

Let’s see if CNN, the Washington Post, the USAToday and other media outlets will report on the 46% approval rating let alone when it 45.

Politico has saved the MSM’s bacon a few times…and to the rescue they ride again but still no sign of any doom and gloom from the others all week. Last 30 days?

Amazing what a D next to the name can do to our MSM eh?

Remember this? On January 28th House Speaker Nutty Nancy said (video @1:12)

PELOSI: “We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people.”

That statement won’t surprise many readers here as it has been clear for a while that Democrats will do ANYTHING to get their way and grab power over 1/6th of the nation’s economy and make us all dependent on Washington for our health care.

The latest moves in this coup against constitutional government came today with the idea that the House would vote on a rule to reconcile a Senate bill that it had never voted on. How absurd is that? It trumps the already unprecedented use of the reconciliation tactic for health care look tame by comparison.

What’s next? An actual constitutional coup where Democrats just declare their health bill passed by themselves and have Obama sign it into law?

Or, are we witnessing the final death throes of the overreaching of Democrats who long ago failed to find majority support among the American people for their big government power grab?

Place Your Bets!

Is this the “change” America voted for when it elected Obama to tame the way Washington works?

From Roll Call:

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

This would appear to end the fraud suggested by House Democrats detailed below. But rest assured, if they can’t use that tactic they’ll think of something equally underhanded.

end update.

As if the secret backroom deals weren’t bad enough. As if the near total shutout of Republicans wasn’t bad enough. As if the bribes and special favors for Obama supporters wasn’t bad enough. Now, House Democrats are preparing to put forward a rule which pretends they already voted to approve the Senate version of health care so they can then proceed with another highly partisan vote on reconciling the health bill.

The rule is called the “Slaughter Solution” named after Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Readers will recall that Slaughter’s big contribution to the health care summit at Blair House was the story that one of her constituents had to wear her dead sister’s dentures.

Now, with this rule, Slaughter appears ready to chomp down once again on what little common sense and civility remain in the House of Representatives.

Voters who are already fed up to the eyeballs with the shenanigans Democrats undertook to advance a bill that a clear majority of the American people DO NOT WANT must act NOW to let the few wavering House Democrats know that the price for supporting this idiocy will be defeat in November.

Is your Representative on this list? Or this one? If so, CALL THEM NOW. Organize protests outside their offices Write letters to the editor at your local newspaper!

The thought of Steve’s “just give in because there’s nothing you can do about it” attitude has been swirling around in my head for a while now.  It’s shameful that any American’s feel this way.  It is infuriating that any man would prefer a life of uninterrupted subservience to government authority  over one of turmoil in defense of their own rights and that of their descendant’s.  Yet it seems that many American’s have this attitude.  Our founding fathers recognized this unfortunate trait that many human beings possess.  They recognized that people would often prefer to do nothing rather than stand in their own defense.  They warned us against this attitude.

I have compiled a list of quotes from the founding fathers warning us against quietly submitting to the will of men in power:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
-Samuel Adams

“Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity’s liberty!”
-Samuel Adams

“…it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?”
-Patrick Henry

“…all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
-The Declaration of Independence

“a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
-Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, Query 17

All of these quotes have particular significance in present day America. They exemplify our founding fathers’ predictions on the temperament of the people towards government rule. The founders’s predictions were true. The American federal government has become a centralized conglomerate involved in nearly every facet of American life. At every turn, the federal government is there waiting to regulate, take, and redistribute anything they can. For many Americans, centralized government intervention is all they have ever known. A great number of these individuals are so accustomed to this that it has, as Thomas Paine puts it, “a superficial appearance of being right.”

What so many people fail to recognize is that the federal government has no right to be so deeply entrenched in our personal lives. The level of power that the federal government now exercises over the people was never intended by our founders.   The federal government is in place to defend our rights and uphold the constitution.   They are not here to redistribute our wealth,  indoctrinate our children, or create rights and entitlements through the use of perverse and unconstitutional legislation; Yet they do all of these things, and the American people tolerate it.  From time to time the people will rise up in descent. Much like a tide the government may recede for a time, but the tide always rises again, eroding the shore line further and further.

If I could make a plea to the American people it would be this:

“Do not be complacent; complacency can only serve for you to live in blissful ignorance until the day you come to realize that you are no longer an individual, but rather just a number that is ordered to live in a way that complies with a centralized government’s policies and procedures.

Stand in defense of your liberties.   Tyrants will not wait until you are ready to exercise their tyranny.  It is not your right to defend freedom, it is your duty.

Be proud of your country.  It is the last beacon of freedom amidst a rising sea of tyranny.  If America falls, what hope of freedom does mankind have?”

I leave you with one last  appropriate quote, not from our founders, but from Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crises maintain their neutrality…there comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

Is this a case of smear or transparency?

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy, The Cable:

Several former Justice Department officials have criticized the group Keep America Safe, which is led by Liz Cheney and William Kristol, for its attacks on the department for hiring lawyers who have defended terror suspects in the past, including one particularly controversial ad calling some of them the “al Qaeda 7.”

“The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’s representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre,” reads a letter organized by the Brookings Institution’s Benjamin Wittes and signed by David Rivkin, Lee Casey, and Philip Zelikow, among other prominent Republican lawyers.

“To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.”

Why does this matter, and go beyond “talented lawyers taking honorable positions” by lawyering up on behalf of “accused” terrorists who wish to kill Americans? Because in the “war on terror”, we may be winning it on the battlefield and in some cases, behind the scenes; but in the court of law, thanks to such organizations as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU, America has been on the losing side of 3 of the 4 major war on terror cases that have come before the Supreme Court.

And if these are just honorable, patriotic lawyers doing their honorable duties, then Eric Holder and the Obama Administration really should have no objections to the transparency, should they? After all, this is “the most transparent administration in history”, right?

Thomas Joscelyn takes a look at their body of work. Marc Thiessen devotes an entire chapter (“Double Agents”) in Courting Disaster to the lawyers involved in defending al Qaeda terrorists, and their connections to Eric Holder. (See Thiessen’s op-ed in WaPo here; and if you are so inclined, Eugene Robinson’s attack on Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe here).

Andrew McCarthy also weighs in on why this issue matters.