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WEST CHESTER The Delaware County automobile dealership that had sought payment for an SUV used by the Chester County Sheriffs Office K-9 unit it maintained had been improperly transferred to the department has lost its bid to recover the money it says it was owed.

Chester County Common Pleas Judge Edward Griffith has ruled against Videon Chrysler Dodge Jeep in the lawsuit it filed to recover the $30,000 price of the 2014 Dodge Durango and almost $23,000 on repairs and upfits to the vehicle, although he did so on narrow technical grounds and not specifically on the claims of the suit.

Videon, and owner Steve Videon, had simply failed to charge the correct entity when it filed the lawsuit seeking repayment in 2016. It named as the defendant the Sheriffs Office, when as a matter of law it should have sued the county, Griffith ruled in dismissing the case.

The dealership has sued the wrong entity, Griffith wrote in his three-page decision, issued Thursday. The Chester County Office of the Sheriff is merely a department of Chester County and not a separate municipal entity that can be sued. The dealership was required to bring its claim against Chester County, but has failed to do so.

The dismissal came after a one-day, non-jury trial in which both sides argued mostly about whether the Durango, which is still in use by the Sheriffs Office, had meant to have been paid for by the office, or whether it was, as former Lt. Harry McKinney, the hand-picked supervisor of the K-9 Unit, maintained, a gift.

But attorney Guy Donatelli of the West Chester law firm of Lamb McErlane represented the Sheriffs Office, had argued the issue of whether the suit had been filed against the wrong party in pre-trial briefs. In a comment after the ruling, Donatelli expressed satisfaction with the decision, and said that it vindicated the office.

We are delighted that the court recognized that the Sheriffs Office and Mr. McKinney are blameless, he said Friday.

West Chester attorney Michael OHayer, who represented Videon, could not be reached for comment last week.

Interestingly, it was not OHayer who had filed the lawsuit on behalf of Videon. The suit had been filed by attorney Thomas Schindler of Kennett Square in June 2016, who was the attorney that participated in a series of negotiations between the two parties trying to recover the cost of the vehicle and its upgrades from the county over the years. But Schindler was disbarred by the state Supreme Court in July, and the case fell of OHayer.

Although Griffiths decision was based on who the suit should have been filed against, he did find that the transfer from the dealership to the Sheriffs Office was not without problems.

In his findings of fact, Griffith wrote that the title to the Durango was transferred to the county in March 2014 after discussions between McKinney who is the longtime live-in boyfriend of former Sheriff Carolyn Bunny Welsh and was her appointed representative for the K-9 unit and the dealerships general sales manager, Michael McVeigh.

Griffith found that McVeigh arranged for the transfer as a charitable donation to the office. But, the judge ruled, McVeigh lacked the authority with the dealership to make these charitable donations, unbeknownst to McKinney. That authority rested solely with Steve Videon, who was unaware of the donation to the Sheriffs Office and was misled by (McVeigh) as to the nature of the transaction."

When Videon found out what McVeigh had done, he demanded payment, which the office, under McKinney, refused, leading to the suit.

McVeigh did testify at the trial on Dec. 8 but largely declined to answer questions about the transaction, citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. McKinney, who was terminated from his position with the Sheriffs Office in January when new Sheriff Fredda Maddox took over, also testified.

The longtime face of the county Sheriffs Office, Welsh was not a named defendant in the lawsuit. She and McKinney still face other legal challenges in relation to their handling of the K-9 Unit, however.

They were charged late last month with misdemeanor theft counts connected to how they used county sheriff employees as volunteer labor at fundraising events for the private Friends of the Chester County Sheriffs K-9 Unit organization, and McKinneys use of some of those funds for his own pet canine.

Bunny Welsh used her position of power for her and her partner Harry McKinneys own personal gain instead of serving her community as she was elected to do, said state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in filing the criminal complaints against the pair. Welsh and McKinney allegedly used public employees to perform work for private charity events both on and off-duty at the expense of Chester County, and McKinney then used those fundraised dollars to cover his own personal expenses. This blatant misappropriation of funds is unacceptable.

Preliminary hearings for the pair on the charges have been scheduled for Friday.

