Non-Citizens May Be Permitted to Vote In Maine Elections

Truth is stranger than fiction? If you don’t believe that, consider Portland, Maine. A referendum will be on the ballot in Portland this November to allow non-citizens to vote in the general election. This is insane.

The logic is that since they are living in Portland as legal aliens, are paying taxes, using the city’s services, that they should have a say in how the city is run. It goes deeper than that. Portland, among other things, is a city which offers sanctuary to illegal aliens, along with the State of Maine as a whole. While this is one more step in the destroying of the United States of America this action is not really surprising. as after all, it is Maine.

In April of 2004 Maine’s Governor John Badacci issued an Executive Order, “An Order Concerning Access to State Services by All Entitled Maine Residents”, making Maine the first sanctuary state in the US. Under his executive order, state employees are forbidden to ask about anybody’s immigration status. Because of this, illegal aliens, from any country, have unlimited access to all the privileges enjoyed by citizens of the United States, including the right to vote, driver’s licenses, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing, in-state college tuitions, you name it. These, along with other benefits offered by Maine are denied to American citizens who reside outside of Maine. The bottom line is that illegal aliens are free to sneak into Maine and, free from any threat of deportation or criminal prosecution, be supported by the state while planning the overthrow of the United States.

By exempting illegal aliens from the law with an executive order, Maine is in violation of federal immigration laws. Specifically Maine is in violation of United States Code 8, 1325, section 274, 276, 277 and other statutes. It is a federal crime to “aid, abet, assist, encourage or induce an illegal alien to remain in the United States.” Baldacci has left himself open to federal prosecution.

Now then, considering the stand Eric Holder has taken on Arizona’s stand on illegal aliens, he is suing Arizona for enforcing the United States laws on illegal entry into the country, there is nothing to stop the spread of sanctuary cities and states, like Portland, Maine, across the country. As Holder’s position on Arizona is totally political there is no reason to suspect the United States Justice Department will take any action against Maine nor Portland.

The danger which exists is mind boggling, so immense as to be unbelievable. In Maine it is now illegal to question someone who is registering to vote about his citizenship. It is possible, probable, that illegal aliens may vote in national elections. Portland is setting the precedent for this with the referendum appearing on their ballot this November. With the questionable tactics used by organizations such as ACORN, federal, state and local elections may be decided by a new voter bloc composed of illegal aliens in the United States.

It is time that the United States government lives up to its constitutional obligations and protects its citizens from enslavement by foreign nationals who are literally invading it. In towns and cities, large and small, law enforcement departments are not protecting their citizens from the infiltration of illegal aliens. It is the responsibility of government, from federal to city level, to arrest and prosecute anybody who is not legally in the United States. This is not being done and the results are bankrupting our country from both financial and security standpoints.

Wake up America! We are losing our freedom, liberty, security, and identity. We are being sold out by our President, our Congress, our appointed officials, our state, county, and city officials. Our country is being destroyed from within. Wake up and become involved.

On November 2, vote, and when you do, vote those candidates who will support out country. Vote for those who believe our republic is worth saving. Reject the special interest politicians who are self-centered and care only for the power, prestige, and financial gain the receive as politicians. Vote for the good of America.

How the Obama Tax Hikes Affect Your Bottom Line

In 1819 Chief Justice John Marshall stated, “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

With the Obama tax hikes, we are fast approaching that limit.

The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has compiled statistics demonstrating the catastrophic implications of this tax increase as the economy struggles to recover. In 2011, the first year of the new tax rates, the tax hikes will result in an estimated 238,000 fewer jobs and $40 billion less in total GDP. Fast forward to 2016, five years after the tax hikes: there will be over 800,000 jobs lost and a $135 billion loss to GDP in that year alone.

The Obama tax hikes will not just hurt the “wealthy,” as progressives would have you believe. The new tax rates will have a ripple effect throughout the entire economy.

•Mississippi, which has the lowest average household income in America, will lose 5,911 jobs annually, and each household will have $1,818 less in personal disposable income.
•Maryland, which has the highest-earning households in the United States, will lose an average of 13,983 jobs annually and will have $6,848 less in personal disposable income.
The Heritage Foundation has also measured the impact of the Obama tax hikes on individual states and Congressional districts. Find out how the tax hikes affect you and your family on Heritage.org.

Liberals often call the Obama tax hikes an end to “the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.” This is a fallacy that the Left has created in order to disguise the truth: taxes are increasing for the people and businesses that are creating jobs during a massive recession

In a piece on National Review Online’s The Corner, Heritage’s JD Foster explains:

More importantly for getting the economy kick-started, those higher rates will fall on the gazelles, those small businesses ready and able to grow rapidly — if they have the incentives, and if they have the cash. Higher tax rates on the gazelles, those small businesses that really matter to job creation, weaken incentives and drain cashflow. Higher tax rates on the gazelles are a real kick in the teeth.

“The average non-farm small business filing through the individual income tax code would see a tax increase of about $3,500,” the Center for Data Analysis report found. “Not only successful businesses would be hurt, although they would be hurt the most. Even firms with losses could face a tax increase, for example on capital gains, dividend, or carry-over income.”

Most economists agree with the Heritage Foundation’s findings. In a new poll conducted by CNNMoney.com, 60 percent of economists favor a continuation of tax rates as they currently stand.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) put it well in a speech to the Stamford Chamber of Commerce: “The surest way for Congress to help bring about a double-dip recession is to allow taxes to be raised on anyone during this uncertain economy we are struggling through.”

Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis has proven that “if the price of capital and labor increases through a tax increase, the pace of economic activity will slow down.”

They suggest another plan, whereby Congress will not raise taxes but will instead rein in its overspending to offset the enormous deficits their liberal policies have created.

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(The above article by Bethany Murphy was reprinted from the Heratige Foundation, http://myheratige.com, original publication 9/21/2010.)

Democracy In Peril

“. . . [T]he Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self-defense.”--Justice Stephen Breyer

“By its terms, the Second Amendment does not apply to the States; read properly, it does not even apply to individuals outside of the militia context.”--Justice John Paul Stevens

Those words in McDonald v. City of Chicago are at the core of a judicial activist attack on the Second Amend-ment, signed by four associate justices of the United States Supreme Court: John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

They are the heart of two blunt U.S. Supreme Court dissents filed in opposition to the Court’s majority, which confirmed that the Second Amendment and its implicit individual right to armed self-defense must be applied to all levels of government.

Had these four justices been joined by a single new anti-Second Amendment vote on the high court, their words would have been the law of the land.

It didn’t happen that way, thanks entirely to courageous court appointments by then-President George W. Bush and a pro-Second Amendment U.S. Senate majority that fought hard to clear the nominations of John Roberts as chief justice and Samuel Alito as associate justice.

With those appointments, the future of the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right was assured: first, in the sea-change D.C. v. Heller case two years ago, striking down the District of Columbia gun ban as violating the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms; then with the McDonald case in June 2010 applying that decision to every level of government, including Chicago and its suburb, Oak Park.

With Heller, the court recognized armed self-defense as a core element of the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms. In McDonald, Justice Alito’s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia.

This adds up to a stunning victory, but with a huge cautionary flag. The dogmatically anti-Second Amendment minority on the high court is within a heartbeat of reversing both Heller and McDonald, especially with an Obama rubber-stamp Senate and a Judiciary Committee dominated by the likes of New York’s Charles Schumer.

The outcome of any future Second Amendment case before the high court would be disastrous if President Barack Obama and his Senate ideological water-carriers retain power to load the court.

So far--in terms of anti-gun high court nominations--Obama is batting a thousand. Justice Sotomayor, to gain confirmation, pledged that she considered the Heller decision to be “settled law,” yet she signed on to Justice Breyer’s vehement dissent in McDonald, which declared there is no such individual right. And as President Obama’s nominee to replace outgoing Justice Stevens, Elena Kagan has earned our firm opposition for confirmation due to her record of hostility to Second Amendment rights as a staff member in Bill Clinton’s White House.

Since Kagan would replace an anti-Second Amendment jurist on the high court, the 5-4 balance remains the same, but all that could change with the next vacancy.

