New Philadelphia Treasurer Johnson Cited by State Of Ohio Auditor

On September 8, 2011, the Auditor of the State of Ohio, Mr. Dave Yost, released his report on the recent audit of the finances of the City of New Philadelphia for the year of 2010. On the whole, the City is doing relatively well. But the audit report exposed a problem which needs immediate correction and suggests an inability on the part of the City Treasurer, Mr. David Johnson, to efficiently perform the job for which he was elected.

Quoting Mr. Yost, “The City’s 2010 general checking/investment bank accounts were not always reconciled to the City’s book balances on a monthly basis by the City Treasurer. These reconciliations were only prepared by the City Treasurer through June 2010. No general checking/investment bank account reconciliations were presented for audit by the City Treasurer for the period July through December 2010. The January through June 2010 general checking/investment reconciliations were subsequently determined to be incomplete and inaccurate with unreconciled differences that varied monthly.”

In short, the City’s checkbook did not balance with the bank’s statement. To make matters worse, from January through June of 2010, while the City Treasurer submitted monthly reports to the City Council, those reports were incomplete and incorrect. From July through December of 2010, reports were not even submitted to the City Council by Mr. Johnson.

Keeping such records is not a complex task. Housewives do this on a continuing basis when balancing their checkbooks against the monthly statements sent them by their banks. Businesses do this on a daily basis. If one’s arithmetic isn’t up to par, there are numerous computer programs available to help not only the housewife, but the City Treasurer as well.

An outside accountant was hired the first of the year to assist Mr. Johnson but this appears to be an exercise in futility. Frankly, it didn’t do any good as there have been no financial reports forthcoming for the current year which have not contained substantial errors. In the first two years of Johnson’s tenure in his current office, reports sent to council from his office were not in balance. That trend continues to exist.

A number of questions arise when reading the State Auditor’s report about the City Treasurer’s performance, not all of them related to Mr. Johnson. Why did it take such a long time for the Administration to recognize that this problem existed? Why was there not concern expressed by Beth Gundy, the City Auditor, about errors in the Treasurer’s report? Why did not the President of Council, Mr. Day, not press Mr. Johnson for monthly reports when they were incorrect or not forthcoming?

The answers to those questions probably will never surface, which is a shame. The possibilities are chilling: Not everybody reads the reports; many members of Council do not understand what the reconciliation reports mean, which is chilling as Councilman Maurer is a branch manager of a local savings and loan association and would be expected to knowledgeable on such affairs; Is there animosity between Administration members which prevents open communication between departments? Or is the answer that members of the Administration and City Council just don’t care and sit in their positions for reasons other than for the good of the city?

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the City is in jeopardy, so much so that the State of Ohio Audit Report states, “It is our opinion, that the current Treasurer must work diligently to get all his records reconciled to date as soon as possible. If the treasurer feels that he is unable to do this then he may conclude that he should relinquish this position for the benefit of the city. This out-of-balance situation and delayed reconcilements should not continue.”

There is one other problem which should be confronted. The lack of interest on the part of the media to recognize that a problem exists in our community. It is difficult to imagine that the Times-Reporter and the two local radio stations failed to recognize that there is a financial problem in New Philadelphia. It is strange that they had no knowledge of the Ohio Auditor’s report. Probably they didn’t care that much. Strange, though I didn’t have that much trouble finding it.

While Dave Johnson is ultimately responsible for what occurs in his office, why was he apparently alone when his present dilemma was developing? Where were his friends and associates then and where are they now? Did he ask for advice and get none? Did he refuse offered suggestions and turn their makers away? Did he really see the problem as it grew in scope? I guess we’ll never know.

Department of Justice Illegal Gun Sales to Mexico

You’ve seen this in the movies. A group of gangsters surrounds an innocent bystander. One of the thugs pulls out a bat and smashes the poor guy’s windshield. “It’d be a shame if this sorta thing continued to happen,” says the thug. Unable to afford any future damage to his property, the bystander-turned-victim is now forced to surrender his money to the mob so they can “protect” his belongings.

President Barack Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are now using this same mob-style tactic on American gun owners.

Officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), an agency under the direct purview of Holder’s Justice Department, forced American gun shops to illegally sell guns to people they knew would cross the border and put those guns in the hands of violent Mexican drug lords.

The operation was dubbed “Fast and Furious” and many of the over 2,000 illegal guns that were supplied to Mexican criminals under this program were then used to commit murder – over 150 murders in Mexico, and two “Fast and Furious” guns were found at the murder site of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Meanwhile, as drug crime and murder raged out of control in Mexico, President Barack Obama blamed it all on law-abiding American gun owners and our Second Amendment rights.

“This [drug] war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border,” said Obama during one of his visits to Mexico.

