Elderly Woman Sends This Bank An Angry Letter After They Bounced Her Check.

Shown below, is an actual letter that was sent to a bank by an 86 year old woman.

The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times.
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Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.

By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it..

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years.

You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

Bombshell: IRS bashed ‘icky’ tea-party groups

New emails confirm targeting due to political bias

The report from the House Oversight Committee also found the administration colluded with the IRS on both the targeting of conservative groups and the subsequent cover-up.

One email revealed in the report showed an effort within the IRS to deny a conservative organization tax-exempt status because the group gave an agency employee an “icky feeling.”

Employee 1: “It appears that the org is funneling money to other orgs for political purposes. However, I’m not sure we can deny them because, technically, I don’t know that I can deny them simply for donating to another 501(c)(4). . . . Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated.”

Employee 2: “I think there may be a number of ways to deny them. Let me talk to Sharon [Light] tomorrow about it and get some ideas from her as well. . . . This sounds like a bad org. :/ . . . This org gives me an icky feeling.”

Evidence of such bias was found by the Oversight committee in a treasure trove of material, following a review of 1.3 million pages of documents and 52 transcribed interviews with IRS, Treasury, and Justice Department employees.

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30 Photos That Prove That Everything In Your Life Is A Lie

It was actually a different '90s icon who invented 

the Carlton Dance.

Proof that pineapples don't actually grow on trees.

 

This photo, which shows how Mac 'n' Cheese is opened

 by NO ONE EVER.

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Report: Feds Pressuring More Doctors to Ask Patients About Their Guns

The feds are using Medicare reimbursements along with the new electronic medical record format standardized by the government to coerce doctors to ask patients about their guns and other personal questions, reported Dr. Mark Kestner, who writes for The Murfreesboro Post.

“In essence, the feds are using their control of Medicare reimbursement to manipulate how your physician handles your personal health information,” he wrote. “As part of that process, the doctors are required to seek the answers to a certain number of personal questions from all their patients, including asking about gun ownership.”

The new electronic format allows the information to be made “available to government entities,” Dr. Kestner added.

“The federal Medicare program is structured in such a way that physicians had little choice but to comply with the program,” he continued. “On the one hand, if physicians complied with the program fully by last year they were rewarded with a financial incentive of several thousand dollars.”

“However, if they delayed or failed to agree to provide the data they will be penalized by a certain percentage of Medicare payments going forward.”

“Medicare reimbursement is already quite restricted and often doesn’t cover the actual costs for the services covered,” Dr. Kestner emphasized.

While some doctors are already asking patients about their firearms, it now appears the feds are ramping up this inquisition amid the recent appointment of the new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, who called gun ownership “a public health issue.”

“[I'm] tired of politicians playing politics with guns, putting lives at risk because they’re scared of [the] NRA,” he tweeted out in 2012. “Guns are a health care issue.”

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Something in the water': Second dog suffers liver failure after eating false mussels from Arnold creek

On the Friday before Christmas, Scott Gardiner worked on his boat while his dog, Finnegan, romped along the community beach in Arnold.

"Leave it," Gardiner yelled, seeing Finnegan munching something.

Too late.

Within hours, the 4-year-old golden retriever refused food, was throwing up and was getting increasingly lethargic. Within days, his liver enzymes — a normal level is 10 to 100 — jumped to 7,597.3. His eyes turned a jaundiced yellow.

He was the second dog known to have suffered liver failure after eating false dark mussels from Dividing Creek.
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Islam,: A German View

Hard to argue with this:

A  German's View on Islam – well worth reading.

This is one of the best explanations of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.  A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and  estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many  more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.’

‘My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

‘We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.’

‘The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is  the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.’

‘The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.’

‘The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery? Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

‘History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.’

‘Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.’

‘Now Islamic prayers have been introduced in Toronto and other public  schools in Ontario, and, yes, in  Ottawa,  too, while the Lord's Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?). The  Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country until the fanatics move in.’

‘In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket. Food on aircraft have the halal emblem just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nation's shores.’

‘In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of "no-go" zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.’

‘As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts - the fanatics who threaten our way of life.’

Extend yourself a bit and send this on. Let us hope that thousands world-wide read this, think about it,  and send it on before it's too late, and we are silenced because we were silent!!!

