As the health care farce on Capitol Hill enters it’s final hours, it’s good to hear that common sense, honesty and workable alternatives are still alive in the GOP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he describes the failures in the current Dem plan and goes on to remind readers that there is a better way. You’re encouraged to read the entire op-ed here.

A brief excerpt:

Rep. Paul Ryan on what real health reform should look like

… The debacle of the past year’s “debate” has been a missed opportunity for real reform. Democrats and Republicans alike have put forward proposals that address the drivers of health-care costs, yet they have been ignored in this sharply partisan crusade. House Republicans continue to offer common-sense solutions, with specific legislation. Last May, Sens. Tom Coburn and Richard Burr and Rep. Devin Nunes and I collaborated to address rising costs while securing access to quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans. The Patients’ Choice Act takes on the discriminatory and inflationary tax exclusion, delinking the tax benefit from employers and attaching it to individuals through universal tax credits. The tax exclusion for employer-provided health coverage subsidizes insurance instead of health care, hides the true cost of coverage and disproportionately favors the wealthy at the expense of the self-employed, the unemployed and small businesses. Health-care economists across the political spectrum and reform-minded Democrats such as Sen. Ron Wyden identify the backward tax treatment of health care as a problem that must be addressed.

The Patients’ Choice Act includes additional reforms — such as an emphasis on preventive care, medical malpractice reform and interstate shopping — that could be advanced one at a time in a bipartisan fashion to fix what’s broken in health care without breaking what is working.

This year I re-introduced my own proposals to tackle our entitlement crisis head-on. My plan, “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” fulfills the mission of health and retirement security, lifts our crushing burden of debt, and spurs economic growth and job creation. In stark contrast to the vision being pushed by the majority in Congress, my plan unapologetically seeks to apply our nation’s timeless principles — our Founders’ commitment to individual liberty, limited government and free enterprise — to today’s challenges. It does so in a way that honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.

If this debate had actually been about health care, we could have worked together to get a grip on costs, make quality care more accessible, address exclusions for preexisting conditions and realign the incentives of insurance companies with those of patients and doctors. Yet this process — including its embarrassing conclusion — demonstrates that the debate has never been about health-care policy but, instead, paternalistic ideology.

Should the Democrats’ health-care train wreck make it to the president’s desk, it will be a pyrrhic victory, and its devastating consequences will take their toll on our health-care system, our budget and our economy.

(large size suitable for printing and display in your back window here)

I’ve had the above bumper sticker sitting in a drawer for 25 years and recently decided it’s time to show it off. I get a lot of thumbs up from drivers on the roads here in South Carolina, but obviously one angry Dem in the parking lot of the Hilton Head Wal-Mart was so offended they took pen to hand and left the following note on the windshield of my Chevy Tahoe:

Clearly this lib would like to control what kind of car I can drive and cannot even spell “thoroughly” yet seems to suggest they read more than a blogger who reads dozens of news stories and policy analyses by day and hefty volumes of history by night.

But what really strikes me is the angry tone of the note writing nut. I guess I should be glad this person didn’t smash the window or key the side of the car as such tactics are common among angry liberals who despite winning the White House, Senate and House won’t be happy until they can tell all of us how to live!

I’m really tempted to add to my solitary bumper sticker with this graphic in the back window:

It was just February 25th when Obama told McCain at the Blair House summit setup on health care that “we’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.” And Obama declared the “time for talk is over” regarding health care in July, again on March 8th and March 11th.

But here he is again in Ohio, this time in Strongsville, on March 15 waving that angry finger in the air and telling us all we don’t know what is good for us if we don’t buy his snake oil!

President Barack Obama speaks on healthcare insurance reform at the Walter F. Ehrnelt Recreation and Senior Center in Strongsville, Ohio, on March 15, 2010. Obama pleaded with lawmakers to pass his health reform bill, relating the heart-rending plight of a cancer victim at the 11th hour of a bitter debate.

Doesn’t this egomaniac know that we are getting sick and tired of him telling us to shut up and do as we are told? On a related matter, in September the Iranians were told that the time for talking about nukes was just about over. Obama seems to have more patience for the mad Mullahs than he does for the American people. And at the rate Obama wags his finger and demands an end to discussion, the Iranians will have a dozen nukes all targeted on the U.S. by the time Obama’s done campaigning!

This man is SUCH an ASS!

And his latest has been thrown in the dumpster with all the rest of the anti-American Iraqi war movies:

“Green Zone” is the last drama set to be released by a major studio related to the Iraq war, and Hollywood is undoubtedly grateful for it after the picture, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon, opened to just $14.5 million domestically and $9.7 million overseas.

It’s the latest in a string of flops that include “Body of Lies,” “The Kingdom” and “Stop-Loss.” Even “The Hurt Locker,” while not a major disappointment given its low budget, is the lowest- grossing best picture Oscar winner in recent history.

Recognizing that worrisome history, Universal Pictures focused its marketing on Damon and Greengrass’ popular collaboration on “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” but was apparently unable to sell the movie based on its action elements.

