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THE WEIRS TIMES & THE COCHECO TIMES, Thursday, July 7, 2011
SCANDAL-PLAGUED MAYOR A promi -
by Michelle Malkin Syndicated Columnist
nent Demo- cratic politi- cian who was banned from receiving fed- eral aid three years ago over fraud charges is once again r a k i n g i n government funds from
TICKETS HOME
by Oliver North Syndicated Columnist
CAMP HANSEN, AF- GHANISTAN -- This austere U.S. Mar ine base in the Marjah district of Hel- mand province is headquarters for 2nd Battal- ion, 8th Marine Regiment -- fa- mous for action during World
War II on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. Dubbed “America’s Battalion,” the unit has adopted a new slo- gan in Afghanistan: “Front To- ward Enemy” -- the label placed on devices such as claymore mines and anti-tank rockets. It’s appropriate here in the southern Helmand River valley. Lt. Col. J.D. Harrill, the 2/8 battalion commander, is a hero in his own right -- and so are his Marines and Navy corpsmen. He was awarded the Silver Star, our nation’s third-highest award for valor, during the battle for Ramadi, Iraq. Back then, the capital of Anbar province was the
bloodiest place on earth. When he and his Marines arrived here in January, more than half were already veterans of gunfights along the Euphrates River and in the shadows of the Hindu Kush. When they moved into this canal- laced heartland of the Taliban, they had to fight their way in. Maj. Jamie Murphy, the battal-
ion operations officer, put it this way: “For nearly four months, we had multiple gun battles and (im- provised explosive device) strikes every day. The Taliban threw everything they had at us. For weeks on end, our Marines were ‘canal-hopping’ through fields laced with (homemade explo- sives) and lined with snipers. By May, it was changing. Now we’re winning. We know it, and so does the enemy.” When I asked Maj. Murphy
what turned things around, he pointed to the nearby Afghan Na- tional Army outpost and a dark green Ford Ranger with Afghan police markings and replied, “Our partnering with them.”
See NORTH on 24
the very same program he abused. It pays to be a FOTO -- Friend of the Obamas. Our publicly subsidized con
artist is Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin John- son. He donated the maximum individual amount to Obama for America, campaigned across the country for Obama in 2008, and bragged to California media dur- ing his mayoral run about his friendship and access to both Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obama administration’s Corpora- tion for National and Community Service (CNCS) recently bestowed Johnson’s city with an Ame- riCorps grant worth more than $650,000. The money will flow into Sacra-
mento’s “Get Fit Now! Initiative,” which will hire 124 AmeriCorps members “to teach fitness and nutrition education to children and offer adult fitness classes for their parents. They will also set up school-based gardens where children will learn how to grow fresh vegetables.” That’s a lot of fertilizer-shovelers
employed in the name of “public service.” If the award smells fun- ny, it should. For Johnson, Ame- riCorps has indeed been all about service -- self-service, that is. In 2008, the independent In-
spector General overseeing Ameri- Corps, Gerald Walpin, concluded
AMERICORPS’ FAVORITE
that Johnson and aide Dana Gonzalez had squandered hun- dreds of thousands of a nearly million-dollar grant earmarked for his nonprofit youth organiza- tion, St. HOPE. Based on Walpin’s investigation, AmeriCorps’ par- ent organization (the aforemen- tioned CNCS) suspended Johnson and Gonzalez’s access to federal funds. Here’s a refresher on their fraud and abuse that led to the ban: -- Using AmeriCorps members
to “recruit students for St. HOPE Academy.” -- Using AmeriCorps members
for political activities in connec- tion with the “Sacramento Board of Education election.” -- Assigning grant-funded Ame- riCorps members to perform ser- vices for Johnson such as “driving (him) to personal appointments, washing (his) car, and running personal errands.” -- Improperly using AmeriCorps “members to perform non-Ameri- Corps clerical and other services” that “were outside the scope of the grant and therefore were im- permissible” for “the benefit of St. HOPE.” Johnson didn’t get jail time. Instead, the Democratic U.S. At- torney in Sacramento cut a cozy settlement deal so Johnson could avoid criminal prosecution. The deal also allowed Johnson to re- pay just a fraction of the money he siphoned from AmeriCorps coffers for personal gain -- and it freed Johnson to receive federal Obama stimulus money for Sac- ramento. (My most recent check of the
Recovery.gov website shows the city has taken in at least $32 million in stimulus cash.) In keeping with this adminis- tration’s brutal war on whistle- blowers, Walpin was unceremo- See MALKIN on 10
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