Nola

Creative Christmas Decorations

Black Progression and Retrogression

There is no question, though it’s not acknowledged enough, that black Americans have made greater gains, over some of the highest hurdles and in a very short span of time, than any other racial group in mankind’s history. What’s the evidence? If black Americans were thought of as a nation with their own gross domestic product, they’d rank among the 20 wealthiest nations. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, who headed the mightiest military in mankind’s history. A few black Americans are among the world’s wealthiest. Many black Americans are among the world’s most famous personalities.

The significance of all this is that in 1865, neither an ex-slave nor an ex-slave owner would have believed that such progress would be possible in less than a century and a half. As such, it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as importantly, it speaks to the greatness of a nation within which such progress was possible. That progress would have been impossible anywhere except in the United States of America. The challenge that lies before us is how those gains can be extended to a large percentage of black people for whom they appear elusive.

A good start to meeting that challenge is to recognize that much of the pathology seen in many black communities is entirely new in black history. Let’s look at some of that history. In the late 1800s, depending on the city, 70 to 80 percent of black households were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black households were two-parent. As late as 1950, only 18 percent of black households were single-parent. From 1890 to 1940, a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults. In 1940, black illegitimacy was about 14 percent.

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Overprotective or Awesome? Parents Move to College With Daughter

When one teen packed up and headed out to her sophomore year of college, her parents decided to go along for the ride.

Fallon Osterberg, 19, and her mother Lori Osterberg were on “Fox and Friends” this morning to discuss their experience as roomies.

Lori explained that Fallon spent her freshman year on her own, but Lori and her husband decided to move to Portland, Ore., to live with Fallon for her sophomore year. Lori said she and her husband are lifelong Denver natives, so they decided to do a “gap year” and escape their hometown.

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Wow. Guess Which State Is Handing Out Welfare in ARABIC?

To quote Milton Friedman, “It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.”

One of our states is learning that the hard way. It’s become the biggest destination for Muslim immigrants in the United States, and it’s now offering welfare assistance in Arabic.

That state is Michigan, home to both the largest Muslim population in the country and “Dearbornistan” — the city of Dearborn, which has become a mecca (forgive the pun) for Muslim immigrants.

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Exposing The Deception: How The US Economy "Grew" By $140 Billion As Americans Became Poorer

This is simply stunning.

Regular readers will recall that last month, at the same time as the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported was a far better than expected 3.9% GDP (since revised to 5.0% on the back of the previously noted Obamacare spending surge), it also released its Personal Spending and Income numbers for the month of October, or rather revised numbers, because as we explained exactly one month ago "Americans Are Suddenly $80 Billion "Poorer [10]"" thanks to (upward) revised spending data and (downward) revised income. What this meant a month ago is that as a result of a plunge in the imputed US savings rate, some $80 billion in personal savings was revised away from the average American household and right into the US economy.

After all, something had to grow the US GDP by a massive amount in order to give the Fed the green light it needs to hike rates eventually, just so it can then ease when the global dry powders from all the other central banks is used up.

And sure enough, this is how just one month ago [10], personal income was revised lower...

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HISTORIC 7FT CRUCIFIX CUT DOWN AFTER IT OFFENDS NEW MUSLIM NEIGHBOUR

A sixty-year-old crucifix in a small Austrian town has met an inglorious end after being cut down by a recent addition to the neighbourhood who declared it an “eyesore” and attacked it with an angle-grinder.

The cross, which was erected in the Grossenzersdorf, a small suburb of Vienna, after the Second World War, and has been a popular way point for church processions and pilgrimages since ,stood on the grass verge outside one of the properties on Grossenzersdorf’s Augasse. Shortly after the new resident, a man described by local media as ‘Egyptian’ moved in, he started complaining to neighbours and even his local government about the crucifix.

Keen to appease the new arrival, local mayor Hubert Tomsic even discussed moving the cross with him: “I had a conversation with the man about repositioning the cross at a different location in the alley – at his expense”.

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GOP report: Top IRS official considered admitting targeting before 2012 election -- but didn’t

A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee.

Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning groups.

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4,” Miller told his chief of staff, Nikole Flax, in a June 2012 email obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Miller ultimately testified at the July 25 hearing but never revealed his knowledge of the misconduct.