This line was repeated over and over again by Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The media ran with it. Soon, the perception everywhere was that our Second Amendment rights were responsible for drug crime and murder in Mexico.

And it was a bald-faced lie.

Leaked State Department cables proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Central America was the main supplier of illegal guns to Mexican drug lords – not the United States of America.

And those guns that did find their way from America to Mexico were being illegally pushed across the border by our own federal government, as we now know. This scheme was so devious, that even Mexican President Felipe Calderon knew nothing about it.

There’s your busted windshield, Mr. Law-Abiding American Gun Owner. Now the Obama administration expects you to surrender your gun rights so something like this never happens again.

BATFE is now requiring American firearms dealers that are located in states that border Mexico to register the sales of anyone purchasing multiple rifles. You know…to solve the gun-running problem that BATFE itself illegally created.

BATFE’s new gun registration requirement is not only useless in stopping Mexican drug violence, but it’s also an illegal and blatant end-run around Congress. Not that you would expect an administration that breaks the law to all of sudden begin respecting our American law-making process.

All freedom-loving Americans – not just gun owners – should be alarmed by this dictatorial move by the White House. If Obama and Holder can circumvent Congress and make their own gun control laws, it won’t be long before they’re ramming a whole host of other unpopular laws down our throats.

This is why the National Rifle Association is suing the Obama administration in federal court so we can defend the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans in border states by stopping this unconstitutional gun registration scheme. And we will continue to pressure Holder and the Justice Department to come forward with all of the facts surrounding the secretive and illegal “Fast and Furious” scandal.

This is real-life America, not a fictional episode of The Sopranos. And we Americans need to stand up for ourselves and defend our Constitutional rights whenever and wherever they fall under attack. NRA will fight this illegal gun-control edict no matter how many windshields the Obama administration smashes.

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Originally published by the National Rifle Association, info@nraila.org

Second Amendment, Obama, and the United Nations

Saturday, September 17, 2011

In a clear sign the 2012 presidential election campaign is in full swing, the Obama campaign launched a new website this week: AttackWatch.com . The purpose of the site is to give Obama supporters a way to report “attacks” on the president, implying that any criticism is based on lies or misinformation.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the disturbing notion of a president of the United States setting up a web site so that his supporters can “report” on the statements and activities of his opponents. When it comes to firearms issues, it’s this site that is misrepresenting President Obama’s record on guns.

The site says “Public figures have made outlandish claims that President Obama is planning to use a United Nations treaty to take away legal firearms from gun owners in the US.” It goes on to claim that “The Obama Administration supports a UN treaty that would help stop the worldwide illegal arms trade, while opposing any treaty that would interfere with US gun laws. While an arms treaty is currently being drafted, it has not yet been ratified.” What’s left out is that many of the treaty’s strongest proponents are demanding provisions would directly threaten American gun rights if it were ratified. Also omitted is that the position of the U.S. has changed since Obama took office: from strong unwavering opposition to the treaty, to support for the treaty if is passed by “consensus.”

The NRA has kept close watch on UN gun control efforts for more than 15 years. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre testified last month at the UN, making it clear that any treaty that includes civilian arms in its scope is a threat to the Second Amendment rights of Americans. But the misrepresentation of Obama’s position on the UN treaty is not the only misinformation on the AttackWatch site. The site also repeats claims from the 2008 campaign that Obama “supports” the Second Amendment and quotes the president as saying “There’s nothing that I will do as president of the United States that will in any way encroach on the ability of sportsmen to continue that tradition.” But that statement is inaccurate in many ways.

First, the primary function of the Second Amendment is not to protect “sportsmen,” but to protect the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and for the defense of our homes, families, communities and country. And this lip service to the Second Amendment is dwarfed by Obama’s lifetime Supreme Court appointments of two Supreme Court justices with clear records of antagonism toward the fundamental right to keep and bear arms: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. These nominations alone are proof of Obama’s true stance on the Second Amendment, but there is much more. Obama has appointed dozens of high officials with long records of opposition to gun owners’ rights. From Vice President Joe Biden to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama has surrounded himself with anti-gun extremists. With people like these at the top level, it’s no surprise the administration has launched initiatives such as the effort to ban the importation of popular sporting and defensive shotguns, or the illegal use of “demand letters” to force southwest border state gun dealers to report multiple sales of certain rifles. And it should not be forgotten that “Operation Fast and Furious” not only happened under Obama’s watch, but has been covered up for ten months and counting, while growing evidence suggests the operation’s goal was to create support for more gun laws.

Finally, while Obama did sign legislation allowing firearms possession in national parks, he only did so when the provision was added as an amendment to a credit card reform bill that was one of his top priorities. In fact, Obama opposed the parks provision and accepted it only because he had no choice. The bottom line is this: The NRA has been incredibly successful over the past 20 years, not only in the legislatures and the courts but in changing the debate on the Second Amendment. This success has forced Obama to try and hide his life-long opposition to guns and gun ownership. Repeating a campaign sound bite that he “supports the Second Amendment” will not make it true. Nor does including that lie on the AttackWatch site make the claim any less preposterous. That’s not an attack; it’s the truth.

