Yes, the house is dark at 2215 Lucky Way, Anaheim, CA.
The neighbors will tell you that, yes, someone was living there. Once in awhile they would catch a glimpse of a squat little kid whose infrequent visitors called “Yo, Billy Dude!”
The grass looked green, so somebody was paying the water bill, alright. And there was that one party with loud speed metal blaring. Once in awhile a pale round face peered out from behind the red velvet drapery to surreptitiously survey the neighborhood.
Two cars used to be seen in the driveway. The same two cars. They never moved. But now the cars are gone and the house is dark.
The only reason FFFF sprang into existence was because the people who pretended to be professional reporters stubbornly and steadfastly refused to do their jobs.
Their jobs. The jobs to which they accrete a professional aura, a sanctimony, self-righteousness, and institutional importance that demands as a concomitant an objectivity that is exercised in the public interest.
Of course all that stuff is pure bullshit. Oh, yeah, these people want to be treated as if they actually performed a function that allows them to claim an official title: “Fourth Estate.” But in reality their work is almost never objective, never diligent, and often downright incompetent. And the closer you get to tour own community the worse it gets.
The Great Unwind.
But back to FFFF. We started in the fall of 2008 because F. Richard Jones, the Braying Donkey of Raymond Hills, the man for whom no issue could not be used to spin off, dervish-like, on an insane rant, was getting a free pass. Twelve years of insulting people from the dais, weird, barnyard rantings and raving, backtracking on key issues, and generally insulting the collective intelligence of the City was ignored.
And this being Fullerton very little has changed. Consider 2010.
The chicken was ready for plucking.
Does “the press” inquire into how candidate Roland Chi got rung up on criminal charges by the DA for serially ignoring health inspection failures? Or ask why he is using a 501(c)(3) to prmote his political ambitions? Or even ask this miscreant how long he has actually lived in Fullerton?
Hey, that vest was not designed on company time.
Does “the press” ask Pat McKinley about his $215,000 pension payout – far more than he ever made actually working – and his ability to make rational pension decisions?
Aw, Hell. Close enough.
Does “the press” ask Aaron Gregg why a guy who skipped out on $75,000 in back taxes and stiffed local creditors though bankruptcy is qualified to manage the city’s $100,000,000+ budget?
The Mayor's Prayer Breakfast took longer than anticipated...
Does “the press” inquire into what appears to be Don Bankhead’s increasingly diminished capacity to participate in, let alone conduct, a public hearing?
Of course our local reporters never said boo about the carpetbaggery of Hirsute Sidho or Linda Ackerman, either.
For some reason people who work for the Times and the Register would rather look the other way than admit that the emperors have no clothes on. What are they afraid of?
I just changed the title to this piece. Checking out this band of government for sale repuglicans made me do it. Yes, it is an organized mob. Well, disorganized, at least. But look what they’ve got to work with.
– Joe Sipowicz
The other day The OC Register ran this image in a story about the Shawn Nelson/Hairbag Sidhu race. The story was erroneously titled “Nice Guy Finishes Second” or some such BS which as we know is not true. “Perjuring Carpetbagging Assclown Finishes Second” was the original title until the editor felt sorry for Hirsute Sidhu.
Anyhow, the picture above was absolutely priceless. Enjoy the facial expressions of Hairball’s election backers as the bad news flashes across the screen. John Lewis already seems to be scheming on how to shit-dump Sidhu; and Pringle, well Pringle’s thinking about all the personal credit he tied up into this bozo and how he can possibly ever recoup even a small part of that investment. The fellow behind the computer looks like he just had the Shrimp Special at Roland Chi’s place. The two guys on the left obviously wandered into the picture by accident from a Saturday Night Live skit.
But check out the grinning Assclown chowderhead Sidhu – oblivious to the electoral disaster! Good news is only just around the corner! I am #2!
Hide and Seek Hairball Sidhu keeps telling us he’s all about the jobs, jobs, jobs. But rather than just brush it off as campaign nonsense, let’s look at the reality of Sidhu in Anaheim as he danced for the nickels that Curt Pringle’s developer buddies tossed at him.
Those weren't nickels. Those were dimes!
First, let’s take an airborne look at a representative portion of the Platinum Triangle – where once existed a bustling industrial zone south of Katella Avenue, in Anaheim.
Here’s a photo from 2005. Take a look at all those cars, belonging to a bunch of once-employed members of Anaheim’s workforce.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, all over the place, right? Enter the so-called “Freedom Friendly” repuglican land use policies of Pringle and Sidhu:
Man, don't forget to put your green goggles on...