“Because he did not, he did a great disservice to the American taxpayers,” the House oversight committee report states.

The detail is one of many findings and allegations in the 226-page Republican-authored report, obtained by Fox News in advance of its release on Tuesday. The report highlights numerous examples of what House Republicans say is agency officials misleading congressional investigators and trying to slow their investigations.

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The Race Card’s Steep Cost

As the NYPD deaths show, demagogues’ constantly taking cheap shots at the police can end in tragedy.

The cold-blooded murder of two New York City policemen as they sat in their car is not only an outrage but also a wake-up call. It shows, in the most painful way, the high cost of having demagogues, politicians, mobs, and the media constantly taking cheap shots at the police.

Those cheap shots are in fact very expensive shots, not only to the police themselves but to the whole society. Someone once said that civilization is a thin crust over a volcano. The police are part of that thin crust. We have seen before our own eyes, first in Ferguson, Missouri and then in other communities, what happens when there is just a small crack in that crust, and barbarism and arson burst out.

That can happen anywhere. So can what happened in New York. “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”

It is a painful irony that, on the eve of the murders of these two police officers in New York, some of the city’s police were already saying that, in the event of their deaths, they did not want Mayor Bill de Blasio to attend their funerals.

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Ocean City could cap FEMA building upgrade rule

Ocean City government would have an avenue, if it so chose, to ease up on a federal building requirement that has reportedly caused problems for homeowners in a declining-value housing market.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission spent time at its last meeting discussing with city staff ways to allow owners to continue to upgrade their properties without triggering the “substantial improvement” clause set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I am, at some point in time, going to go before the mayor and City Council to change this standard for substantial improvements to be a 10-year period,” said city Chief Building Official Kevin Brown.

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Will The Fed Intervene In The Oil Market?

In a larger sense, the Fed is already intervening in the oil sector via its zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and its unlimited liquidity for financial speculation.

The problem with financializing a critical sector of the economy is the financialization process transforms it into a systemic risk. The trajectory of every financialized sector is the same: debt and leverage are piled ever higher on a base of collateral that eventually collapses as heightened risk becomes the Monster Id of a crowded trade.

Once the Monster Id burns through the firewalls that were supposed to limit risk, the crowded "safe" trade blows up and the conflagration quickly spreads throughout the financial system.

Every financialized sector thus has the potential to take down the entire financial system.

The mortgage sector is a prime example of this dynamic. The financialization of the mortgage industry created the subprime mortgage firetrap, which inevitably caught fire and threatened to burn down the entire global financial system.

The central bank that encouraged the financialization then has no choice but to intervene to save the system from the toppling dominoes of leverage and risk. Once the mortgage sector was fully financialized--securitized, tranched, packaged into collateralized debt obligations and other derivatives--the implosion of the weakest link (subprime mortgages backed by bogus collateral and liar loans) was baked into the financialization process.

As the systemic dominoes started falling, the Too Big to Fail (TBTF) banks had to be bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars in guarantees, backstops and loans. As correspondent Mark G. has noted, the debtors are left to suffer the consequences of their risky debt, but the big creditors are saved from the consequences of their bad bets.

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MSP Participates In Today's Funeral Ceremony In New York

Maryland State Police

The Maryland State Police would like to thank the families of our fallen brothers and members of the NYPD for allowing us to participate in today's funeral ceremony.

Best News Bloopers 2014

LANGUAGE WARNING

The Campus-Rape Frenzy

American universities are no longer havens of free speech and fair play.

The total discrediting of Rolling Stone’s story on rape at the University of Virginia has shined a light on one of the least palatable features of American life: the so-called epidemic of rape on campus.

Authorities from Barack Obama on down have cited the phony statistic that one in five college women is raped. Phony because it’s based on a 2007 survey conducted in two midwestern schools not of a random sample, but of a small number of self-selected respondents and includes unwanted touching and kissing as “sexual assault.”

A Department of Justice survey released this month presents a different picture. Between 1995 and 2013, it reports, an average of 0.61 percent of female students were raped or sexually assaulted every year — 2.4 percent over four years, not 20 percent. Moreover, the DOJ reports, that rate has been declining significantly in recent years, in line with a national decline in violent rape.