“This picture has done better than most of today’s modern war stories,” said Nikki Rocco, Universal’s domestic distribution president. “But we were hoping for better.”
Universal and its financing partner, Relativity Media, spent about $100 million to produce “Green Zone” and tens of millions more to market the picture, meaning it will be a major money loser.

The conspiracy loving lefties will love the movie, you can count on that, but the blatant attempts in rewriting history does not go unnoticed:

It’s one thing to make a fantasy film laced with snarky jibes at the United States and its military. It’s of another order entirely for an American studio (Universal, a unit of GE) to perpetrate, during an ongoing war, such vicious anti-American lies disguised as cheap entertainment.

“Green Zone” tells US troops that all of their efforts have been based on a deliberate deception. Worse, it blames the insurgency that has killed so many of our fighting men and women on US treachery.

Movies like “In the Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” have shown US forces doing nasty things — but none went anywhere near as far as this picture in suggesting original sin corrupted the entire Iraq war and that American officials are more blameworthy than the insurgents for the most violent years.

“Green Zone” isn’t cinema. It’s slander. It will go down in history as one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio.

Released and on it’s way to utter failure.

Too much meat here for just a few pull quotes. Read the entire article.

Enjoy:

Obamacare: Cooked Books You Can Believe In

‘Not one dime’ will be added to the deficit? Not exactly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use a $100 bill to buy groceries and then deposit that same Benjamin in the bank to help pay your monthly credit-card statement? Regular Americans would call this either magic or fraud. Washington Democrats call this “health-care reform.”

Obamacare rests upon such double counting. It repeatedly shanghais taxpayer funds for Obama’s plan while simultaneously shielding that same money for Medicare, Social Security, and other programs. Such chicanery may explain why only 32 percent of adults support Obamacare, according to a new Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP survey.

“You can’t count a dollar twice,” Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) observed at President Obama’s February 25 reform summit. “Common sense tells you that. You don’t even have to have an accountant tell you that.”

Team Obama clearly ignored Grassley. They should not count a dollar twice. And yet they do.

The health-care-reform bill that Senate Democrats passed last Christmas Eve, for instance, would drain $464.6 billion from Medicare’s coffers to underwrite Obamacare.

However, if “these Medicare cuts are improving the solvency of Medicare,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) explained, “then you can’t use that money to spend on the creation of another government program.” Ryan, the House Budget Committee’s top Republican, said on February 28’s Fox News Sunday: “You can’t count it both for paying benefits and reducing the deficit.”

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office likewise warned last December 23 that Obamacare’s putative savings “would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. . . . To describe the full amount of [Hospital Insurance] trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.”

Consequently, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) predicts: “Taxpayers will be left holding billions in debt bonds to the Medicare Trust Fund that must be repaid.”

The Senate’s Obamacare bill would take $52 billion in anticipated Social Security revenues and divert them to offset Obamacare’s overall net cost. But wait: Those who have been promised future Social Security payments expect that $52 billion to be available to prevent their pension checks from bouncing. These $104 billion in political pledges cost only $52 billion.

This bill also includes something called Community Living Services and Support. This “CLASS Act” would offer long-term-care insurance with premiums invoiced immediately, but with benefits commencing in 2016. In the interim, the CBO expects a $72 billion surplus to accumulate. Congressional Democrats already have dedicated that sum to counterbalance and thus lower Obamacare’s perceived cost. But the Treasury needs that same $72 billion to finance the CLASS Act’s medical services. So, which is it?

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) described this scam in the Washington Post as “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”

Conrad is right. At its core, Obamacare relies on Madoff-style accounting. The convicted swindler routinely took cash belonging to one group of investors and used it to pay off a different set of stakeholders. When the investors requested their money, it already was gone.

Future retirees similarly will demand their Medicare benefits. But much of that money already will have been swiped for Obamacare. And that’s when this double counting will sparkle in all its crooked splendor.

So what would uncooking Obamacare’s books do to its price tag?

The CBO says the Senate bill would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion in its first ten years. Congressman Ryan disputes this figure without blaming CBO. Like a scale that dutifully measures something as weighing twelve ounces, whether gold or lead, CBO loyally accepts the assumptions in the bills it analyzes, no matter their luster.

“If you take all the double counting out of the bill,” Ryan told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, “this thing has a $460 billion deficit in the first ten years, a $1.4 trillion deficit in the second ten years.”

President Obama claims his proposal “does not add one dime to the deficit.” In truth, Obamacare just keeps the red ink coming. And it does so as deviously as possible.

— Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

Created by The Sniper, from a Reuters photo. (Hat tip: Greyhawk).

“Marineistan“?!

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach — creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox — has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

But the Marines’ methods, and their insistence that they be given a degree of autonomy not afforded to U.S. Army units, also have riled many up the chain of command in Kabul and Washington, prompting some to refer to their area of operations in the south as “Marineistan.” They regard the expansion in Delaram and beyond as contrary to the population-centric approach embraced by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and they are seeking to impose more control over the Marines.

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, recently noted that the international security force in Afghanistan feels as if it comprises 42 nations instead of 41 because the Marines act so independently from other U.S. forces.

“We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps,” said a senior Obama administration official involved in Afghanistan policy.

Read the rest.