Again, look no further than the threats leveled by the minority in McDonald.
Had there been five instead of four anti-Second Amendment justices, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms would be effectively written out of the Bill of Rights.

As Justice Breyer wrote, “After all, the Amendment’s militia-related purpose is primarily to protect States from federal regulation, not to protect individuals.” Breyer’s opinion was also signed by Justice Ginsburg.

As for self-defense, try this from Justice Stevens: “In my view, the Court badly misconstrued the Second Amendment in linking it to the value of personal self-defense above and beyond the functioning of the state militias. . . .”

Or this embrace of foreign law: “. . . [T]he experience of other advanced democracies, including those that share our British heritage, undercuts the notion that an expansive right to keep and bear arms is intrinsic to ordered liberty. . . . it is silly--indeed, arrogant--to think we have nothing to learn about liberty from the billions of people beyond our borders.”

It takes no imagination to see where this is going. Try the United Nations and the kind of global gun-ban treaty pressed by internationalist billionaire and Obama moneybags mentor, George Soros.

A sobering revelation about the future liquidation of the Second Amendment came last year from Justice Ginsburg, who told the elite Harvard Club that when majority opinions are “grievously mistaken,” as in the Heller case, minority opinions would be used to rewrite legal history and thus create a purely “collective right connected to the militia.”

Unless we get our friends, family members and co-workers to the polls November 2 to create a pro-Second Amendment Senate that can block anti-Second Amendment nominees, we will face what Justice Scalia warns is “a system in which unelected and life-tenured judges always get their way.” Such an approach, he warned, “puts democracy in peril.”

All of this will come true, unless we do the right thing this November: Vote Freedom First!

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Reprinted by permission of the National Rifle Association

New Philadelphia Airport Master Plan Presented to City Council

There is an old saying, there is more than one way to skin a cat. It appears that the Public Works and Economic Development Committee of New Philadelphia City Council, PWEDC, has found a new way to get approval for extending the runway at the New Philadelphia Airport.

Last Monday, September 27, 2010, at the regular city council meeting, Resolution 47-2010 was read for the first time, of three required readings, on the floor. Resolution 47-2010, is another attempt to approve the Airport Master Plan to extend the runway at the New Philadelphia Airport. Despite assurances by Committee members to the contrary, passage of 47-2010, by its wording and intent, will pave the way for implementation of the Master Plan.

Section 1 of 47-2010 is explicit in its wording. “City Council wishes to acknowledge, support and cooperate with the New Philadelphia Airport Commission for the continued operations of the Harry Clever Field as a valuable tool and asset for not only the City of New Philadelphia but Tuscarawas County, Ohio as well.”

The important words in Section 1 are "acknowledge, support, and cooperate" with the Airport Commission. Should this resolution be passed by the City Council, two undesirable actions will take place.

If approved, City Council will agree to the proposed Airport Master Plan, which includes extension of the runway, taking of personal property by eminent domain, moving of existing grave sites, closure of at least two existing streets, and the taking of property of Schoenbrunn village. The PWEDC can deny that these actions are included in 47-2010, but other authorities disagree. Consultations with grammarians and legal council confirm that the wording in Section 1 is such as to allow implementation of the Airport Master Plan without further legislation by the City Council.

Approval of 47-2010 will shift legislative action, as applies to the Airport Master Plan, from the New Philadelphia City Council to the Airport Commission. By agreeing to acknowledge, support, and cooperate with the Airport Commission, the City Council will be committed by legislation, 47-2010, to agree to the desires of the Airport Commission regardless of what those desires may be.

This is another attempt to breakdown the division of responsibilities between Administrative and Legislative Branches, the first being Council President Day's appointment of himself as Chairman of an ad hoc committee to study pay increases for elected and appointed officials (See blog New Philadelphia Council President Oversteps Legal Authority, 9/2/2010).

In a statement before City council, a concerned citizen, Mr. Michael Bolinsky, spoke for a number of concerned citizens, expressing his concern for the lack of information provided by the Public Works Committee. According to Mr. Bolinsky passage of 47-2010 will approve all eight options of the proposed Airport Master Plan, a comment with which we agree. He also expressed concern that New Philadelphia citizens have not been told the whole story about the effects approval of the Airport Master Plan will have. His concern about the closing of Delaware Drive is best expressed by his request for the Public Works Committee to provide him with a copy of the letter from the Federal Aviation Committee which states that Delaware Drive should be closed. He also asked the Committee to provide information on how the city was going to provide financing for the airport renovation and the costs associated with taking property by eminent domain.

The presentation of Resolution 47-2010 to City Council is done at a time when many questions are still unanswered. It is apparent that the interests of the the citizens of New Philadelphia have not been considered by the sponsors of this legislation. No information is presented how the residents of New Philadelphia will prosper from this action. No economic advantage to New Philadelphia have been presented. The sole justification given for this proposal is a desire by Lauren Corporation to house a larger jet aircraft at the city airport, a justification which is not valid according to the FAA (See blog titled New Philadelphia Airport Runway Extension To Be Discussed dated 9/15/2010).

The handling of the proposal of the Airport Master Plan by the Administration has been poor. The full impact of the implementation of the plan has been withheld. Questions asked by members of city Council have gone unanswered. Citizen concerns have been ignored. Financial questions have gone unanswered. There has been opposition to the plan from the historical society.

Approval of Resolution 47-2010 by City Council is not in the best interests of the City of New Philadelphia. Urge your council representatives to vote against this resolution.

Pat Condell on the Twin Towers Cordoba Mosque

Pat Condell is a British comedian who has opinions on about everything, some of which we agree with, some we don't. In the following video his humor is lacking, being replaced with one of the better dissertations about the Cordoba mosque scheduled to be built at the Twin Towers site in New York. How come a Brit can understand the implications of building a victory memorial to the deaths of some 3,000 people by Islamic mass murders when likes of Obama and Bloomberg can't. It's worth a listen. It is an audio-visual clip so turn on the speakers.

Click on http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

921 Billion In Tax Hikes Coming January 1, 2011

The Wrong Way to Get America on Track

According to a recent poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that our nation is on the wrong course.

While there are a number of factors behind this result, the economy, jobs and federal spending top the list of Americans’ most pressing concerns. This should come as little surprise given that Americans have been dealing with an economic recession for the past two years. And they’re desperately looking for a way out of it. Our leaders should be, too.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s policies won’t fix things. The Obama tax hikes -- not limited to high earners -- are scheduled to go into place on January 1, in less than four months. The $921 billion in tax increases will follow a new “stimulus” that even some in the White House refuse to promise will stimulate the economy.

“Raising taxes now or in the future is the wrong course,” writes Heritage Foundation economist J.D. Foster. In a separate, in-depth analysis, Foster peels apart the various myths and straw man arguments used to defend tax hikes and increased spending. He explains how increased taxes will slow down economic recovery; kill jobs; and incentivize additional federal spending.

The United States is saddled with unsustainable budget deficits that pose a severe and immediate threat to the economy. The cumulative effects of this spending and regulatory binge is already visible, with America sinking from the ranks of the world’s “Free” nations to the “Mostly Free,” according to Heritage’s 2010 Index of Economic Freedom.

Increasing taxes on already struggling Americans and businesses is based on the leftist myth that we can spend our way out of this recession. But it simply does not work this way. Our leaders must turn to policies that rein in runaway federal spending and promote a sensible tax policy.

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Reprinted by Permission of the Heratige Foundation

Two Sides of Illegal Immigration

Despite federal judge Susan Bolton’s July 29 decision to block temporarily major portions of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070 is continuing to have rippling political effects this election season. Polls show that the majority of Americans support it, and politicians are quickly reacting. Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah, for example, are among the states where legislators have introduced similar bills.

The issue has rocketed Arizona’s interim governor Jan Brewer to national icon status and breathed new life into her previously stalled gubernatorial reelection campaign

Democratic advisors claim that the Obama administration has plenty of benefit to reap from the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona as well. They cite the likelihood that it will increase the president’s standing among Hispanics, a demographic with whom his poll numbers have been faltering.

Given how much both sides have invested in this fight, it’s little surprise that each is promising that it is from over and that they will take it to the Supreme Court if necessary, all but guaranteeing that immigration will be a major national issue in the months leading up to November.