Today? A jobless hole in the ground surrounded by empty condos and chain link fences and faded signs asking our forgiveness for their construction dust.
Thanks Harry. How about an apology to all those businesses and employees you eradicated?
Mistakes were made, but there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on unfortunate nuclear incidents of the past...
You all know what happens when you forget to shut the back door. Invariably a fly will buzz in and start landing on places you’d rather he didn’t land. Pretty soon revulsion turns to annoyance as the pest refuses go away. Sometimes the big, fat, lazy ones are easy to smack and the problem is solved. The smaller, more agile ones defy your attempts to swat them and seem to have a positive genius for eluding eradication. You have something he wants.
Somebody left the door to OC’s 4th Supervisorial District open, and in came Harry Sidhu – uninvited, unwanted, unintelligible. And there he landed – right in the middle of the political potato salad. See, we have something he wants: our votes. Above all he seems to have a pathological hunger for the recognition that comes from elective office, and for that he needs us. For that he will even lie on voter registration forms and cook up fake addresses where he doesn’t live.
After this I will only run one more time!
As our collective revulsion has blossomed into true annoyance at this home invasion, I have to wonder what Supervisor Shawn Nelson’s campaign is going to do in the next three weeks to obliterate this hapless, yet persistent irritant. Considering that Nelsons’ campaign consultant is the very same guy who worked for Mimi Walters against Sidhu in 2008, and who prompted the now comical Sidhu retreat, I predict it won’t be pretty. But sometimes you have to get tough with pests, once an for all.
Last December we posted about a character named Ajit Mithaiwala who had built a heavily subsidized low income housing fustercluck project in Fullerton in the 1990s that epitomized the futility and incompetence of Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.
Remember? His name popped up on a host committee list for a fund raiser thrown by high speed rail impresario and con man Curt Pringle, in honor of his boy, Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Since the name appeared to be mispelled we had fun with the notion that it might be somebody else.
Oh, no, no, no! That is another guy, I tell you. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
In the post we wondered aloud what had become of Mithaiwala, and what he had been up to the past ten years.
It turns out we weren’t alone. Federal government auditors, prosecutors, and the FBI have been wondering too, according to an L.A. Times article forwarded to us by an alert Friend.
All sorts of misbehavin’ have been attributed to this guy and his development company that found a niche building subsidized, low-income housing projects, including fraud, failure to report income, and building shoddy, unsafe buildings. His politcal contributions have been scrutinized, too.
Here are a few choice morsels in the article from the Federal investigator:
“virtually no financial records,” no general ledger, no balance sheet and no bank reconciliations. Working with forensic accountants, he said he had discovered “potential fraud and criminal activity.”
On Tuesday, he told the court he was still trying to gain control of company assets and had identified 400 bank accounts, as well as $600,000 in gold bullion and three cars, including a Bentley.
It transpires that besides Fullerton, Mithaiwala has left a trail of tears behind him in cities across Southern California, including our neighbor to the south, Anaheim, where the Mayor Pro Tem is none other than Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu.
I know nothing. Nothing!
Yikes. You don’t mess with the Treasury Department, boys. Even Al Capone could tell you that.
Old Hide and Seek Sidhu is getting pretty desperate. His squalid excuse for a campaign started putting up signs proclaiming that 4th District Supervisor Supervisor Shawn Nelson is a “job killer.” Of course they ripped off Bushala’s format, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say.
WTF?
Of course nobody is supposed to know that Sidhu can’t name a single job Nelson has ever killed; and that apart from a few chicken flippin’ jobs at his El Pollo Loco in Glen Avon, some campaign prostitutes, and the dude who cleans out his peacock cage, Sidhu has never created any.
No, Harry. Assclown is not a job.
Oops, sorry. Nelson did kill one potential job – Harry Sidhu’s attempt to be a County Supervisor!
DOUBLE UPDATE: While searching the dark corners of our FFFF blog-vault, deep in the basement of the Fox Fullerton, I just came across this gem: a video moment so pure and wonderful that it must be shared again. And again. Until we can safely say that Hairball Sidhu’s political “career” is over, once and for all.
UPDATE: I came across this earlier post today as I was thinking about “The Joke’s on You” post. This really is too good not to show yet again. Will we see a repeat performance by the Sidhu clan in the waning days of this year’s campaign? Don’t bet against it. Sidhu has an almost limitless capacity for clownish behavior.