It would seem that many of those who cast a vote in last Thursday’s poll may want a do over. 65% of those responding suggested that they thought Obama Care would die a slow lingering death in Congress.

The news on Friday that House Speaker Pelosi intends to bring the measure to a final vote next this coming Friday or Saturday means there may finally be a vote on health care. It may not be the “up or down” vote Obama demands as the House still hasn’t made it clear they will vote on the Senate bill, but instead a bizarre rule which pretends the bill has passed so they can amend it with reconciliation.

Also in the works is a plan to lump in the federal takeover of the student loan program. In Facebook post on the coming vote Sarah Palin asks: “Is there any other wildly unpopular legislation they’d also like to sneak in? Perhaps the anti-energy-independence policy “Cap and Tax” (aka Cap and Trade) is next?”

It also appears that Dems will go for the vote without the support of Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a deal on abortion. But it looks like the number of “Stupak Democrats” is less than the dozen predicted.

Still, Pelosi is a few votes short of the number required to pass the bill. But don’t underestimate the Chicago style promises and threats that will be directed at wavering House Democrats in the coming days.

Scott Brown: “an entire year has gone to waste”

The final days will see an all out push by both sides. On Tuesday, Tea Partiers from the 9/12 March on Washington will gather outside Congressional offices to make their voice heard. The kickoff to the final week began with the Saturday GOP address by Senator Scott Brown, the newly elected REPUBLICAN Senator from Massachusetts:

Scott Brown Delivers GOP Weekly Address
March 13, 2010
Transcript

When the people of my state elected me in January, they sent more than a senator to Washington – they sent a message. Across party lines, the voters told politicians in Washington to get its priorities right.

And from my travels and conversation with people throughout this country, they told me that they want their president and Congress to focus on creating jobs and reviving America’s economy. Instead, for more than a year now, we have seen a bitter, destructive and endless drive to completely transform America’s healthcare system.
…
Nearly one in 10 Americans are still out of work. And still, the president and Congress are focused on ramming through their healthcare bill, whatever it takes, whatever the cost.

Maybe you remember what President Obama promised in his State of the Union address. He said he was going to finally focus on jobs and the economy for the remainder of this year. I applauded him for that. Well, here it is, it’s almost spring. And what is he out there talking about again? That same 2,700-page, multi-trillion dollar healthcare legislation.

So, an entire year has gone to waste. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn’t gotten the message.

Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the healthcare bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. Their attitude shows Washington at its very worst – the presumption that they know best, and they’re going to get their way whether the American people like it or not.
…
Nothing has distracted the attention and energy of the nation’s capital more than this disastrous detour. And, the surest way to return to the people’s business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won’t leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

This, above all, was the message that the people of my state sent to the President and the Congress in the election over a month ago.

You know some of my Democratic colleagues, you know, are being leaned on mighty hard right now. Speaker Pelosi and others are handing down their marching orders, telling them to vote for this bill no matter what. Rarely have elected leaders been so intent on defying the public will. For many members of Congress, the time for choosing is near – do what the party leadership demands, or do what the people have asked you to do. If my colleagues don’t mind some advice from a newcomer, I’d suggest going with the will of the people.

If your Representative is still on the fence regarding health care, contact him or her NOW and let them know you do not want them to vote for this bill but start over and do this job RIGHT! Unlike the straw men argument Obama is putting out, starting over doesn’t mean doing nothing!

Ms. Paulin-Ramirez’s interest in Islam “came out of left field,” said her mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott, in an interview at her home Friday, wearing a blue sweatsuit with a silver cross around her neck.

How out of left field?

Mr. Mott, a convert to Islam himself, says he went to Denver to find his stepdaughter but couldn’t track her down.

This woman is married to a Muslim, but neither she nor her husband can grok where in the world their murder-plotting daughter/step-daughter ever got exposed to this worrisome religion that subducts so many of its followers into terrorism.

Their disgust at daughter Jamie sounds sincere, but their blatant dishonesty about how she could have gotten interested in Islam suggests otherwise. It is possible, however, that The Wall Street Journal’s paraphrase is not precise. If put on the spot, Holcomb-Mott would likely clarify that she has no idea how her daughter ever got interested in murder-cult Islam.

There is a way that this could actually happen: if Mr. Mott is some kind of multiculturalist do-gooder who converted to Islam in sympathy with the idea that “Islam was hijacked too” on 9/11. Such a person could have converted without comprehending the well established Islamic pedigree of violent aggressive jihad.

Don’t scoff. This same “Islam is a victim too” sentiment is right now allowing a giant Mecca oriented crescent to be built on the Flight 93 crash site. After all, it would just be too horrible to reject the Crescent of Embrace memorial simply because it is in the shape of a giant Islamic crescent, not when Islam itself was amongst the victims on that terrible day. No, we must do the opposite and embrace Islam.

If Mott is thinking the same way, he has hardly gone any further than the Memorial Project. But then it seems that his step daughter took one step further still and actually read the Koran, with its endless commands to slaughter the unbelievers. Thus did an unhappy misfit finally find a home for the vicious vindictiveness that the religion of her birth had kept in check.

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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 to bring the best idea’s of both parties together “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.