But what of those most affected by HB1070 and the debate surrounding it – those living and trying to go about their businesses in the Grand Canyon State? Many – both supporters and opponents of the law – say the problem is being distorted to serve one political agenda or another and that the reality of illegal immigration is nowhere near as simple as it looks.

There are an estimated 500,000 illegal aliens residing in Arizona, and Holly Paulsen, a second-grade teacher in a Phoenix school that serves disadvantaged students, says the images of drug smugglers and gangs hyped by politicians don’t always paint an accurate picture of them. She has no idea how many of her students, who were placed in her class because of deficient English skills, are the children of illegal immigrants: “It could be 25 percent; it could be half; it could be the whole class. Unless they tell you specifically, you don’t know.” But what she does know is the immediate impact the law’s passage in April had in her school.

“Two hundred and fifty children in grades k – 8 didn’t come to class the day that Governor Brewer signed (SB1070). I had 10 second graders gone myself.” For the rest of that academic year, she says the atmosphere on her campus changed, and much more time was devoted to weathering the immigration storm while much less time was spent in learning.

“We had to counsel a lot of the kids because they were falling apart. They were scared for their parents and other relatives; they were scared they would have to move back to Mexico and not have a place to live. They were scared their parents would be arrested and deported and would have to leave them behind. These children already have a lot on their plates and then we throw this at them. It was tragic to see how distraught they were.”

And it wasn’t just the kids. Paulsen says she also noticed a dramatic change in the parents, who went from coming to her with concerns about their childrens homework and test scores to coming to her with concerns they would have to pull their kids out of school and flee the state. She describes it as a difficult end to a difficult year that left many of the teachers in her school in tears, fearful for their students’ futures. “You don’t know if you’re ever going to see or hear from some of the families again, you don’t know if they’re going to be safe, and you don’t know if you’re going to have a job next year – it was nerve wracking.”

Paulsen says she understands arguments about needing to secure the border and curb immigration-related crime, but she feels some middle way should be worked out that takes into consideration people who came to the United States for the right reasons, even if it was in the wrong way. “The parents I meet, they are so passionate about their kids – they want them to learn, they want them to succeed….I don’t think anyone after getting to know these families would say, ‘Nope, send them back home; kick them out.' I pray about it and I pray for the families and I hope they’ll be able to stay.”

On the flip side of the issue is naturalized citizen Lisa Hope of Tucson. Born in
Germany, Hope married an American serviceman who was stationed in Munich. She immigrated to the states during a long and arduous, but legal, process.

A mother of three, she describes having to stay in Germany for a year after the birth of her first child without her husband. When her visa was finally approved and she joined him in Indiana, she was confronted with the preparation book for her naturalization exam. “It was so big and full of facts on history and the Constitution . It scared the daylights out of me – I was intimidated by it! I had two small children by then and I had a job so it was very hard to find time to study.” It took her five years to become a citizen.

Citing her own background, Hope says it is unjust to people who immigrated legally to turn a blind eye to whose who would do so illegally. “There is a way to become an American and that is to follow America’s law. There shouldn’t be shortcuts. I waited and I did the right thing.”

What really angers her are suggestions that the law is based on racial prejudice and will lead to racial profiling. Says Hope: “The reality is that most of the illegals in Arizona are from Mexico, so it’s common sense that if the law is going to be enforced it is going to be enforced disproportionately against one racial group – but that’s not because the low or the police are raciest. It’s because one particular racial group is breaking that law more than the others.”

Hope says that while she sympathizes with that portion of the illegal population that is here to pursue better lives for themselves and their children, allowing them to circumvent the law may result in a lack of appreciation for the United States and the liberty that it offers. And she fears that allowing so many people into the country via illegitimate roads has eroded America’s fundamental values.

“I was happy to leave my German citizenship behind, and I am very proud to be an American citizen. Then I see these people marching, waving the Mexican flag, flying the American flag upside down. Of course I look at that and think those people who came here outside the proper channels don’t have an appreciation for what America means. They want to live here but still be Mexicans. They want to take advantage of what this country offers, but they’re getting the wrong idea about what that is because they didn’t have to sacrifice anything to get it. They think they’re going to come to America so the government can give them things. When they don’t go through the process like I did, they’re missing the point of the American Dream.”


(The preceding article by Megan Basham was taken from the August 28, 2010 issue of World, a magazine published out of Ashville, NC., and reprinted by permission.)

New Philadelphia Airport Runway Extension To Be Discussed September 20

It’s “Lets extend the runway at Clever Field” time again. Another meeting is scheduled for 6:30 P.M. on Monday, September 20, 2010, at the new Experimental Aviation Association hanger at the New Philadelphia airport.

The focus of the meeting is the same as it has been. The administration, some of the folks on City Council, and the Lauren Corporation, want to extend the main runway length. The reason for the extension seems to be that Lauren Corporation would like to buy a larger corporate aircraft and a longer runway would be to their advantage. Mention has been made of another corporation, maybe two, which might fly corporate aircraft into the New Philadelphia airport should be runway be lengthened, but determining who those corporations may be, has been difficult to pin down.

It has been said that an expanded runway would bring new business to New Philadelphia, which would certainly be a blessing, but somehow, it never seems to work out that way. Airport construction and enlargement follows the need of existing businesses. If building an airport brings manufacturing to an area, the number of airport facilities would be growing on a daily basis, which obviously it is not.

The adequacy of Henry Clever Field to handle corporate jets, and the possibility of losing FAA certification and funding of the airport if the proposed Master Plan for runway extension is not approved by the City Council, has been called into question.

The Master Plan offers a number of options for runway extension. All of them, every one, would require closing of a number of streets, the taking of existing cemetery plots, and taking of personal property, including family homes, by eminent domain.

The law is specific. Should the city elect to take property by eminent domain, an action done by City Council and approved by the Mayor, the residents of that property have no legal recourse. They cannot stop such action through the courts or any other legal avenue. Their houses will go. The only protection a resident has under an eminent domain order is to challenge the amount paid for their property by the City. Should the resident feel the city’s offer is too low they can challenge that in court and the court will decide what is a fair price for the property. And that’s it.

Much of the concern of proponents of the proposed Master Plan is centered around money, not only for runway extension, but also for maintenance and upgrading of the existing facilities including runways and taxiways. Rehabilitation projects, such as improvements to solve the problem of the aircraft parking area where aircraft tires were sinking into the asphalt on hot days, would still be funded even though the proposed master plan for runway relocation was not approved.

It is necessary to have a current airport layout plan on file with the FAA, which there is, when requesting funding for work on existing facilities. Relocation of the existing runway would require passage of the proposed Master Plan, while funding for maintenance and improvement on any existing facilities shown on the current layout plan is eligible without passage of the proposed Master Plan.

It has been said that without an extension to the runway, the airport may not meet the FAA requirements for handling larger aircraft. A conversation with the FAA cast doubt on that statement.

When asked if the airport classification, as regards the type of aircraft allowed to land on the existing runway, would be downgraded in the future should the proposed master plan not be approved, the response of our FAA contact was prefaced by, “That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

The FAA spokesman explained that when "class of aircraft" is talked about, the classes are determined according to wingspan and landing airspeed. As the wingspan and airspeed increase, the airport classification increases. An airport designed to accept small single-engine airplanes would have a lower classification than one designed to accommodate a large jet airplane. Airports are designed, and classified, to service what are called critical aircraft, by aircraft types of particular wingspan and airspeed. Clever Field is rated B I, landing speeds of 105 to 139 miles per hour and wingspans up to 49 feet.

Can a larger airplane than that use the airport? Yes. The city cannot ban any airplane from using the airport regardless of size. However, when the critical aircraft changes, the city should consider means of accommodating the larger aircraft. But before such changes need be considered, there must be more than 500 operations per year of larger critical aircraft. When the five hundred operations is a reality, not a projection, then is the time to start to plan how to accommodate the larger aircraft on a regular basis.

Don’t be misled by the number of airplanes based at, or using, the airport as being a justification to increase the runway length. The determining factor is the number of critical aircraft which use Clever Field now and exceed the 500 yearly operations criteria.