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Maryland Tradition Becomes National Tradition

SFD Calls For Service 12-26-14

• Friday December, 26 2014 @ 22:46Nature: Medical EmergencyCity:Salisbury
• Friday December, 26 2014 @ 21:36Nature: Medical EmergencyCity:Salisbury
• Friday December, 26 2014 @ 17:31 Nature: Vehicle Accident w/InjuriesAddress: N Salisbury Blvd & Centre Rd Salisbury, MD 21801
• Friday December, 26 2014 @ 15:00 Nature: Vehicle Accident w/InjuriesAddress: E Salisbury Pkwy & Autumn Grove Ct Salisbury, MD 21801
• Friday December, 26 2014 @ 14:00Nature: Medical EmergencyCity:Salisbury

US Government Admits $2.4 Billion Food-Stamps "Mis-Spent"

According to the most recent report from the US Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General, government "mis-spent" $2.4 billion on food stamps. While $2.4bn may feel like small amount in the present day of trillion-dollar debts, as The Daily Signal's Alexandra Gourdikan notes, the fact itself should raise concerns adding that the food stamps program is in need of reform. First and foremost, policymakers should focus on promoting work. Americans are willing to help those in need, but they also believe that people must do what they can for themselves.

As The Daily Signal reports,

This year the U.S. Department of Agriculture misspent $2.4 billion on food stamps, according to a November report from the USDA Office of Inspector General.

“Misspending” means the USDA gave a household either more or less food stamp benefits than it should have received. Historical data shows most misspending results in overpayments.

Although $2.4 billion may be a relatively small portion of overall food stamp spending, that fact itself should raise concerns. Food stamps is a massive program costing roughly $80 billion [5] in fiscal year 2013, up from approximately $40 billion [5] in fiscal year 2008 and less than $20 billion in fiscal year 2000.

Part of the increase in spending can be traced to the recession, but a lot is related to policies that have made it easier for people to get on food stamps and remain there. Even as the economy improves, the cost of the food stamps program is projected to remain near record levels.

As the Heritage Foundation’s 2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity shows, food stamp participation has skyrocketed. In 1970, less than 10 million people received food stamps. Three decades later it was around 20 million. Today, close to 50 million Americans are on the program.

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Need to Know Basis: You Only Know What the TV Wants You to Know

For people who consider themselves “awake” to the nonsensical idiocy being parroted in the 24/7 mainstream mind-melting cycle, almost nothing that happens these days seems to fit the definition of “real” or “believable.” Everything needs to be double-checked. Trust but verify.

That’s not the mind of a paranoid conspiracy theorist as the talking heads in charge might claim. No, that’s called critical thinking, a skill that I like to fantasize was once prized and even encouraged in this society back in some magical day.

It means a person makes reasoned judgements based on taking a factual assessment of any given situation before deciding to allow their brain cells to accept what they are told simply because someone with a suit, a fancy backdrop and a practiced intonation said it on a screen.

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Operation Christmas CHEER Reaches Out To Seniors

For the past 27 years, the CHEER Nutrition Program has sponsored Operation Christmas CHEER. Since the first year, the project has grown by leaps and bounds. This past Christmas day, a team of more than 80 volunteers distributed more than 260 meals to home-bound senior citizens throughout Sussex County.

But that's not all. Thanks to the collaborative effort of many Sussex organizations, volunteers also distributed food boxes, Christmas gifts and cards, flowers, pet goody bags and lap quilts.

Based at the Georgetown CHEER Center in the Thurman Adams State Service Center, volunteers start arriving around 10 a.m. Christmas morning. The cooks have been busy for more than five hours by that point.

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'Cheer mom' Iris Gibney arrested having sex with 17-year-old in her car

A 42-year-old Pennsylvania mom is facing multiple charges for allegedly having sex with a boy she met at a high school football game, where she was volunteering as a 'cheer mom'.

Suburban housewife Iris Gibney, of Pottstown, is accused of having sex with the 17-year-old in her car after being sprung by police.

The two were illegally parked at Hollenbach Park on November 15 about 10.30pm, after the park was closed.

A passing officer stopped and approached the car, only to find the two naked inside, according to NBC Philadelphia.

Gibney was allegedly performing a sex act when the officer got to the car.

