DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
I have attended this event for a few years now and if you really want to get an idea of just how special our local restaurants are you should buy one of these tickets, (or two) and enjoy the different kinds of food they provide.
We don't have a problem with police officers enforcing laws that prohibit people from driving and talking on their cellphones at the same time. Where we draw the line is at the application of this law to a man who didn't even have a cellphone in the car with him.
Minorities are being cheated out of a quality education and essentially getting persecuted in public schools around the United States, according to a new report published by the Obama Department of Education (DOE).
It marks the latest of several government probes aimed at illustrating perpetual discrimination against minorities in various sectors. The Obama Administration has also released findings of prejudice against minorities in farming, voting, the judicial system, employment and even nutrition. In fact, Michelle Obama’s $4.5 billion nutrition law focuses solely on poor, inner-city residents and “at-risk” children. That’s code for low-income minorities.
Why should education be left out of the president’s discrimination bandwagon? This week the DOE reveals that minority students across America face harsher discipline, have less access to rigorous high school curricula and are more often taught by lower-paid and less experienced teachers. The agency concludes this after conducting a national survey of more than 72,000 schools serving 85% of the nation’s students.
Among the key findings are that African-American students, particularly males, are far more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their peers and that students learning English are more likely to be retained. Also, only 29% of “high-minority high schools” offer advanced math such as calculus, compared to 55% of schools with the “lowest black and Hispanic enrollment.” Presumably those are campuses with large white populations.
The State Fair of Virginia, which has entertained generations of Virginians for more than a century and a half, won't be held this year because its operator has shut down.
Whether another entity will step up and take over the annual fall event this year or in the future is uncertain.
SFVA Inc., the nonprofit organization that puts on the fair and a series of other events, failed to reach an agreement with lenders by a Wednesday deadline.
Consequently, SFVA said it has ceased all operations, has laid off the remaining 17 employees including its CEO, has handed over its property to lenders and will liquidate what few assets are left.
"They simply did not accept our offer," Jonathan L. Hauser, a Troutman Sanders attorney representing SFVA, said of the lender group.
The Learning Channel has canceled its “All American Muslim” program, which was condemned by conservative groups for providing a skewed look at Islam in America, but it apparently wasn’t because of any controversy.
It was just that few wanted to watch.
That’s according to the Atlantic Wire, which said the program launched with 1.7 million viewers but within weeks had plunged to 900,000.
According to the Detroit Free Press, where the one-year-long program was based, cast members reported that they were told the ratings were too poor for the program to be continued.
The program looked at five Dearborn families of Muslims going about their every day lives. Individuals included a police officer and a football player.
“Having the opportunity to be a part of such a groundbreaking series with TLC has been extraordinary,” cast member Suehaila Amen told the newspaper. “Our show helped to pave the way for the moderate Muslim voice to be heard in this nation.”
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama used a visit to a North Carolina truck manufacturer on Wednesday to announce a $1 billion program to promote electric and other alternative vehicles through tax incentives for consumers and federal grants to states to finance infrastructure to support them.
The “National Community Deployment Challenge” includes incentives for individuals and businesses to buy “advanced cars and trucks” through a $10,000 tax credit – up from the $7,500 allowed under current tax law.
The plan also includes a “Race to the Top” contest that would reward grants to states with “model communities” that invest in the infrastructure to support those vehicles, such as charging stations or natural gas corridors “where alternative fuel trucks can transport goods without using a drop of oil,” the White House Press Fact Sheet on the program states.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid fresh concerns over the safety of American forces, President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the accidental burning of Qurans in Afghanistan and the retaliatory killings of U.S. troops gave new credence to the need to end the war.
"I think that it is an indication of the challenges in that environment, and it's an indication that now is the time for us to transition," Obama said during a White House news conference.
Obama announced no speeding up of the NATO-backed plan to end combat missions in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, saying "that continues to be the plan." But he said the violence aimed at Americans in Afghanistan that followed the accidental burning of Qurans on a U.S. base was "unacceptable."
On February 29, The Washington Post created a scandal for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington by dramatizing the denial of communion to lesbian activist Barbara Johnson at her mother’s funeral. Reporter Michelle Boorstein painted an emotional picture of a Catholic daughter being publicly shamed by a priest at her lowest moment.
But new details keep ruining the Post’s report. Thomas Peters at Catholic Vote today reveals that Johnson has publicly declared she is a Buddhist, and not a Catholic! The Post is going to need to fill the Corrections box.
In a paper for a master’s degree she’s pursuing at Kutztown State University, Johnson wrote of interviewing with a principal at a Catholic school in Maryland in which “we talked openly about my being a lesbian and a Buddhist.” (She also declared she took the job “with all the zeal and enthusiasm of any natural born agitator who every now and again enjoys challenging the status quo.” This status quo she also called the “socially constructed heteronormative culture” and an “insidious heterosexist paradigm.”)