There may be a reason to extend the runway at Clever Field but justification is hard to find. The question yet to be answered is what is the advantage to the New Philadelphia tax payer of such a project? The figures and talk from the Administration, the Airport Commission, and some members of City Council, favoring the runway relocation do not support the passage of the proposed Airport Master Plan. Until a greater argument than a local corporation wanting a larger airplane is presented, the Master Plan should be rejected.


(Ed: For more information concerning the proposed Clever Field Master Plan, refer to the New Philadelphia Tattler article New Philadelphia Airport Master Plan Raises Questions dated May 21, 2010.)

Muslim Terrorists Win Another One

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has been called “un-American.” Jones had planned to burn a copy of the Quran on Saturday, September 11, to commemorate the Muslim attack on the Twin Towers and the associated loss of life. I do not know Pastor Jones, nor have I spoken with him. What I do know is that the response to burning a copy of the Quran is far beyond what it deserves. It is the response, not the action, which is the disgrace, one of which every American should be ashamed of.

While the Quran is considered by Muslims to be a holy book, a statement of the precepts of Islam, it is just that, a book. When Muslims burn and desecrate Bibles or similar texts of non-Islamic religions, there no protest from the government of the United States. When Christian missionaries are murdered by Muslims there is no outrage.

Is it possible that Muslims consider the burning of the Quran as a great propaganda opportunity? Was Jones’s action blown out of proportion by the credo "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"? Could it be that a book burning offers Muslims the opportunity to create justified, at least in their minds, increased terrorism attacks?

Speaking for the Administration, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We think that these are provocative acts (burning of the Quran). We would like to see more Americans stand up and say that this is inconsistent with our American values; in fact, these actions themselves are un-American.”

Whoa. Un-American? The First Amendment un-American? Has expressing an opinion become un-American? Since when is taking a stand against tyranny, murder, overthrow of the country, un-American? It is about time we look at the interests of the United States citizens. It is about time we stand up to Muslim terrorists instead of trying to “understand” the reasons for their worldwide terror.

It is American to defend our country, liberty, freedom, citizens, at home and abroad, with the full strength of the United States military and citizenry. Remember not only the First and Second World Wars, but also the War of 1812, the Tripoli Pirates, the Cuban missile crisis, to mention a few. The United States said “Enough”, took a stand, brooked no nonsense, and prevailed.

Past United States administrations have failed to protect the country and its citizens. Obama has stated often that the United States is no longer respected. His problem is that he refuses to recognize the cause. American administrations did nothing to protect United States citizens, offered no retaliation to the invasion of United States soil abroad, but instead chose top ignore Muslim attacks on United States interests throughout the world.

Take A look: In November 1979, shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power in Iran, a militant Islamic mob took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days.
April 1983: 17 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
October 1983: 241 dead at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
December 1983: five dead at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.
January 1984: the president of the American University of Beirut killed.
April 1984: 18 dead near a U.S. airbase in Spain.
September 1984: 16 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut (again).
December 1984: Two dead on a plane hijacked to Tehran.
June 1985: One dead on a plane hijacked to Beirut.
August 1998: 224 killed at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
October 2000: 17 dead on the USS Cole in Yemen.*

In all, 800 persons lost their lives in the course of attacks by militant Islam on Americans before September 2001 - more than killed by any other enemy since the Vietnam War.

Then there was September 11, 2001. In hijacked airplanes Muslim terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. The casualty rate was 2,752 killed, 251 injured. Near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a third airplane hijacked by Muslim terrorists who intended to crash it into the United States Capital, crashed after the passengers fought the hijackers in an attempt to regain control of the plane. Casualties, forty. A fourth plane, also hijacked by Muslim terrorists, was crashed into the Pentagon Building outside of Washington, D.C., casualties 200 dead, 53 injured. Total casualties 2,992 dead, 304 injured.

Murder by Muslim terrorists goes on unabated. In the period from August 28 thru September 3, 2010, worldwide known Jihad attacks by Muslims numbered 43 with 269 deaths and 758 injuries.

Under pressure from the United States government, Terry Jones changed his mind and will not burn the Quran on September 11. I guess that there is some logic there, but I can’t find it, probably because it is filed under Politically Correct. Muslims have vowed to destroy Judaism, Christianity, the United States, our freedom, and liberty. An American, Terry Jones stood up and said “Enough.” He may have been wrong in this day of apologetic administrations, but he did display, if only momentarily, the spirit of self-preservation and patriotism that this country was founded on.

I guess Muslims won another one for Islam.





* For a breakdown of Muslim terrorist attacks within the United States , click on
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/AmericanAttacks.htm

MBAs Just Don't Get It

Why short Greeks succeed

by Mike Royko


The moment we sat down for lunch, I knew it was a mistake. It was one of those cute new Yuppie-poo restaurants, with ferns and a menu that listed calories.

I knew it was an even bigger mistake when five minutes passed before the busboy dropped the silver-ware and napkins in front of us.

About 10 minutes later, I snared a waitress as she was hurrying by and asked: "Is there any chance we can see a menu?" She flung down a couple of menus and rushed off. About five minutes later, she was back for the orders.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "We're shorthanded. One of the girls didn't show up today."

When she finally brought the food it wasn't what I had ordered.

"There are some problems in the kitchen", she said. "We have a new cook."

"Never mind," I said, "I'll eat it, whatever it is. But what about the beer?"

"Oh, I forgot, you wanted a beer," she said. The beer arrived just in time to wash down the last bite of sandwich.

When she brought the check, which was wrong because she charged me for what I ordered instead of what I got, I asked: "Who runs this place?"

"The manager?" she said. "He's in the end booth having lunch."

On the way out, I stopped at the manager's booth. He was a Yuppie in a business suit. He and a clone were leisurely sipping their coffee and looking at a computer printout.

"Nice place you have here," I lied. "Do you own it?"

The young man shook his head. It was owned by one of those big corporations that operates restaurants in far-flung office buildings and health clubs. He also proudly told me that he had recently left college with a degree in restaurant and hotel management.

That explained it all. His waitresses were short handed, his cook was goofing up the orders, the customers were fuming, and what was he doing? He was having lunch. Or, as he'd probably say, he was doing lunch.

I don't want to be an alarmist, but when this nation collapses, he, and those like him will be the cause.

First, we had the MBA - especially the Harvard graduate with a Master of Business Administration degree - who came along after World War II and took over American industry. With his bottom-line approach, the MBA did such a brilliant job that the Japanese might soon buy the whole country and evict us.

But we're told not to worry. Now that we don't manufacture as much as we used to, we'll be saved by the growing service industry. The problem is that the service industry is being taken over by people like the restaurant manager and his corporation. They go to college and study service. Then they install computers programmed for service. And they have meetings and look at service charts and graphs and talk about service. But what they don't do is provide service. That's because they are not short Greeks.

You probably wonder what that means. - I'll explain.

If that corporation expects the, restaurant to succeed, it should fire the young restaurant-hotel degree holder. Or demote him to cleaning the washrooms. It should then go to my friend Sam Sianis, who owns the Billy Goat Tavern, and say: "Do you know a short Greek who wants to manage a restaurant?"

Sam will say: "Shoo. I send you; one my cousins. Jus' got here from old country." Then he'd go to Greek Town and tell his cousin, who works as waiter, that his big chance had come.

When the next lunch hour rolled around, and a waitress failed to show for work, Sam's cousin would not sit down to do lunch. He would put on an apron and wait tables himself. If the cook goofed up orders, Sam's cousin would go into the kitchen, pick up a cleaver, and say "You want I keel you?"

He wouldn't know how to read a computer printout, but he'd get drinks in the glasses, food on the table, and money in the cash register.

That simple approach is why restaurants run by short Greeks stay in business and rake money. And why restaurants that are run by corporations and managed by young men who are educated beyond their intelligence come and go. And mostly go.

So, if you are ever approached by a stockbroker who wants to sell you shares in any of the giant service corporations, tell him not to bother showing you the annual report. just ask him one question. "Is it run by short Greeks?" If he says no, leave your money under the mattress.



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Mike Royko was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune from the 1950s until his death in 1997. The above article, written around the 1970s, still applies with the exception that while Royko predicted Japan would take over the country, China is in the process of playing out his prophecy.