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Reprinted from an article, Obama Misinformation Machine Gears Up, published on September 17, 2011, by the National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action, www.nraila.org.

Obama Insaniity Exposed

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

After last Thursday night’s presidential address before the Congress, there can be no question about it. Barack Obama is certifiably insane. He has gone beyond stupidity, apparently having no intention of rebuilding the economy of the United States. If he is not insane, the only other explanation for his comments is that he is, in fact, attempting the destruction of our country for his personal ambition, whatever that may be.

The Obama jobs proposal outlined to Congress on September 8, has as its goal, the financial destruction of the United States economy, our liberty, our way of life. His proposal displays a total lack of common sense, a trait which evidently is rampant in the United States Congress.

Today the national debt stands at 14.7 trillion dollars, the total tax revenue of the United States as of today is 2.3 trillion dollars, and the current goods and services sold, again as of today, in the United States is 19.9 trillion dollars.

Social Security is close to going broke, a situation which did not exist prior to the Congress authorizing the theft of money from the Social Security Trust Fund in the 1970s to fund other programs. The solution to this problem, according to Obama, is to cut the Social Security tax. He proposes a fifty-percent reduction on what employees and employers pay. Yep. The government that stole from the trust fund plans to make up the Social Security deficit right by reducing revenues to Social Security by half.

But that is not enough. He also wants to cut taxes to the “Middle Class.” According to Obama, the savings to the taxpayer earning $50,000 a year would be about $1,500. With a taxpaying population of 112-million plus, the tax revenue lost by this brilliant plan would increase the deficit by a mere 118 billion dollars. Obama’s plan to increase jobs, by the way, will, according to Obama, will cost 450 billion dollars.

Talk to any housewife who does the grocery shopping and she can explain how a decrease in family income somehow fails to be solved by spending more money at the grocery store and Wal-Mart.

But the logic of an increasing debt caused by increased spending just doesn’t compute with Obama. What he wants to do is to increase jobs by building and repairing, bridges, roads, schools, you name it, anything which will pour money into the coffers of organized labor. It doesn’t matter that the United States can’t pay for it. It doesn’t matter that we are on the verge of bankruptcy. It doesn’t matter that the real unemployment rate is over 19%, not the 9% the government claims, that figure being based on how many are being paid unemployment insurance, not how many are actually unemployed.

Obama’s economic plans won’t work. The only way to solve the problem of unemployment and debt is to stop government spending, and stop it now. Our current leadership is not up to the task.

But then by definition, Obama is insane.

Van T. Barfoot, the Flag, and the Medal of Honor

Remember the guy who wouldn't take the flag down?

You might remember a news story several months ago about the crotchety old man who defied his homeowners association and refused to take down the flagpole on his property and the large flag that flew on it. Now you can learn who, exactly, that old man was.

On June 15, 1919, Van T. Barfoot was born in Edinburg -- probably didn't make much news back then. Twenty-five years later, on May 23, 1944, near Carano, Italy, Van T. Barfoot, who had enlisted in the US Army in 1940, set out to flank German machine gun positions from which fire was coming down on his fellow soldiers. He advanced through a minefield, took out three enemy machine gun positions and returned with 17 prisoners of war. If that wasn't enough for a day's work, he later took on and destroyed three German tanks sent to retake the machine gun positions.

That probably didn't make much news either, given the scope of the War, but it did earn Van T. Barfoot, who retired as a colonel after also serving in Korea and Vietnam, a Congressional Medal of Honor.

What did make news was a neighborhood association's quibble with how the 90-year-old veteran chose to fly the American flag outside his suburban Virginia home. Seems the rules said a flag could be flown on a house-mounted bracket, but, for decorum, items such as Barfoot's 21-foot flagpole were unsuitable. He had been denied a permit for the pole, erected it anyway and was facing court action if he didn't take it down.

Since the story made national TV, the neighborhood association has rethought its position and agreed to indulge this old hero who dwells among them.

"In the time I have left I plan to continue to fly the American flag without interference," Barfoot told The Associated Press, as well he should.

And if any of his neighbors still takes a notion to contest him, they might want to read his Medal of Honor citation. It indicates he's not real good at backing down.