Just exactly what did taxpayers spend to send Michelle Obama on vacation to Spain in 2010?
That’s the question that is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington against the United States Air Force.
The action has been brought by Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.
The legal action was launched after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed for the answer and the government did not respond.
The action seeks to find out what the costs for the trip and whether there was “any indication of official business conducted by Mrs. Obama while she was in the country.”
Former President Jimmy Carter expressed concerns Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be too willing to go to war with Iran.
“I don’t think that’s his first preference, but I think he’s much more eager to go to war with Iran than President Obama [is]. And I was glad to see President Obama discourage that immediate resumption of hostilities between Israel and its neighbors that the Israelis seem to be inclined to do,” the former president said in an interview with The Washington Times-affiliated “America’s Morning News” radio broadcast.
Mr. Netanyahu is in Washington this week to meet with Mr. Obama and other American leaders about the Iranian nuclear program, and Mr. Carter said “my hope is that President Obama will prevail and we can avoid war with Iran.”
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama, under Republican attack for high gas prices that could harm his re-election bid, urged Americans on Wednesday to have faith in alternative fuels and accused rivals of not telling the truth about the rising cost of energy.
For the second time in less than a week, Obama railed against "phony" quick fixes to the nation's energy challenge as he visited the election battleground state of North Carolina.
It was another chance for Obama to draw a sharp distinction with his Republican challengers, who he says can talk of easy solutions on the campaign trail that he cannot consider as president. On Tuesday, citing his duty as commander in chief, he took a similar tack when he chided Republicans for "beating the drums of war" over Iran's nuclear program.
"We are not going to be able to just drill our way out of the problem of high gas prices," Obama told workers at a Daimler Trucks North America factory that makes vehicles that run on natural gas.
(CNSNews.com) – The administration’s definition of a “food desert” – an urban area where a significant share of the population lives more than one mile from a grocery store – came under the microscope during a Health and Human Services appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Questioning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Republican lawmaker said it was likely most of those present at the hearing lived a mile from their nearest grocery store.
“Do you think that definition should be revisited, because one of the things is, if you are in an urban area a mile away from a grocery store you’re in a food desert – which I would think in so many cases is ridiculous,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “Have you thought of – have you looked at their definition?”
(Reuters) - U.S. authorities are looking into allegations that some Afghan Air Force (AAF) officials have been using aircraft to transport narcotics and illegal weapons across the country, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
"At this point allegations are being examined," said Lt. Col. Tim Stauffer, spokesman for the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, which is setting up and financing Afghan security forces, including the Air Force.
"Authorities are trying to determine whether the allegations warrant a full investigation."
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the allegations, said the U.S. military is also looking into whether the alleged transporting of illegal drugs and weapons is connected to an April incident in which an AAF colonel killed eight U.S. Air Force officers at Kabul Airport.
A U.S. Air Force report about the deaths quoted American officials as saying that the killer was likely involved in moving illegal cargo, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The communist revolutions in the 20th century sought to nationalize the wealth generated by privately held industries back to the "exploited" workers on whose backs the profits were supposedly derived. America has made the rejection of this idea and its support of free market principles the centerpiece of its economic narrative. However, as a result of our current and proposed tax policies towards corporate shareholders, our government collects a portion of industrial output that would inspire envy in even the most rabid Bolshevik.
The purpose of a corporation is to generate profits for owners (all other functions are secondary to this goal). Public corporations distribute these profits through dividends. But as a result of America's system of double taxation, where income is taxed on the corporate level and then again on the personal level, government receives a much bigger share of corporate income than the owners themselves. I also address this topic in my latest video blog.
Suppose a publicly held U.S. corporation made one million dollars in income over the course of a year. Currently its profits would be taxed at a 35% level (for the purpose of this example I will not factor in the lower rate that is applied to its first $100K of profits), meaning that the company would have to pay $350,000 directly to the government (assuming it earned its income without special tax breaks). Of the $650,000 that remained, the typical dividend-paying corporation might distribute 40 percent to shareholders (this is known as the "payout ratio" and the actual average is slightly below 40%). So in this instance the company would pay $260,000 (40% of $650,000) to shareholders. The remaining $390,000 would typically be held as "retained earnings," and would be used to maintain and replace depreciating equipment, make capital investments, fund research and development, and expand operations. If the company did not make such investments it would be impossible for it to survive and its ability to perpetuate profit distributions would be limited.
A Michigan student was hospitalized this week after participating in the ‘cinnamon challenge,’ and one high school principal is warning parents of the game’s dangers, AnnArbor.com reported.