New Philadelphia Council President Oversteps Legal Authority

Last Monday, August 30, the Council President’s “ad hoc” committee met to discuss pay raises for elected officials and appointed supervisors and department heads. The Council President, Mr. Day, feels that the current wage levels are not commensurate with the positions and effort those individuals put into their jobs. While Mr. Day feels the pay is too low, many tax paying citizens feel the pay is too high.

The Council President has a specific position in New Philadelphia city government. He is elected by the populace to his seat every four years. He is elected to be Council President, a position which is a separate, autonomous, position not related to City Council itself. The duties of the Council President are to moderate the council meetings, make committee assignments, and act as parliamentarian should questions of procedure arise. The Council President is not an elected member of the City Council. He has no vote on legislation other than to break a tie vote should that be necessary. By State Code, the Council President is defined specifically as a member of the Administration.

No mention is made in the State Code or City Ordinances which allows the Council President to become actively involved in actions within the City Council, including taking part in discussions by City Council or its committees. Robert’s Rules of Order specifically states the Council President is not allowed to speak from his chair on any matter of legislation under discussion by City Council during either a general or committee meeting while presiding. In short, the Council President of New Philadelphia is prohibited from commenting on, or contributing to, any legislative discussion going on in council meetings. His job is moderation of legislative meetings of the City Council, no more, no less.

The Council President’s moderation tasks include the assignment of proposed legislation to the proper City Council Committee. There are seven committees in the City Council: Finance; Salary; Safety, Health, and Service; Public Works and Economic Development; Zoning and Annexation; Special and Contact; and Parks and Cemetery. It is in these committees that the legislative business of the City is to be conducted The assignment of legislative matters to the proper committee is the responsibility of the President of Council. If finances are involved it goes to the Finance Committee, road construction goes to Public Works, wages and benefits go to the Salary Committee.

How did these committees come into being? Robert’s Rules of Order, which applies when there is no other ordinance or law, is explicit about this. The Council President is forbidden to create a committee for any reason without the City Council’s permission as expressed in the passage of legislation to do so. In the case of an ad hoc committee, Robert’s Rules of Order is specific, stating “a special committee may not be appointed to perform a task that falls within the assigned function of an existing committee.”

Chairmen of committees are appointed when the committee members are appointed to the committee by the Council President, the chairmanship going to the first member appointed to the committee. Members of legislative committees, such as those of City Council, are appointed from elected members of the City Council. and may only be done with the approval of the City Council. The appointments are irrevocable except by action of City Council, the assignments lasting for the entire council term, that is, from one Council election to the next, in New Philadelphia a two year span. Individuals who are not elected to City Council cannot serve on a City Council Committee.

That being said, the legality of the ad-hoc committee, appointed by Council President Day, to recommend legislation for pay raises for non-bargaining New Philadelphia city employees, comes into question. While wage levels of the administration and city department heads and supervisors merit investigation and consideration by City Council, the methods employed by President Day to do this are highly questionable.

President Day created the ad-hoc committee without the formal approval of City Council. This in itself is questionable as it specifically relates to salaries, a subject which without argument falls under the responsibility of the Salary Committee. This action is unwarranted by Robert’s Rules of Order, precedents sent by previous City Councils, State Legislatures, and both Houses of the United States Congress.

President Day appointed himself as the Chairman of this ad-hoc committee in direct violation of all law and precedent as he is not a member of the New Philadelphia City Council and has no legal nor ethical right to sit on any New Philadelphia City Council committee. The President of Council has no authority to speak on legislative matters nor offer opinions on legislative matters. His sole function is moderation of meetings of the City Council which does not include his participation in discussions of matters being discussed on the Council floor.

President of Council Day exceeded his authority when he appointed the current ad-hoc committee without the legislative approval of City Council.

President of Council Day acted illegally when he appointed himself chairman of the current ad-hoc committee. The office of President of Council is by law an administrative position and as such has no authority to act as a member of the city council or its committees, nor take part, except as a guest, in any discussions within the city council.

President of Council Day acted improperly when he created an ah-hoc committee to bypass the standing Salary Committee in which this inquiry legally belongs.

Are more pay raises so important that the integrity of the New Philadelphia City Council is to be trashed by members of the Administration? What can we expect next?

Obama's College Roommate Speaks Out

By Wayne Allyn Root, June 6th, 2010

Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.

Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."

Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America. The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

National Anthem and Flag Protocol for Veterans

There has been some confusion about how to offer the proper respect to the United States of America flag and national anthem. The following, taken from military.com explains the proper protocol.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 contained an amendment to allow un-uniformed service members, military retirees, and veterans to render a hand salute during the hoisting, lowering, or passing of the U.S. flag.

A later amendment further authorized hand-salutes during the national anthem by veterans and out-of-uniform military personnel. This was included in the Defense Authorization Act of 2009, which President Bush signed on Oct. 14, 2008.

Here is the actual text from the law:

SEC. 595. MILITARY SALUTE FOR THE FLAG DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM BY MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES NOT IN UNIFORM AND BY VETERANS.

Section 301(b)(1) of title 36, United States Code, is amended by striking subparagraphs (A) through (C) and inserting the following new subparagraphs:
(A) individuals in uniform should give the military salute at the first note of the anthem and maintain that position until the last note;
(B) members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute in the manner provided for individuals in uniform; and
(C) all other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart;

Note: Part (C) applies to those not in the military and non-veterans. The phrase "men not in uniform" refers to civil service uniforms like police, fire fighters, and letter carriers - non-veteran civil servants who might normally render a salute while in uniform.

The Threat of the Cordoba Mosque

With all the discussion about building the Cordoba mosque at the site of the Twin Tower murders, some things have been lost in the politically correct rhetoric commentary surrounding the issue. We, for one, want to go on record that the mosque is not an issue based on freedom of religion, speech, or any other right supposed to be enjoyed by an American citizen. It is a move by a religious sect, Islam, further the demise of Christianity and the defeat of the United States of America.

The erection of a Cordoba mosque anywhere is the erection of a victory monument in the name of Islam in its fight to control the world. The twin towers mosque will be a symbol of victory as strong as the Arch of Triumph in Paris, the Yorktown Victory Monument, The Perry’s Victory Monument at Put-In-Bay, all of which celebrate victories of epic proportions which changed the world. The proposed Cordoba mosque will celebrate the deaths of 2,995 who died at the hands of Muslim murders in the name of Islam.

Put the rhetoric aside and look at the facts. Feisal Abdul-Rauf, the Muslim front man for the building of the Cordoba mosque, is clear in his purpose for building it at Park Place. Feisal Abdul Rauf is indeed an adherent and promoter of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals and objectives. Any doubt to his Muslim Brotherhood connections are addressed by the excellent and timely report by Alyssa A. Lappen, which is required reading for factual insight into Abdul Rauf’s link to the Muslim brotherhood

A document, An Explanatory Memorandum, on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, which came forward during the trial of the United States vs. the Holy Land Foundation, lays it out pretty clearly. The objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is the conversion of the United States into an Islamic nation through sabotage and subterfuge. The memorandum describes the process of settlement as a civilization-Jihadist process, stating that the Ikhwan, Arabic for brothers, must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within” and “sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Clearly, according to this document, the objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is to convert the U.S. into an Islamic nation through sabotage and subterfuge. It is a handbook to achieve that end. The author painstakingly describes the process of “settlement,” among others, its meaning, and the methods to be employed. Point 17 of the document clearly illustrates that building Islamic centers equals building military “battalions,” points from which to stage the planned destruction of the West. “And what better place inside our front lines is there but within the perimeter of destruction at Ground Zero?”

This has nothing to do with civil rights. It has to do with the overthrow of the United States and abolishment of Christianity and Judaism. The building of a Cordoba mosque anywhere in the United States will create a training ground for Muslims to take away our freedom, liberty, and lives. Cordoba mosques are monuments to Islam, a religion of non-tolerance, a religion which even today stones dissidents to death, a religion which massacres Christians out of hand. Islam teaches Muslims to kill for the sake of Allah.