The two put their clothes on and got out of the car, with the officer noticing Gibney was significantly older than the male.

The student later admitted to police he met Gibney at a Pottsgrove High School football game earlier this year.

Gibney's daughter is on the cheer squad and she volunteers as a 'cheer mom', who go to games to support the squad and often carpool.

Gibney and the student - who attends Pottsgrove High School - would communicate on Twitter and in chat rooms, police say.

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Worldwide Bail-Ins Are Coming

In case you missed the announcement, Cyprus-style bail-ins are coming to a bank near you.

On November 16, leaders of the G20 Group of Nations – the 20 largest economies – made an important decision. The world’s megabanks now have official permission to pledge depositor accounts as collateral to make leveraged derivative bets. And if they lose a bet, the counterparty to the contract has first dibs on your money.

The governments of these 20 countries are now supposed to put these arrangements into law. Most, including the US, have already done so.

You could be forgiven for not paying much attention to the G20 meeting, because it was mostly “more of the same” – the latest plan to have central banks inject trillions more dollars into the global economy.

But the G20 also endorsed a proposal with a mind-numbingly tedious title: Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution. Not exactly a page-turner. Your average American is more likely to watch Chicago Fire than to delve into the minutiae of the global financial system.

But this proposal profoundly changes the rules for banking globally, and not in a good way. Deposits in banks that are “too big to fail” will be “promptly recapitalized” with their “unsecured debt.” This avoids those nasty taxpayer-funded bailouts that proved so politically unpopular during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

And the largest chunk of unsecured debt is your bank deposits. Insolvent banks will recapitalize themselves by converting your deposits – checking accounts, but also money market accounts and CDs – into stock.

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Baltimore City Police Department Sued By Former Detective

Former Baltimore police detective Joseph Crystal has sued the department, his former supervisor and the police commissioner, accusing them of retaliating against him for being a whistle blower.

Crystal said that after he reported an unjustified 2011 beating of a drug suspect to the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office, fellow officers began harassing and threatening him in October 2012, with one telling him: "If you're the star witness you may as well just resign," and "You need to watch your back," according to the lawsuit.

Crystal's lawsuit says the harassment got so bad, he found a dead rat on his desk one day and that the department failed to provide backup officers to him in potentially dangerous situations, including the arrest of suspects on drug charges.

In his lawsuit, Crystal said he began working in the department in 2008 and was promoted to detective in 2010. He was working in the Violent Crime Impact Section on Baltimore's east side when he said he witnessed a beating by fellow officers of a drug suspect named Antoine Green.

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Judge OKs firing of Phoenix VA director-but not because veterans died

A judge has ruled that the Department of Veterans Affairs was justified in firing the former director of its Phoenix, Arizona, office, but not because of delays in care and secret waiting lists that consumed the agency this year.

Instead, the VA had the grounds to fire Sharon Helman over 'inappropriate gifts' she received from a health care consulting organization, including a trip to Disneyland 'in excess of $11,000,' tickets to a Beyonce concert and entry for the Mississippi Blues marathon, Chief Administrative Law Judge Stephen C. Mish said.

Helman was removed from her job after the Phoenix VA became the epicenter of a national scandal over the quality of care for veterans amid allegations that patients were dying while waiting to see a doctor. She appealed her firing on several grounds, and the court ruled against her this week.

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Love thy neighbor, but don’t give him Internet access

Earlier this year, Comcast began rolling out the Xfinity WiFi network, essentially creating its own system to compete with cellular service. The difference, however is that instead of the hand-held device receiving the broadcast signal, equipment inside the homes of cable Internet subscribers is broadcasting the signal.

Neighbors, friends or even passersby can access this signal via the public “Service Set Identifier” “xfinity wifi” and browse to their heart’s content. The devices using the networks should, according to Comcast, be issued their own IP addresses that tie their usage to their device, thus insulating the homeowner from the consequences of someone else’s use.

Comcast said the signal is on a different band from the homeowner’s, adding another level of isolation and protection from the public usage. Several security experts report this is generally true, but weaknesses may eventually be found by the people who spend a lot of time looking for weaknesses in software.

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IRS Mistakenly Penalizes Christine O’Donnell Again, Empties Accounts

Adding to the long-running saga of IRS dealings with conservatives, former Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell says the tax agency punished her mistakenly for the second time in five years by imposing an erroneous levy on her bank accounts.