There is also a separate legal action against Welsh by the county Controllers Office still in the works, seeking repayment of more than $60,000 in overtime payments that Welsh approved for McKinney during his last years of employment by the county. Controller Margaret Reif contends that McKinney had improperly been classified as a low-level department deputy, even though he was given supervisory powers by Welsh that normally would have made him ineligible for overtime payments.

The overtime, Reif claims, was paid to pad McKinneys annual income in order to boost his county pension. She is asking Welsh to repay the money herself. Welsh has denied the accusations and said that McKinney was due overtime for the hours he spent caring for K-9 officers in his command.

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Wrong party sued in K-9 car case, judge rules - The Phoenix

Historical revisionism challenges conventional views about events and personalities. It encourages debate. It encourages thinking. And it forces those who write or teach conventional history to defend their views with facts rather than ideology.

Sadly, the American professoriate clings to conventional views most, if not all, of which are liberal or leftist. The media, meanwhile, reinforces the conventional view with largely superficial observations of historical events and figures. This leads, unfortunately, to a one-size-fits-all history where the heroes are all liberals, the villains are mostly conservative, and events are portrayed to fit within the liberal narrative.

Consider some prominent examples. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is commonly judged to be a great president for launching the New Deal during the Great Depression and leading the United States to victory in World War II. While FDR is mostly praised for expanding the power of the federal government to help the American people cope with the economic downturn, seldom do you hear from critics who contend that Roosevelts policies actually lengthened and deepened the Great Depression.

Similarly, most portrayals of FDR as a great war leader downplay, if they mention at all, his responsibility (shared with Congress) for Americas unpreparedness for war prior to and for sometime after Pearl Harbor. Historians also seldom take him to task for his careless and costly unconcern about communist infiltration of the government (some at the highest levels) in the 1930s and early 1940s. While it is true that there is more criticism of his appeasement of Stalin toward the end of the war, this is often attributed to his failing health which he and his advisers deliberately hid from the American people.

FDR 'great?' He was deceitful and deceptive

The great Franklin Roosevelt was in truth a deceitful and deceptive man both in his personal life and, more importantly, in his public life. General Douglas MacArthur once remarked about FDR that he was a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well.

Compare the common historical treatment of FDR to Richard Nixon. Nixon, we are endlessly told, was a disgraced president who lied to the American people and engaged in a massive cover-up of criminal activities. Watergate, we are told, was the greatest scandal in the history of the American Presidency. In fact, Watergate was at most a rather routine example of political espionage gone awry political espionage that FDR, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson did not hesitate to engage in. Nixons resignation, as Paul Johnson pointed out, was the result of a liberal media coup aided by a disgruntled high-level FBI official, pro-Kennedy special prosecutors, opportunistic Democrats in Congress, and spineless Republican legislators. Nixon, too, was blamed for a divisive war in Southeast Asia that his liberal Democratic predecessors started but failed to win.

Truman vs. MacArthur in Korean War

Another example of conventional liberal history is Truman vs. MacArthur in the Korean War. President Harry Truman is commonly applauded by historians for his courageous decision to relieve MacArthur of command in Korea and thereby prevent World War III. MacArthur is portrayed as imperious, egotistical, insubordinate, dangerous, and just plain wrong on the merits of the dispute over how to wage war in Korea. Truman, of course, was willing to bask in the generals glory after the brilliant landing at Inchon in September 1950. Truman was more than willing to tolerate MacArthur as long as America was winning the war. Most historians blame MacArthurs actions in North Korea for forcing China to enter the war, but MacArthur did nothing before China entered the war that he was not authorized to do by the Truman administration. Trumans Asia policy as a whole was disastrous, but the liberal takeaway is that he saved us from World War III.

Perhaps nowhere is the liberal historical view more monolithic than its portrayal of Senator Joseph McCarthy and what became known as McCarthyism. The 1950s, we are told, was a decade of fear and witch hunts, all due to the conduct of McCarthy and his efforts to reveal communists within the government and other prominent institutions. McCarthy is sometimes blamed for persecuting the famed Hollywood Ten, writers and directors who invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if they had ever been communists, and who refused to name names of their communist associates. In fact, Senator McCarthy had no involvement whatsoever in investigating the Hollywood Ten that was done by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and all of the Hollywood Ten were communists.