Do all Muslims agree with the fanatical leaders of Islam? Only they know with in their hearts. Do they all agree with the victory mosque to be built at the site of the Twin Tower murders? Only they know. But one thing is certain. No matter what religion, organization, country, or group one professes, to belong is to follow the dictates of the leaders. To belong is to believe the principles of the group are correct and should be obeyed.

To accept building a Cordoba Victory Mosque and Muslim terrorist training center in any location in the United States is against all logic. Has our government lost all sense of reality? Or have we not yet discovered the reality that our government has become part of an Islamic take-over of the United States of America?

The Tea Parties and the Future of Liberty

Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Within a month he signed a $787 billion “stimulus package” with virtually no Republican support. It was necessary, we were told, to keep unemployment under eight percent. Overnight, the federal government had, as one of its highest priorities, weatherizing government buildings and housing projects. Streets and highways in no need of repair would be broken up and repaved. The Department of Transportation and other government agencies would spend millions on signs advertising the supposed benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I saw one of them on Roosevelt Island in Washington, D.C. It boasted that the federal park would be receiving a generous grant to facilitate the involvement of local youth in the removal of “non-indigenous plants.” In other words, kids would be weeding. We need a sign to announce that? And this was going to save the economy?

Then there was American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project number 1R01AA01658001A, a study entitled: “Malt Liquor and Marijuana: Factors in their Concurrent Versus Separate Use.” I’m not making this up. This is a $400,000 project being directed by a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The following is from the official abstract: “We appreciate the opportunity to refocus this application to achieve a single important aim related to our understanding of young adults’ use of male [sic] liquor (ML), other alcoholic beverages, and marijuana (MJ), all of which confer high risks for experiencing negative consequences, including addiction. As we have noted, reviews of this grant application have noted numerous strength [sic], which are summarized below.”

So what were those strengths? “This research team has previous [sic] been successful in recruiting a large (>600) sample of regular ML drinkers.” Also, “the application is well-written.” Well-written? With three spelling mistakes? But who am I to judge? As for the other strength, there is no question that the team’s recruitment had been strong. But is that really a qualification for federal money? After all, they were paying people to drink beer!

These same scholars were behind a groundbreaking 2007 study that used regression analysis to discover that subjects who got drunk and high were more intoxicated than those who only abused alcohol. The new study pays these pot-smoking malt-liquor drinkers at least $45 to participate. They can buy four beers per day for the three-week project—all of it funded, at least indirectly, by the American taxpayer.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when President Obama visited Buffalo in May, he chose to highlight other stimulus grants. On the other hand, he could have pointed out that the beer money goes right back into the economy. Think of all those saved or created jobs! In any case, the findings of this new study are expected to echo those of the first study, which found: “Those who concurrently use both alcohol and marijuana are more likely to report negative consequences of substance use compared with those who use alcohol only.” Reading results like this, I tend to think that those who concurrently get drunk and high are also far more likely to believe the stimulus is working.

And have I mentioned that the estimated cost of the stimulus was later increased from $787 billion to $862 billion? That’s a cost underestimate of nearly ten percent. Anyone in private business who suddenly had to come up with ten percent more in outgoing funds than previously anticipated would likely go out of business.

All of this set the stage for a revolt. The accidental founding of the Tea Party movement took place in February 2009, when CNBC commentator Rick Santelli let loose a rant against the stimulus package, and in particular the proposal to subsidize what he called “the losers’ mortgages.” He proposed a ceremonial dump of derivative securities into Lake Michigan, and a few hours later a website popped up calling for a Chicago Tea Party. The video clip raced around the Internet, and it was soon clear that many average Americans were furious about the massive new spending bill and the plan to subsidize bad mortgages.

The stimulus was bad, but by itself it was probably not enough to sustain an entire movement. This is why the larger context matters: Under President Obama, federal spending has been growing at an unprecedented pace. We are adding $4.8 billion to the national debt every day. The long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security isn’t merely uncertain—as so many analysts would have us believe. In fact, their failure is a sure thing without structural changes. By adding a massive new entitlement with the health care bill, we are simply going to go broke faster. Americans understood much of this even before Mr. Obama was elected.

Consider this story from the recent presidential campaign: In July 2008, Republican nominee John McCain stopped in Belleville, Michigan, to par-ticipate in a town hall. After several friendly questions, he took one from Rich Keenan. Wearing a shirt with an American flag embroidered over his left breast, Keenan told McCain that he would not be voting for Obama. But then he said: “What I’m trying to do is get to a situation where I’m excited about voting for you.”

The audience laughed, and many in the crowd nodded their heads. Keenan explained that he was “concerned” about some of McCain’s views, such as his opposition to the Bush tax cuts and his views on the environment. Keenan allowed that he was grateful that McCain had begun taking more conservative positions. But he concluded: “I guess the question I have, and that people like me in this country have, is what can you say to us to make us believe that you actually came to the right positions? We want to take you to the dance, we’re just concerned about who you’re going to go home with.” The audience laughed again. McCain laughed, too, but then he grew serious: “I have to say, and I don’t mean to disappoint you, but I haven’t changed positions.” He defended his vote against the Bush tax cuts and, at some length, reiterated his concerns about global warming. Later, he went out of his way to emphasize his respect for Hillary Clinton and boast about his work with Joe Lieberman, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.

I talked with Rich Keenan after the town hall. He described himself as a conservative independent. He said he often votes Republican but does not consider himself one. He added, “I do think that there are millions of Americans out there like me who are fairly conservative, probably more conservative than John McCain, and I think a lot of them are concerned about what’s going to happen if he does get elected.” Keenan was right. There were millions of people out there like him—conservatives, independents, disaffected Republicans, and many of them stayed home on election day. These people form the heart of the Tea Party movement.

In recent years, the Republican Party has seen its approval levels sink to new lows. In 2005, 33 percent of registered voters told Gallup they considered themselves Republican. By 2009, that number was 27 percent. The number of voters who identified themselves as independent showed a corresponding rise. But what’s interesting is that over that same time-frame, the number of voters self-identified as conservative stayed relatively constant: 39 percent in 2005 and 40 percent in 2009. (Self-identified liberals constituted 20 percent of respondents in both 2005 and 2009.) So even as the number of self-identified Republicans declined and the number of self-identified independents grew, the number of self-identified conservatives was constant. Of course, it’s too simple to postulate a one-for-one swap, but the trend seems clear. The Tea Party movement arose in an environment in which a growing number of Americans believed neither party was voicing its concerns.

All of this has liberals in the mainstream media and elsewhere flummoxed. At first they were dismissive. Think of the footage of Susan Roesgen of CNN going after Tea Party enthusiasts at a Chicago rally, suggesting they were irrational and stupid. And consider a few of the many other examples:

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote: “The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction—the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day—and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies—is calibrated not to inform but to incite.”

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz said: “I believe that the Tea Partiers are misguided. I think they are racist, for the most part. I think that they are afraid. I think that they are clinging to their guns and their religion. And I think in many respects, they are what’s wrong with America.”

Actress Janeane Garofalo: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. These are nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks.”

Comedian Bill Maher: “The teabaggers, they’re not a movement, they’re a cult.”

Perhaps the most stunning comment came from prominent Democratic strategist Steve McMahon: “The reason people walk into schools and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and because of attitudes like this. The reason people walk into military bases and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and attitudes like this. Really, what they’re doing is not that much different than what Osama bin Laden is doing in recruiting people and encouraging them to hate America.”

We’ve seen this before. On November 7, 1994, the Washington Post ran an article about the loud, hateful fringe on the right: “Hate seems to be drifting through the air like smoke from autumn bonfires. It isn’t something that can be quantified. No one can measure whether it has grown since last year, the 1980s, or the 1880s. But a number of people who make their living taking the public’s temperature are convinced it’s swelling beyond the perennial level of bad manners and random insanity. It’s fueled, they say, by such forces as increasingly harsh political rhetoric, talk radio transmissions, and an increasing sense of not-so-quiet desperation.” The next day, Republicans took Congress.

Are today’s Tea Party supporters on the radical fringe? In a National Review/McLaughlin Associates poll conducted in February, six percent of 1,000 likely voters said that they had participated in a Tea Party rally. An additional 47 percent said they generally agree with the reasons for those protests. Nor is the Tea Party movement “monochromatic” and “all white,” as Chris Matthews claimed. Quite the contrary: the National Review poll found that it was five percent black and 11 percent Hispanic.