Ms. O’Donnell told The Washington Times that she discovered the levy when she couldn’t access her checking account as she was preparing to visit relatives over Thanksgiving.

“The day before I was heading out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend, my bank told me the IRS had frozen my accounts. They didn’t give me a reason why, just a phone number to call,” Ms. O’Donnell said in an interview this week.

She said she called the Internal Revenue Service and was told the agency had concluded she owed $30,000 in taxes from a 2008 house transaction, which was long ago accounted for on her federal returns. She said she implored the agency to check her tax records and eventually was told the levy was generated in error and her accounts would be freed up.

Although IRS officials removed the levy, they first withdrew all the funds from her account. They said that, too, was in error and the funds would be returned to her. The funds have not been replaced, Ms. O’Donnell said.

More here

Salisbury University Student Housing - MEDCO - Indebted 27.8 million dollars - Operational Losses for past 3 years

MEDCO - Salisbury University Student Housing

Look at bottom of page 5, MEDCO's debt is not backed by the full faith and credit of the State of Maryland. Also - MEDCO - (page 4 of Balance sheet) - shows huge operational losses for the last three years - 2012 - 3.3 million, 2013 - 4.16 million, 2014 - 4.3 million.

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Harbor seals: OK to look, but not too closely

They may be cute and they may be cuddly but they are wild animals, are susceptible to a host of diseases, including rabies and herpes, will bite and can carry fines of up to $500 for “harassment,” which is basically any interaction that might change the animals’ behavior.

They’re seals and they’re back in Ocean City.

Now leave them alone.

A young harbor seal was spotted on Dec. 7, the first seal of the season. Sandi Smith of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program said in a release the first “social haul out” in Ocean City was in 2008.

Smith said hauling out is a normal behavior of pinnipeds, otherwise known as seals, sea lions and walruses. The animals take a necessary break from foraging for mating, giving birth, escaping predators, social activity and rest – activities that are coupled with an inherent degree of agitation.

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Putin: It Is Time to Play Your Ace in the Hole

You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done.

"The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers

The entire world is watching Putin play poker with the Western politicians lead by Obama and followed by Washington quislings in London, Brussels and Berlin. America's goal since the end of the Cold War has been to weaken by financial, economic and, if necessary, military means any real competition to its global financial and resource domination through the petrodollar and dollar world reserve currency status.

The current trade and economic sanctions against Russia and Iran follow this time-tested action that is never successful on its own, as we know from the 50-plus-year blockade of Cuba. But this strategy can lead to opposition nations retaliating by military means, often their only alternative to end blockades etc., which are an act of war and allow the US and other democracies to bring their ultimate superior military power to bare against the offending sovereign state. This worked for Lincoln against the Confederate States of America, by Woodrow Wilson against the Central Powers before World War One, against the Japanese Empire before World War Two, Iraq, Libya – the list is endless.

Recently the US has created the oil price collapse, working closely with its client state Saudi Arabia, in order to weaken the economic power of both Iran and Russia, the two main nations opposing US hegemony, foreign policy and petrodollar policy. Yes, this will play havoc with the US shale oil industry as well as London's North Sea oil industry but oil profits pale in comparison to the importance of maintaining Western power over Russia and China.

I hope Putin realizes the US is not playing games here, as this is a financial and strategic game to the death for Washington and it's Western allies that have foolishly followed the Goldman Sachs/central banking cartel's deadly sovereign debt recipe and for growth and prosperity. The time is up; the debts can never be repaid and sooner or later must be repudiated one way or the other.

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HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 12-27-14

The Christmas Tree

         

A long-held practice has been to put up a Christmas tree at this time of the year. Over the years, there have been many different ways to accomplish this. People used to go out and cut down their tree. This was fine if you knew who owned the land where you were getting the tree. Or, you could just go out and hunt the public lands for that most perfect of trees. Either way, it was always a good adventure for the father and the kids to spend a Saturday at this time of the year. It sort of added to the excitement that children always had. Sometimes, the children would pick one out that was somewhat less than perfect. It didn’t matter to them, it was their tree, and the decorations would more than make up for any defects nature had bestowed upon it.