Van T. Barfoot's Medal of Honor citation:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 23 May 1944, near Carano, Italy. With his platoon heavily engaged during an assault against forces well entrenched on commanding ground, 2d Lt. Barfoot (then Tech. Sgt.) moved off alone upon the enemy left flank. He crawled to the proximity of 1 machinegun nest and made a direct hit on it with a hand grenade, killing 2 and wounding 3 Germans. He continued along the German defense line to another machinegun emplacement, and with his tommygun killed 2 and captured 3 soldiers. Members of another enemy machinegun crew then abandoned their position and gave themselves up to Sgt. Barfoot. Leaving the prisoners for his support squad to pick up, he proceeded to mop up positions in the immediate area, capturing more prisoners and bringing his total count to 17. Later that day, after he had reorganized his men and consolidated the newly captured ground, the enemy launched a fierce armored counterattack directly at his platoon positions. Securing a bazooka, Sgt. Barfoot took up an exposed position directly in front of 3 advancing Mark VI tanks. From a distance of 75 yards his first shot destroyed the track of the leading tank, effectively disabling it, while the other 2 changed direction toward the flank. As the crew of the disabled tank dismounted, Sgt. Barfoot killed 3 of them with his tommygun. He continued onward into enemy terrain and destroyed a recently abandoned German fieldpiece with a demolition charge placed in the breech. While returning to his platoon position, Sgt. Barfoot, though greatly fatigued by his Herculean efforts, assisted 2 of his seriously wounded men 1,700 yards to a position of safety. Sgt. Barfoot's extraordinary heroism, demonstration of magnificent valor, and aggressive determination in the face of pointblank fire are a perpetual inspiration to his fellow soldiers.”

This 1944 Medal of Honor citation, listed with the National Medal of Honor Society, is for Second Lieutenant Van T. Barfoot, 157th Infantry, 45th Infantry.

WE ONLY LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE AND BECAUSE OF OLD MEN LIKE VAN BARFOOT!

Obama Food Regulators to Censor Food Commercials

(An editorial printed by Morningbell, a Publication of the Heritage Foundation, morningbell@heritage.org, on September 1, 2011)

Food Regulators Out of Control

First Lady Michelle Obama’s obsession with “childhood obesity” has bothered many since it began two years ago, especially those who think that White House nagging of parents should be reserved for more pressing issues. Now it is getting more serious, with food regulators starting to infringe on the free speech rights of advertisers.

In the latest upset, four federal agencies known as the Interagency Working Group (IWG) have delivered a plan to drastically censor food advertisers with products deemed to be “too high” in sodium, sugar, or fat that cater to any viewing audience between the ages of two and 11. These advertisers would lose key slots during some of America’s most popular shows, like American Idol, America’s Got Talent, and Glee—simply because the nanny state is “uncomfortable” with what they are selling.

The IWG, formed within the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act to study childhood obesity and offer possible solutions, has gone far beyond their descriptive reach. Now, perfectly reasonable companies may be penalized severely.

The regulators plan to get away with this by disguising their rules as “voluntary guidelines.” In reality, the guidelines are anything but optional, according to food manufacturers affected by them.

As Heritage’s Diane Katz explains:

The restrictions are voluntary in name only. Food manufacturers can hardly ignore “recommendations” from the very federal agencies that exercise regulatory authority over their every move. It is akin to a cop asking for ID or to search one’s vehicle: While the law treats such citizen cooperation as voluntary, most individuals would not view it as such, nor would the police look kindly on anyone who denies their requests.

It’s not just Twinkies and cookies that will be affected, either. Anything deemed to have a little too much sodium or fat will be tested under the new rules, including foods whose very production requires a high sodium content (like pickles) and those that are naturally high fat (like peanuts).

As Katz wrote, “Nutritional staples such as Cheerios, peanut butter, and yogurt are verboten under the proposed standards, which effectively constitute a government-regulated grocery list.”

The regulations hit traditional favorites where it hurts. In turn, the free market and consumer choice is manipulated to fit a misplaced government agenda that doesn’t solve the problem.

Even if the feds are well-intentioned, their action plan isn’t grounded in reliable research. The whole point of the regulations is to curb the growing epidemic of childhood obesity—but the Institute of Medicine found no link between advertisements and children’s food choices.

According to Katz, children have seen about 50 percent less food advertising in the last six years than before that time—yet obesity rates continue to climb. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan attributes the obesity problem to “physical inactivity”—not caloric intake. In fact, McClellan noted that children’s calorie intake has remained about the same for the last 20 years.

Not only do regulations hinder the market and censor speech; they hurt the businesses behind the labels. Sara Lee CEO Christopher J. Fraleigh recently spoke on the overextended regulations, which will hurt his business in particular:

A turkey sandwich made with Sara Lee fat-free lean turkey meat, we would not be able to advertise that on venues, be it the Superbowl or anything that would have a significant child audience, because the product is a little bit too high in sodium…. Current regulation of advertising toward children is a perfect example of regulation that just goes way too far.

The Obama Administration’s food regulators think that if you give them an inch, they can take a mile. But when free speech is on the cutting board, they will certainly hear from the people, and the people will not stand for it.