Perhaps that poll could be dismissed as the work of a right-leaning polling firm and a conservative magazine. You can’t say that about the New York Times and CBS. Their poll, which has a long history of oversampling Democrats, found that Tea Partiers are wealthier and better educated than average voters. It also found that 20 percent of Americans—one in five—supports Tea Parties. That’s an awfully big fringe.

Other polls confirmed these findings: a Washington Post/ABC poll found that 14 percent of voters say the Tea Party is “most in synch” with their values; 20 percent say Tea Parties are “most in tune with economic problems Americans are now facing.” The most interesting poll, in my view, came from TargetPoint Consulting, which interviewed nearly 500 attendees at the April 15, 2010, Tax Day rally in Washington, D.C. Here are some results:

Tea Partiers are united on the issues of debt, the growth of government, and health care reform.

They are socially conservative on the one hand and libertarian on the other, split roughly down the middle.

They are older, more educated, and more conservative than average voters, and they are “distinctly not Democrat.”

This new information complicated the mainstream media’s narrative about the Tea Party movement. This was not a fringe. Nancy Pelosi, who had earlier dismissed Tea Parties as “Astroturf”—meaning fake grassroots activism—revised that assessment, telling reporters that, in fact, she was just like the Tea Partiers.

This brings us to the present day. The president’s approval ratings are low, and Congressional Democrats’ are even worse. Members of the president’s party are not only running away from him in swing districts, but even in some relatively safe ones. Many analysts are suggesting that control of the House of Representatives is in play, and perhaps even that of the Senate.

This dissatisfaction flows directly from the president’s policies and those of his party. It is not simply “anti-incumbent,” as many of my press colleagues would have it. This voter outrage—and it is outrage, not hate—is specific and focused: Americans are fed up with big government and deeply concerned about the long-term economic health of their country. The stimulus was unpopular, and most Americans do not believe it’s working. Obama’s health care plan was unpopular when it passed. The American people understood the rather obvious point that it wouldn’t be possible to cover 30 million additional people, improve the care of those with insurance, and save taxpayers money, all at the same time.

Does all of this add up to big Republican gains in November? Not according to the mainstream media. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan recently wrote: “The Tea Party movement is energizing elements of the Republican Party and fanning an anti-Washington fervor, but the biggest beneficiaries in the mid-term elections, pollsters and political analysts say, could be the main target of their anger: Democrats.” CBS News reported the same thing just a few days later. What nonsense! I think there is little question that the Tea Parties—and the enthusiasm and energy they bring—will contribute to major Republican gains in November.

One final point: For many Tea Partiers, the massive and unconstitutional growth of government is the fundamental issue. But I think there’s something deeper, too. After her husband had won several primaries in a row in the spring of 2008, Michelle Obama proclaimed that for the first time in her life she was proud of her country. It was a stunning statement. It also foreshadowed what was to come: Since Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he has devoted much of his time to criticizing his own country. He apologizes for the policy decisions of his predecessors. He worries aloud that the U.S. has become too powerful. He has explicitly rejected the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

And this is not mere rhetoric. For the first time ever, the U.S. is participating in the Universal Periodic Review—a United Nations initiative in which member countries investigate their own nation’s human rights abuses. The State Department has held ten “listening sessions” around the U.S. during which an alphabet soup of left-wing groups aired their numerous grievances. These complaints are to be included in a report that the U.S. will submit to the United Nations Human Rights Council. It will be evaluated by such paragons of human rights as Burkina Faso, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, and Cuba.

When President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2009, he declared that a world order that elevates one country or group of countries over others is bound to fail. So he’s changing that order. If his domestic policy priority is the redistribution of wealth, his foreign policy priority seems to be the redistribution of power.

Most Americans don’t agree with the president’s priorities. And many of these Americans are now active in the Tea Party movement, a movement that has succeeded in starting a serious national conversation about a return to limited government.

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(The preceeding was adapted from a speech delivered on June 6, 2010,by Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.)

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

Obituary of Robert Snyder, Jr.

ROBERT SNYDER Jr.

Robert W. Snyder, Jr. 1947 ~ 2010 Bob left us on June 19th after a day of doing what he loved, sailing the BJ at Soldier Creek with good friends and family. Bob was born September 2, 1947, at Mitchel Field AFB, in New York, the only son of Charlotte and Robert Snyder. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he married Connie and they began their life together in Denver. After a few years in Denver, the couple moved to Minneapolis where their son Michael was born in 1970. After a brief stay living in San Francisco they finally made their home in Utah where they raised their son and enjoyed many friends and family. Bob is survived by his wife, Connie, son, Mike (Wendy), granddaughter, Bailey, and sisters, Jean Allstun and Carol (Gary) Davis. Bob lived his life to the fullest and always found a way to have a good time. He had a way of making friends with everyone he met and will be missed by all who knew him. Services will be held Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 11:00 a.m. at Camp Williams, 17111 S. Camp Williams Road (Redwood Rd), Bluffdale, Utah. Family and close friends are welcome from 10:00 - 10:45 a.m. prior to the service. Arrangements in care of Olpin-Hoopes Funeral Home. Condolences may be sent to the family online at: www.olpinhoopes.com. In lieu of flowers and in memory of Bob's humorous outlook on life, please feel free to make contributions to whoever may be running against Obama in 2012.

Published in Salt Lake Tribune from June 23 to June 24, 2010

Financial Crisis Solution Is Return To Basics

The Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint-stock company founded in London by well-connected Puritans who kept careful records, foreshadowed “the Great engine” companies – blue-chip manufacturers that prospered into the mid-20th century (think General Electric, Procter and Gamble, U.S. Steel, and the Pennsylvania Railroad). The New England settlement would cost the Bay Company the equivalent of $40 million in today’s dollars, but by 1640 the company sent 200 ships and 14,000 settlers to Massachusetts

Led by John Winthrop, the expedition established business and management principles that persisted in early American commerce: careful planning, a disregard for social class in selecting management, an ethic of work combined with a habit of thrift, placing the good of the community above the individual, and a desire to create a kingdom of heaven on earth. “Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are upon us, soe that if wee shall deale falsely with out god in this worke…wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world,” Winthrop told his company. His son would build the first factory in America – a blast furnace – and those principles would launch economic growth through the Industrial Revolution and beyond.

Cotton Mather would one day comment that Puritan “religion begot prosperity and the daughter had destroyed the mother,” but the core principles of Puritan commerce persisted well beyond the first generation of Americans and extended to other parts of the world, particularly Asia. A 1917 plaque at the Newport News shipyard is an example: “We shall build good ships here, at a profit if we can – at a loss if we must – but always good ships.” Civilian leaders in occupied Japan used the slogan to train post-war electronics workers; one went so far as to help clean the offices of a dirty but promising firm working then with less than $600 in capital and in old army huts where staff members held umbrellas over their desks in a rainstorm. The puritanical lesson paid off; the company went on to become Sony.

What changed? American business lost sight of the principles underwriting its success, beginning most noticeably in the 1950s and climaxing in 1970 – the year Pennsylvania Railroad declared bankruptcy. Specifically management turned from bottom-up practices to top-down and the “Cult of the (so called) Expert” took over not only the nation’s boardrooms but its business schools. “Management experts” replaced execs with experience on the factory floor. Numbers mattered more than product and quality. One of the new conglomerates acquired the Newport News shipyard in 1969, and had its famous plaque moved to the Mariner’s Museum (It was returned after Northrop Grumman acquired the shipyard in 1986). And mid-century gurus like novelist Ayn Rand – whose hero in Atlas Shrugged declared, “I will never live for the sake of another man” – replaced altruistic business leaders.

As one result, U.S. productivity, which grew at an average yearly rate of 2.2 percent from 1870 to 1970, dropped to 1.1 percent from 1971-1995 – the lowest productivity growth of all advanced industrial nations.

How have Americans survived the productivity slowdown? They borrowed. “Credit is to the economy what steroids are to athletes; it enhances performance but, unless used in moderation, at a serious cost to the economic health of the nation.”