         

Following this practice was the advent of the Christmas tree lot. These were usually trees that had been cut as early as September, and it was only a knowledgeable father that could tell if the tree would fall apart as soon as it was brought inside. Making sure the needles were firm was of the utmost importance. If they weren’t, you might have a very scraggly-looking tree within a few days of putting it up. Cutting the bottom few inches from the base was very important as that is where the tree would absorb water. Watering the tree was a daily ritual and one that was usually assigned to a child because of their small stature making it easier to get under the lower branches.

         

The old-fashioned decorations are not seen much anymore, and that is a shame. Strings of popcorn took a lot of time but provided activity for the children. There were also the strings made out of construction paper. Strips about one inch wide were cut from different-colored sheets of construction paper and then glued together to make a long string that would then be hung on the tree.

         

Electric lights replaced candles many years ago and they were always the job of the father. Along with the standard bulb-shaped bulbs, there was the occasional bubbling candle light. I can remember we had only one of them and, when it heated up and started to bubble, we were properly amazed. In the old days, when a light burned out, you just replaced it. The new strings all go out when any other light burns out.

         

The next-to-last accoutrement of the tree was the tinsel. The tinsel of the 1950’s was made of aluminum, and my mother always saved it from year to year. It was quite a job to take off all that tinsel and store it properly, but it was aluminum and that was something like gold is now. I, myself, am particularly fond of tinsel. One year, I put on 11,000 strands of tinsel when my boys were small. When the lights were off, it looked like a large silver tree in our living room. But when evening came and the lights were on, it was the most magnificent tree ever. Pictures and memories of that tree are all I have left now.

         

The absolute last ornament to go on the tree was the Christmas angel on the top of the tree. When that was proudly resting on the topmost branch, the tree was ready for the season.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Maryland's minimum wage to rise to $8 per hour, Jan. 1

On January 1, approximately 77,000 Maryland workers will get a raise as the minimum wage in the state rises 75 cents to eight dollars per hour. An additional 94,000 workers will be indirectly affected as higher wages at the bottom of pay scale will push up salaries for those who earn slightly more than the minimum. January’s raise affects 6.5 percent of Maryland’s workforce, creating $84 million in increased wages for the state’s lowest paid workers and will boost consumer spending by $55 million according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. Workers will get an additional 25 cents per hour on July 1, 2015 as the state’s minimum wage eventually rises to $10.10 per hour by 2018.

“Workers, families and businesses across the state will immediately benefit from the raise in the minimum wage. That’s a win for all of us,” said Charly Carter, executive director of Maryland Working Families, the organization behind the successful Raise Maryland campaign, which lobbied for two years for the higher wage. “At the same time, we recognize that affected workers will not earn the full $10.10 until more than three years from now and that tipped workers will not benefit from this increase because legislators froze their wages at $3.63 per hour. That’s why our legislative agenda for the coming session includes measures like establishing paid sick days and other proposals that will make families more economically secure and able to flourish.”

In addition to Maryland, 19 others states and the District of Columbia will raise their minimum wages, lifting the pay of over 4.4 million workers throughout the country. In Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington, wages will rise as a result of legislation that indexes the minimum wage to inflation so that each year the minimum is automatically increased to account for rising prices. Increases in the other 11 states, plus the District, are the result of changes to minimum wage laws—either legislation passed by state lawmakers or referenda passed directly by voters at the ballot box. Later in the year, another 500,000 workers in Delaware and Minnesota will also get a raise as legislated increases take effect there. In total, these increases will provide workers with $2.5 billion in additional wages over the course of the year.

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Thomas Sowell: Who's Responsible?

The cold-blooded murder of two New York City policemen as they sat in their car is not only an outrage but also a wake-up call. It shows, in the most painful way, the high cost of having demagogues, politicians, mobs and the media constantly taking cheap shots at the police.

Those cheap shots are in fact very expensive shots, not only to the police themselves but to the whole society. Someone once said that civilization is a thin crust over a volcano. The police are part of that thin crust. We have seen before our own eyes, first in Ferguson, Missouri and then in other communities, what happens when there is just a small crack in that crust, and barbarism and arson burst out.