With the ‘cinnamon challenge,’ made popular by YouTube videos, students try to swallow 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in less than 1 minute. Reportedly, the body’s salivary glands cannot make enough saliva to swallow that amount of cinnamon without the help of a liquid.
Arthur Williams, principal at Huron High School in Ann Arbor, Mich., sent an e-mail to parents Tuesday, warning them of the game’s hazards and alerting them to the fact that a local student had been hospitalized because of it.
According to AnnArbor.com, the email said the game can cause students to suffer hypoxia, choking, vomiting and coughing. The game can reportedly cause pneumonia if the cinnamon is aspirated into the lungs.
(CNSNews.com) – Wth no authorization from Congress, President Barack Obama has announced his administration--through the Federal Housing Administration--will insure refinanced mortgages for 2 to 3 million borrowers without verifying their income or even if they hold a job, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Obama announced his latest mortgage program at a White House news conference on Tuesday. Any American with a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) endorsed on or before May 31, 2009 and who is current on their mortgage payments would qualify, according to HUD.
No additional underwriting, or examining the verification of income, employment status or creditworthiness, will be done.
HONOLULU (AP) - Guests at a hotel near Honolulu's airport found a suckling pig in the lobby, but it wasn't on the menu of the luau.
They called the Hawaiian Humane Society last week, when a 5-week-old female pig was found running around the lobby. It was unclear how the piglet ended up there.
Humane society spokeswoman Tasha Tanimoto says the pig is healthy and has been named Pukalani. She will be available for adoption once she's a little older. Tanimoto says the piglet is being bottle-fed by a volunteer.
Humane society officials aren't sure of the pig's breed, but a veterinarian suspects she will grow to be quite large.
Pukalani has been getting attention on the humane society's Facebook page, where a duck is also advertised for adoption.
It's not unheard of for recent Michigan lottery winners to consider themselves so hard up that they subsist on food stamps. Following last year's revelation that a Michigan man who won $2 million in the state lottery remained on welfare, now there are reports that a woman who snagged $1 million in winnings is doing the same.
I need your help on this bill. David Collins from WBAL TV in Baltimore did a great job covering what the issue is (see below). If you’ll scroll past the article, you’ll see a list of the people who need to hear from every single one of you who support such a plate. Remember this plate would be available the same way a Bay Plate or Ag Tag are currently with the profits going to the Veterans Trust Fund!!!A young Michigan woman who recently won $1 million in the state lottery is causing national outrage today as she refuses to stop using her electronic food-stamp card.
Amanda Clayton, 24, of Detroit was interviewed by WDIV-TV after the NBC affiliate was tipped off by an upset taxpayer that the jackpot winner was still receiving taxpayer assistance for food.
“People are about to lose their unemployment and these welfare recipients are spending our tax dollars foolishly,” the viewer wrote the station. “Please do a story on lottery winners on welfare.”
The station tracked Clayton down as she was moving to a new house which she had just purchased in cash with her winnings.
When confronted, the woman said she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong.
“I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn’t, I thought maybe it was okay because I’m not working,” Clayton said.
She told the station that she actually didn’t receive the full million dollars, since she accepted a lump sum of $700,000, and after taxes her winnings were just over half a million.
Nevertheless, Clayton believes she still has a right to receive $200 a month from taxpayers.
“I feel that it’s OK because, I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,” she said. “I have two houses.”
Do you think Fire Departments should be self sufficient through fundraising?
WASHINGTON - A Southern Maryland food bank in Hughesville has closed and won't open again until Monday unless it gets badly needed donations.
The food bank needs at least 15,000 to 18,000 pounds of food per week to serve needy families, according to Brenda Dicarlo, who operates the food bank.
While monetary donations are appreciated, Dicarlo says food donations are preferred right now.
Here are the locations accepting donations for the food bank.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the first time Wednesday revealed that the United States is preparing basic plans to attack Syria to stop President Bashar Assad from killing unarmed protesters against the government.
“We have looked at a number of options that could be involved here,” Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He said the Pentagon is waiting for President Obama to decide whether the preparation goes beyond what he called a basic military assessment before developing detailed contingency plans that would identify specific military units that would be involved in any action.
Despite receiving more than $885 million in federal economic stimulus funds since 2009, the D.C. government — whose residents face one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation — cannot say how many jobs it actually created for those who live in the District.
Most of the money has been spent, and data suggest that overall regional job growth did occur as a result of the massive infusion of capital. But a review by The Washington Times of figures provided by D.C. officials shows that the city spent hundreds of millions of dollars without being able to demonstrate any significant improvement in the city’s jobs outlook.
If anything, the employment picture has worsened in the District. At the end of 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the city’s unemployment rate was 10.4 percent, ahead of only three states: Nevada (12.6 percent), California (11.1 percent) and Rhode Island (10.8 percent).