And that brings the us to the current financial crisis, which they trace to “profligate lending” and bad economic policies. Longtime Fed chief Alan Greenspan (an Ayn Rand devotee) comes in for particular criticism: Believing that the proper role of the central bank was to ‘take away the punchbowl when the party is getting good,’ Greenspan and his colleagues did exactly the opposite, adding gin, then vodka, and finally a line of cocaine to the bowl. The result has been catastrophic.”

But catastrophe is what it may take to concentrate the mind of American business, these authors suggest, and to propel U.S. management – both private and public sector – to take a fresh look at its Puritan roots.

(Editor's Note: This article is based on a review by Mindy Belz of World, a magazine published out of Asheville, N.C., of the latest book by two British authors, Kenneth and William Hopper. Their book, "The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos" is published by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. and is available through local booksellers. Original publication of Ms. Betz's review, "Citty upon a hill", was published July 3, 2010.)

Traffic Cameras Come To New Philadelphia

Yesterday, Sunday, we received a number of phone calls, and an E-mail, about the installation of cameras which have been placed on the poles at the intersection of South Broadway and Mill Avenue, SE., the intersection on which the New Philadelphia Buehler’s is located. A couple of phone calls later, and here is the straight dope on what is happening. We called Greg Popham, New Philadelphia’s Safety Director, and Fred Neff, the New Philadelphia Street Department Superintendent, both of whom were most cooperative and informative.

Right off the top, those “cameras” are not really cameras in the true sense of the terminology. They are more sensors than anything else. The city traffic light system is based, in simplest terms, on a sensors which count the number of vehicles passing through intersections which have a high traffic volume. Through the use of computers, these traffic counts determine how often the traffic lights change from red to green, based on the traffic flow at any given time. The busy intersections have sensors imbedded in the asphalt. You can see where they are as they appear as rectangular shaped outlines on the asphalt just before the traffic lights. As cars pass over these sensors, the computers figure the traffic flow and adjust when the lights should change to provide the most efficient traffic flow through that light and preventing long delays at the light. The computer also determines if the left hand turn signal should be used, again depending on the amount of traffic wanting to turn left in comparison to oncoming traffic wanting to go straight ahead. The system works well.

One problem, however. The sensor wires in the pavement have a tendency to break. These breaks come from many causes, street repairs, pavement shifts, water freezing in the winter and breaking the line, to mention a few. The new system takes care of this problem. Called Advanced Detection Cameras, the cameras make the same calculations as the sensors in the asphalt do with the exception that they are not effected by the breakage problems experienced by the buried sensor wires. Being located in the positions they are, and constructed as they are, maintenance costs will be lowered and efficiency will be increased.

Current maintenance costs to repair buried sensor failure averages $1,500 per repair. The Advanced Detection Camera system will not require the frequency of repair of the current system and cost savings should be substantial.

Oh, yes. The “cameras” do not have the ability to take pictures to be used in traffic violations. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. There could be some value to having some New Philadelphia drivers think Big Brother is watching them running the red lights.

The installation of the new sensor system at the intersection of South Broadway and Mill Avenue, SE., is the first of two, the other being at West High Avenue and Bluebell Drive, SW.

New Philadelphia Budget Mirrors Federal Depression

It doesn’t matter how you cut it, the bad times we are in are getting worse. It is easy to listen to the propaganda coming from Washington and being parroted by the news media. After all, everybody likes good news. But the truth is too often ignored. The hard facts are we have increased unemployment, lack of business investment, and a collapsing economy. Investors Business Daily (IBD), in an article of August 6, sums it up. To quote, “As the ‘recovery summer’ turns into a nightmare, one thing has become painfully clear: This is the most economically incompetent administration since the Great Depression.”

Obama administration spokeswoman, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, reported that the economy had turned around because of Obama’s "strong and immediate action". The only problem, she said, was Republicans who refuse to support a $26 billion bailout for state and local governments and their pampered unions. Shortly thereafter Solis resigned and went back to teaching. Why? One can only suspect that the truth became too much for her to bear.

According to IBD, America has lost 4.1 million jobs since Obama took office and 7.7 million since the recession began in December 2007. So most of the jobs lost have been under this administration.

Doing more arithmetic, since the start of 2010 we've averaged 93,000 new jobs a month. That's below the 120,000 we need just to soak up new job-market entrants. At this rate, it will take nearly seven years just to get back to 2007's number of jobs.

The country is in a depression. Unemployment is increasing. New jobs are not even coming close to the number of young people seeking employment, with 27,000 more new applicants a month entering the job market than there are new jobs available. Add to that Friday's jobs report indicated that unemployment in July was unchanged at 9.5%, but a net 131,000 jobs were lost on top of 97,000 more than first accounted for in May and June. And because of new tax laws, businesses are not making investments as they normally would.

Don't believe it? Listen to what key U.S. business groups said Friday after July's disastrous jobs data were released.

"The current rate of employment is too slow to replace the more than 8 million jobs lost in the recession — not in the next year or two, perhaps even not in the next five years," said Bart Van Ark, chief economist of the Conference Board.

"Policies that have increased taxes, increased regulation and increased uncertainty have clearly not been a prescription for returning America to work," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the Chamber of Commerce. That about sums it up.

New Philadelphia is deeply affected by the state of the United States economy. Without jobs, taxes collected by the City are lower. Without business expansion, jobs will not increase. Business expansion, including the New Philadelphia area, is close to nil.

While the City Administration and City Council have no control over the federal economy, they do have control over how City funds are appropriated and spent. It doesn’t matter if you talk of trillions of dollars spent by the Democratic controlled Congress and the Obama administration, the out of work family, of the City of New Philadelphia, the problem is the same. If you don’t have the money to pay the bills, you’re going to be in trouble.

New Philadelphia is close to financial disaster. City revenues are down with no relief in sight. But expenditures are on the increase. In three months employee contracts will be reopened with money as the major issue. But with both the City Council and Administration, money management seems to be at the bottom of the priority list. Planning for the financial future of the city is non-existent. The major concern of the Council President appears to be creating a solution to solve the complaints of Administrative personnel about salaries and benefits. The Mayor, at the same time, is contemplating the hiring of a Human Resources Director, a position which on the average pays $80,000 a year not including benefits.

The City of New Philadelphia should have as its first priority the future of the City. It is time that efforts to cut back on expenses. It will take hard work on the part of the Administration, City Council, and city employees, to produce a viable financial plan which will carry New Philadelphia through the next eight to ten years of financial difficulties. Continuing as we are, without an economic plan, without sacrifice on the part of city employees equal to the sacrifice being made by the New Philadelphia citizen in these poor economic times, New Philadelphia will face the choice of reduced services due to layoffs of city employees, increased taxes, or both, and a devastated economy as people leave the city to seek employment elsewhere.

Mr. Mayor, Council Members, appointed Administrative personnel, face the facts. We are in trouble and it is your responsibility to solve our economic problems. Empty promises, pandering to city employees, decisions based on party and other affiliations, passing legislation without appropriate research into cost, should no longer be acceptable. By accepting the positions you actively pursued you also accepted the responsibility to put the City and its residents above your personal ambitions. Now is the time for you to accept that responsibility.

(Excerpts for this article came from, and with permission, of the Investors Business Daily editorial The Propaganda Of Incompetents.)

Navy Seals Acquitted

Just in case you missed it, the trials of Matthew McCabe, Johnathan Keefe, and Julio Huertas were concluded two months ago and all three were found innocent of the charges involving mistreatment of the Muslim terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed. These three SEALs were falsely accused of punching Abed in the stomach while he was in US custody. If you want further details on the charges these SEALs check the blog for March 24, 2010, "Will Obama Sacrifice SEAL Heroes?" That they were ever brought to trial is still a disgrace, but at last they have been vindicated.

It is interesting to note that the first of the year the news media was filled with the fact that these three men were to be tried for abusing a terrorist prisoner, but their acquittals were hardly mentioned. For details of the trials of Matthew McCabe, Johnathan Keefe, and Julio Huertas, Google their names. You may find the whole incident revealing of current government thinking as concerns our defense and the military men who are on the front line protecting our country.