McCarthy is accused of engaging in a reign of terror by leveling false accusations of communism against innocent government employees. Seldom do you hear that most of the people that McCarthy specifically identified as potential security risks were communists, fellow travelers, agents of influence, dupes, or at least sympathetic to the communist cause. The Venona Papers released in the 1990s demonstrated that McCarthy underestimated the extent of communist infiltration of our government.

Maybe we should rethink JFK, Coolidge, too

Other examples would include the mostly favorable treatment of John F. Kennedy, the mostly unfavorable treatment of Calvin Coolidge, the favorable portrayal of the Great Society programs and the counter-culture of the 1960s, the unfavorable treatment of Ronald Reagans attempts to modestly revise the Great Society programs, and the repeated efforts to attribute the end of the Cold War to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instead of President Reagan.

The examples are endless. Fortunately, there are courageous historians and writers Amity Shlaes, Arthur Herman, Paul Johnson, David Horowitz, and the late M. Stanton Evans and Robert Nisbet come immediately to mind who are/were unafraid to let the facts speak for themselves; who have willingly challenged the historical orthodoxy; who have dared to expose long-held shibboleths; who have recognized that historical revisionism can often bring us closer to the truth. Their views may be unpopular, but they should never be censored or silenced.

Censorship is once again a topic of discussion, as some social media outlets have decided to censor views that differ from the liberal narrative and did so, moreover, in the middle of a presidential election. The Founding Fathers cherished political speech and sought to protect it. They welcomed a contest of ideas. Revisionist history at its best is a contest of ideas. It, too, is to be welcomed and cherished.

Excerpt from:
History That Needs Revising | Opinion | fairfieldsuntimes.com - Fairfield Sun Times

Jonathan Davis has been imploring the government for years to either charge him with a crime, move forward with its forfeiture case against him or return his more than $4 million in seized assets.

The Dallas-area businessman finally got his wish, but not the outcome he had hoped for. A federal grand jury in Dallas indicted him last week, more than three years after agents seized his assets, and he now faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

The 13-count indictment accuses Davis of making false or misleading statements about his Garland heating and air-conditioning trade school to the government. He is charged with multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. The now-defunct Retail Ready Career Center received about $70 million in G.I. Bill money, making it one of the biggest recipients for a trade school.

Davis lawyer, Derek Staub, says the indictment amounts to allegations of civil regulatory violations, not crimes, and that three years of investigation yielded no evidence of wrongdoing.

This whole indictment stems from them saying that we werent forthcoming on an application, Staub said. They are just flat-out wrong.

But the U.S. attorneys office said Davis scammed the VA out of more than $71 million in veterans benefits.

The defendant allegedly lied to multiple governmental agencies, said office spokeswoman Erin Dooley. We are confident the evidence will prove our case. To undermine the VA is to insult the sacrifices of military veterans nationwide.

Those comments set the stage for what is likely to be a hotly-contested case. Davis, 43, voluntarily surrendered on Nov. 23. He pleaded not guilty the same day and was released pending trial. He faces up to 184 years in prison if convicted, the U.S. attorneys office said.

Although authorities claim Davis lied about his schools financial condition, he hasnt been accused of scamming student veterans out of an education, unlike other schools targeted by the feds in recent years. In those G.I. Bill fraud cases, prosecutors successfully proved that educational services were either not provided or were significantly less than advertised. Other cases involved fake students and sham or fly-by-night schools.

Lawmakers in Washington D.C. have debated giving the Veterans Affairs department more power to crack down on predatory for-profit schools that receive G.I. Bill funding and take advantage of veterans. Critics say oversight is lacking, and the VA is under pressure to do more to combat fraud and crack down on predatory schools targeting veterans.

The Nov. 18 indictment doesnt accuse Retail Ready of defrauding students. Staub said hes not aware of any student complaints and that on the contrary, Davis students love him. The schools graduation rate was 89%, and it had a placement rate of 81% in its final year, the company has said in court records.

The criminal allegations against Davis differ from whats alleged in the civil forfeiture suit, Staub said. He said federal officials initially claimed his client violated regulations by enrolling too many veterans. This indictment is not what has been threatened for the past three years, he said.

Staub said he believes the government rushed the indictment together at the last minute to prevent a judge from eventually dismissing the forfeiture lawsuit.