That can happen anywhere. So can what happened in New York. "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

It is a painful irony that, on the eve of the murders of these two police officers in New York, some of the city's police were already saying that, in the event of their deaths, they did not want Mayor Bill de Blasio to attend their funerals.

We can only hope that Mayor de Blasio has some residual decency, so that he will not defile these two officers' memorial services with his presence. No politician in the country has done more to play the race card against the police and spread the notion that cops are the big problem in minority communities.

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Howard County $200K loan to Victoria's Gastro Pub owners for first farm brewery

Howard County entrepreneurs Randy and Mary Marriner aren't afraid to try something different or take a risk, and starting the county's first on-farm microbrewery certainly qualifies.

But thanks to the county's Economic Development Authority and County Executive Allan Kittleman, the couple, who own Columbia's Victoria's Gastro Pub, won't have to do it alone.

The Marriners have received a $200,000 loan from the county to help launch the new business, which Randy said he hopes to have operational in March. The brewery is being constructed inside a 7,200-square-foot barn at Manor Hill Farms in Ellicott City, a small 54-acre working farm owned by the Marriners, who also live on the property.

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Obama motorcade volunteer driver, 24, admits she had no training

There are between 20 and 30 cars that make up the official motorcade of the President of the United States - a security procession that travels, usually at high speeds and with green-light corridors, with the commander-in-chief everywhere he goes.

A 24-year-old California student has now revealed how she was selected as one of many volunteer drivers to be part of that chain of vehicles, 'following Obama all over San Francisco' for a day - despite having no experience, no training and, in what experts have called the most troubling, no idea what to do in an emergency.

Natalie Tyson even read a college textbook while waiting for the convoy to get back on the road, and posted pictures to her Facebook of the October experience, one of which was captioned: 'Me, wondering why anyone would trust me with a 15-passenger van full of reporters.'

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Eric Garner’s daughter posts address of cop at his death

One of Eric Garner’s daughters marked Christmas Day by spreading personal information about an NYPD cop who was present during the chokehold death of her father — outraging officers still reeling from last weekend’s execution-style slayings of two policemen in Brooklyn.

Erica Garner tweeted that cop Justin D’Amico was “another officer that helped killed [sic] my dad,” and directed her 5,000-plus Twitter followers to a Web page that lists ­addresses for D’Amico and five possible relatives.

The information was viewed about 500 times before Garner’s stunning tweet was deleted following inquiries by The Post.

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Opposition to de Blasio reaches new heights

The opposition to Mayor de Blasio reached new heights Friday – with a plane flying a banner reading “De Blasio, Our Backs Have Turned To You” over the Hudson River.

Ashley Chalmers, owner of Jersey Shore Aerial Advertising, the company that flew the banner, declined to reveal from the airborne plane who hired him for the flight.

John Cardillo, a blogger and former NYPD cop, tweeted that he was contacted by a “coalition of NYPD cops, Detectives, and supervisors” and asked to release their statement:

“As a large and unified group of current and retired NYC Police Officers, Detectives, & Supervisors, we are outraged by the mayor’s incendiary rhetoric, and for facilitating the current hostile climate towards the NYPD. We understand that the department and even our own unions can only go so far in their public condemnation of the mayor as to not irreparably damage the working relationship with the city, or future contract negotiations.

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Arsonist sets Swedish mosque on fire, injuring 5

Five people were injured Christmas day after an arsonist set fire to a Swedish mosque, police said.

As many as 20 people were in the mosque at the time of the attack in the town of Eskilstuna, close to the capital Stockholm, reports the Independent.

Local media showed images of smoke and flames billowing out of the building.

"A witness saw somebody throw an object through the window of the building, which serves as a mosque, after which a violent fire began," police spokesman Lars Franzell said.

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Obama uses Christmas address to note the end of Afghanistan war

President Barack Obama marked the end of more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan by paying tribute to America's military, telling troops on Christmas Day that their sacrifices have allowed for a more peaceful, prosperous world to emerge out of the ashes of 9/11.

At an oceanfront Marine Corps base in Hawaii, Obama told troops that while tough challenges remain for the U.S. military in hotspots like Iraq and West Africa, the world as a whole is better off because American troops put country first and served with distinction. He said Americans and their president could not be more thankful.

'Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country,' Obama said to applause from Marines and their families. 'We are safer. It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.'

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