Although we don’t get many glimpses of Hide and Seek Sidhu these days, video clips of his performances do exist. And some, like the one I share here, reveal a man who has seemingly missed his calling in life. Instead of a fast food operator and a political aspirant, Sidhu really belongs on a vaudeville stage someplace.
Let me tell you, I renounce negative campaigning. Until I run again. And again. And again.
Here’s a priceless youtube clip starring Sidhu at that golden moment two years ago when Sidhu lost his nerve and started shredding his mailers in his campaign against Mimi Walters for State Senate. It’s brilliant comic performance art, and as usual he drags in his family to perform as extras in his hilarious political theater. Watch them dutifully shred his hit pieces against Walters as he introduces his rag tag collection of political allies – just about the only people who showed up (oh yes, I see you Bill Taormina!).
By the way, this clownishly hypocritical gesture didn’t help Sidhu at all. He was thoroughly pummeled and lost every precinct in Anaheim.
I received a call this morning from our 4th District County Supervisor Shawn Nelson asking if I would be willing to help coach a youth football clinic at Craig Park. Supervisor Nelson, aware of the fact that I played high school and Division I college football and that I had coached high school and Pop Warner football, needed someone to fill an unexpected vacancy on his coaching staff. My Sunday alternatives were to either spend the day helping 6 to 17 year olds learn a bit more about football or make more No McKinley signs. No brainer. I dusted off the old whistle and off to the park I went.
The event, billed “OC Parks and Sports Day,” was packed with eager kids with more energy than the energizer bunny. My day was not only fun and rewarding but a lot more interesting than I expected. During a break in the action I met the legendary Anthony Davis, but also the not so legendary OCEA union boss, Nick Berardino. Both were entertaining characters: AD reminisced of the days when he played smash mouth football at USC, and Berardino reminded me about the days he spent a million dollars bad mouthing Nelson in the last election, how that million bucks only moved #2 (Harry Sidhu) up 6 percentage points, and how he still got his as kicked by 12%.
Bernardino went on to explain to me that they (the employee union) were afraid of Nelson, but have learn that Nelson is not the monster they though he would be. Nick further explained that the problem in the county is corruption in upper management and the county employees (the worker bees) are the only ones that actually pay into their retirement and the people that are on Easy Street are the upper level managers including county CEO Tom Mauk who’s package equals around $350,000 per year (while collecting over $100,00 from his retirement pension from the city of La Habra). Nick and I both agreed that it’s always the little guy that gets dumped on and the corruption in the county needs to stop. Amen to that!
Kicking back @ Craig park
Supervisor Nelson tells me that he will start checking into the pay and benefits of mid to upper management, and also find out if they actually do anything except shuffle paper back and forth to each other.
On Tuesday the Anaheim City Council voted on a new tax increase and a new government bureaucracy. On a vote of 4-0 they approved a new ordinance to create and spend a 13% increase on their city’s transit occupancy tax to create a new “tourism improvement district.”
4-0, you ask? But surely there are five members on the Anaheim City Council, yes? Well, Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu, who aspires to be our 4th District county supervisor, wasn’t there. Where was he? At home in his Anaheim Hills (3rd District) estate?
He skipped out on the meeting, no doubt at the behest of his campaign manipulators John Lewis and Chris Jones who no doubt informed him that voting in favor of a tax during a political campaign would be political suicide. What a dilemma! Voting against a tax would make his puppet master, Anaheim’s mayor-for-hire Curt Pringle look bad; after all much of the new tax revenue is earmarked for the allegedly conservative Pringle’s fabulous ARTIC boondoggle. Better just to duck the whole thing.
But wait a just minute, Hairball fans. According to minutes of the July 27, 2010 Anaheim City Council meeting, Sidhu had already voted with the rest of the council on a formal resolution (2010-125) to create both the tax and the new bureaucracy. Ouch, indeed!
In other words, when he thought nobody was looking, Hide and Seek Sidhu voted for the tax increase; when the campaign spotlight shined a little brighter Sidhu cut and ran. But it was too late: the ever slippery Sidhu had already left his pro-tax, anti-business spoor trail. I can see the hit piece already.
Now let’s see Pringle and his stooges at the hilariously named OC Business Council spin this one for Sidhu.
Clown college tuition finally pays off...
The only question remaining in this election is how deep Sidhu’s assclownery can run. I have the feeling the answer is very.