The indictment says that from May 2013 to December 2019, Davis made false statements to obtain VA approval for Retail Ready to receive G.I. Bill payments on behalf of students, and that he fraudulently persuaded veterans to enroll in his trade school.

Staub said he doesnt understand how the feds could claim the alleged scheme continued through 2019 since the school has been closed since the September 2017 raid.

How theyre saying that were still out there doing it blows my mind, he said.

Davis also is accused of lying to an accountant, resulting in a false and misleading Retail Ready financial statement. And officials say he sent false financial statements to the Texas Workforce Commission and to the Texas Veterans Commission.

Jack Ternan, another defense lawyer, said the purpose of accurate financial statements is to assure the government that a school will be able to operate. He said his client did so successfully.

They werent harmed in any way even if those things were inaccurate, Ternan said.

The indictment also says Davis misrepresented his students career prospects, and that he falsely certified to the TWC that he had no criminal cases pending against him. Hes also accused of falsely stating that Retail Ready had operated as an educational institution over a certain time.

Davis previously told The Dallas Morning News that the feds forced his school to close its doors for good, stranding many of his out-of-state students. He has filed multiple legal challenges to the civil forfeiture action that were unsuccessful. And he sued the government in September 2019 on behalf of Retail Ready, claiming, among other things, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, who is presiding over the forfeiture case, has denied Davis attempts to toss the lawsuit but said in a ruling last month that he would entertain another motion to dismiss in 30 days. Starr wrote that the governments delay in bringing criminal charges did not yet implicate Fifth Amendment due-process concerns.

But he added that the constitutional dynamics in forfeiture cases are in constant flux, and the balance could be different 30 days from now. The forfeiture case remains on hold until the criminal proceedings conclude.

Retail Ready, which opened in the summer of 2014, offered boot-camp style classes, where it took six weeks rather than six months for students to become HVAC technicians. Classes ran from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Students came from all over the country and some from abroad.

Davis charged the VA between $18,000 and $21,000 for each student to attend, the indictment says.

The school provided students with housing assistance at local hotels that included meals and transportation. Retail Ready trained more than 2,500 people, some of whom went on to jobs that paid more than $75,000 annually, the company has said. More than 90% of its students were veterans, school officials said, most of whom needed financial aid.

But the governments forfeiture lawsuit claims Retail Ready violated the 85-15 rule, which prohibits the VA from paying more than 85% of student enrollment costs. The rule is intended to cut down on fraud by preventing schools from only recruiting veterans in order to maximize G.I. Bill funding, according to the forfeiture lawsuit.

Government lawyers also claim in the forfeiture suit that Retail Ready awarded scholarships to students not based on financial need but to artificially meet the 15% requirement. The lead investigator has spoken with former Retail Ready employees and other insiders with knowledge of the facts, court records say.

About 300 students were enrolled when agents raided the school in 2017. The government seized all of Davis bank accounts, and his $2.3 million Dallas house is also part of the forfeiture action, court records show. So are a Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley and other luxury cars.

The schools student recruitment practices also have come under fire.

The forfeiture lawsuit alleges that Davis sister formed two companies that posted fake entry-level jobs on multiple job boards. When people responded, the companies sold those leads to Retail Ready for recruitment, according to the lawsuit.

VA regulations prohibit the use of false or misleading advertising or enrollment practices, federal authorities said. The forfeiture suit also said Retail Ready exceeded enrollment limitations and improperly paid bonuses to admissions staff.

In response, Retail Readys lawyers said the school tried to comply with numerous federal regulations and that any inaccuracies were honest mistakes.

Staub said that when he first met with the prosecutor a couple of years ago, his PowerPoint basically said You made too much money too quickly.

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Garland trade school owner charged with bilking VA out of $70 million - The Dallas Morning News

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether a California regulation allowing union organizers to access employers property is an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment.

In the lower courts decision, Cedar Point Nursery v. Sheroma, a two-judge majority of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim by a group of employers that the regulation created uncompensated easements on their property. The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board regulation permits union organizers to use an employers property for up to three hours per day, 120 days per year, if they notify the employer in advance. The court reasoned that the regulation limits organizers access to the property, and that violating the right to exclude is not a permanent physical invasion required for a per se taking. The dissenting judge stated that allowing ongoing access to private property multiple times a day for 120 days per year is a physical occupation, and that the right to exclude is one of the most fundamental property rights. He also noted that union organizers could meet with employees outside of the employers premises and communicate with them through other means.

Given the current business-friendly makeup of the Supreme Court, we would not be surprised if it were to rule that the California regulation is an unconstitutional taking. In any event, the Supreme Courts analysis about what constitutes a per se regulatory taking may answer more general questions, such as how much access to property constitutes a taking, and how important is the right to exclude. This analysis likely will apply to laws and regulations beyond those governing union organizers use of employers property, such as laws barring property owners from evicting tenants.

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SCOTUS Will Rule on a New Takings Case - Lexology

By Richard Reeb| For the Victorville Daily Press

The widespread shutdown of millions of American lives for the past eight months is likely to continue and intensify as a change in presidential administrations looms. Critics are invariably written off as indifferent, if not hostile, to science, authority and human welfare. But the case for quartering us in our homes questionable from the start has shown itself to be anti-science, unconstitutional and cruel.

There are serious questions about the science constantly being invoked as a discussion stopper by Democratic governors and mayors around the country. Scientists diligent investigation of the world, especially of the human component, has been a great good. But science as a discipline is only as good as those professing to be scientists actually make it.

In other words, there is nothing scientific about scientists, bureaucrats, politicians or professors claiming to speak with the authority of science in the absence of proof. This pandemic was first approached with an hypothesis, as all such projects require, that this highly infectious virus could be fought successfully by a combination of strict measures.

First, there were travel bans on the virus host country, China, and then Europe; confinement in our homes;cutbacks on non-essential activities;first a rejection then a demand that we wear masks and practice social distancing;and strenuous efforts to develop a vaccine.

The pandemic challenged the best minds. Early on a difference of opinion arose between those who believed that saving even one life was worth the public sacrifice and those who saw that the solution was as bad, if not worse, than the problem. Science has been forcibly invoked to justify the former over the latter.

I am reminded of the popular definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Scientists and policy makers faced a situation for which there was not sufficient or well-established knowledge to justify using existing methods. That made dealing with it the equivalent of a huge experiment. Humanitarian concerns forbade breaking the population into control groups, one chosen for the proposed remedies and one not. That meant that, but for the different approaches in different states, one size fits all.

Despite the draconian measures chosen, the number of COVID-19 cases, illnesses and deaths has continued to grow. When President Trump tested positive and experienced real symptoms, the chattering class denounced him for his carelessness. But by that dictum, all who have tested positive are in the same category.

We know that some states and countries chose not to impose a lockdown, and which experienced no worse results than those that did. But we also know that a majorityof infected persons retain or resume good health. We also know that the oldest and sickliest among us are far more likely to suffer or die than more than 90%of the population.

I was reminded recently of the reaction that Galileo received from others in the scientific community of his day when he discovered that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than the reverse. They refused to look through his telescope! There are myriads of qualified scientists, physicians and professors who have challenged the reigning scientific hypothesis and been denounced as quacks.

As to the constitutional question, let us turn to the Fifth Amendment to the U.S.Constitution, which reads in part: no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Is there any doubt that this constitutional right has been continually and massively violated? When people are confined to their homes, denied the right to work, run a business orassociate in a variety of causes, and been prevented from attending worship services, it is perfectly clear that their rights and the Constitutions provisions have been wantonly disregarded.

There has been a huge human cost to these ill-advised measures which the professed lovers of humanity have ignored, meaning everything from lost opportunities,jobs and failed businesses, to depression, suicide, andalcohol and drug abuse.

I was reminded last week that as bad as the blatant hypocrisy of politicians and celebrities is, as they decline to wear masks or practice social distancing, worse is the clear implication that they dont believe those measures are truly effective. Masks and social distancing for thee but not for me!

We must newly appreciate how Jesuss denunciation of the Pharisees was not restricted to them, but applicable to all times and places where those in authority live by a different set of rules than the rest of us.

Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of Taking Journalism Seriously: Objectivity as a Partisan Cause (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net.

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Thinking It Through: What's wrong with the shutdown? - VVdailypress.com