Mayor Pugh Hand-Delivers Letter To Pres-Elect Trump On City Infrastructure

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — In her visit to M&T Bank prior to the Army-Navy Game, Baltimore City Mayor Catherine Pugh hand-delivered a letter on the needs of the city to visiting President-elect Donald Trump.

Pugh writes on social media “I delivered a letter noting importance of our infrastructure needs & need for investment of federal funds.”

This move by Pugh comes two days after City Council took action against President-elect Trump. The council unanimously voting to condemn the president-elect’s rhetoric.

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What to Eat -- and Avoid -- When You Have a Cold

Chicken Soup

You should have some, and not just because Mom says so. Studies shows it clears nasal passages and congestion better than other hot liquids. It also has an anti-inflammatory effect that may help your cold symptoms.

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Hunter accused of killing upright walking bear sues 6 people

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) — A hunter who says he was falsely accused online of killing a New Jersey black bear that walked upright on its hind legs and became an internet celebrity has sued six social media posters.

John DeFilippo’s attorney filed the suit Tuesday in state Superior Court. It seeks undisclosed compensatory and punitive damages for defamation and invasion of privacy.

The suit stems from the apparent death of the bear Pedals during the first part of this year’s state bear hunt. The animal walked upright because of an injury and was seen strolling around New Jersey neighborhoods in videos posted on social media and shown on national television.

State wildlife officials believe Pedals was killed during the expanded bear hunt staged in October. The Department of Environmental Protection released pictures showing the lifeless body of a black bear with injured paws, just like the ones Pedals had, but couldn’t confirm the identity because Pedals was never tagged.

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Time praised Obama, trashed Trump in 'Person of the Year' profile

President-elect Trump was named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" on Wednesday, just as then-President-elect Obama received the same distinction in 2008 after winning that election.

But that's where the similarities stop.

While Trump's write-up in Time is a "for better or worse" overview of his victory, laced with ambivalence. Obama's was a far more hopeful and confident look at the historical nature of his coming presidency.

Here's a look at how Trump was described by Time on Tuesday compared to what the magazine said of Obama eight years ago.

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Medical marijuana dispensaries could be coming to Md. by summer

WASHINGTON — Medical marijuana has been legal in Maryland since June 2014, but there is still no place in the state where patients can legally buy it. However, that may soon change.

Medical marijuana dispensary businesses in Maryland were given a preliminary thumbs-up on Friday, according to a news release from the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission. The businesses could be up and running by the summer.

Across Maryland, 102 medical marijuana dispensaries were given a preapproval for licenses out of 811 applications that had been submitted. The dispensaries have up to a year to make their businesses operational.

The MMCC told The Washington Post that patients could begin legally buying marijuana for medical purposes as early as the summer for the treatment of seizures or anxiety and for dealing with the side effects of cancer or chemotherapy.

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Homeland Security: 900 percent surge in asylum demands, only half of illegals caught

A damning new report on the Obama administration's immigrationpolicies and actions shows that about half of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are actually caught, and demands for asylum have exploded 900 percent.

The report done for the Department of Homeland Security said that asylum demands since President Obama came into office and loosenedimmigration requirements surged from 17,000 to 170,000.

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Former OC Brewing manager to pay half-million for fraud

Joshua Shores, the former manager of Ocean City Brewing Company, has been ordered by the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania to pay $500,000 in restitution for his role in a multi-million-dollar counterfeit sports memorabilia scheme.

Shores, 41, was charged with wire fraud in January for operating more than a half a dozen internet businesses between 2008 and 2013 that sold fake sport jerseys. According to charging documents, the jerseys were purchased in bulk from China and had forged autographs and phony authenticity certificates.

He had owned and operated a number of internet businesses that operated from York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to U.S. Attorney Peter Smith. Buyers also purchased the fraudulent memorabilia from Shores’ Internet business through PayPal and Amazon.com, resulting in sales of approximately $2.5 million.

In March, Shores entered an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In return, he forfeited a residential property on Chicago Avenue in Ocean City, various computers, $140,563 in cash and additional amounts in lieu of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a sports utility vehicle.

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The collapse of the political Left

It's been a tough decade for the political left. Eight years ago a Time magazine cover portrayed Barack Obama as Franklin Roosevelt, complete with cigarette and holder and a cover line proclaiming "The New New Deal." A Newsweek cover announced "We Are All Socialists Now."

Now the cover story is different. Time has just announced, inevitably though a bit begrudgingly, that its Person of the Year for 2016 isDonald Trump. No mention of New Deals or socialism.

It's not surprising that newsmagazine editors expected a move to the left. The history they'd been taught by New Deal admirers, influenced by the doctrines of Karl Marx, was that economic distress moves voters to demand a larger and more active government.

There was some empirical evidence in that direction as well. The recession triggered by the financial crisis of 2007-08 was the deepest experienced by anyone not old enough to remember the 1930s. Barack Obama was elected with 53 percent of the popular vote—more than any candidate since the 1980s—and Democrats had won congressional elections with similar majorities in 2006 and 2008.

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Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission Announces 102 Dispensary License Pre-Approvals

Baltimore, MD  – The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission (“MMCC”) today announced the names of 102 Dispensary entities who have been awarded Stage One license pre-approvals from a total of 811 applications submitted for up to 109 available licenses statewide. This marks the conclusion of this phase of the Grower, Processor, and Dispensary application process. Each pre-awardee has 365 days from date of pre-approval to implement their operations.

Dr. Paul W. Davies, Chairman for the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission stated, “These qualified entities will be on the front line providing medical cannabis to qualified patients in Maryland. They will have a tremendous responsibility in serving the legitimate needs of those patients that seek medical treatment.”

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission’s Executive Director, Patrick Jameson stated, “These dispensaries will be the new face of the medical cannabis industry in Maryland, once final licenses are issued. The Commission has an expectation that these dispensaries will operate in an extremely professional manner. Professional business operations will provide reassurance to the general public that these companies will have a positive impact on their communities. The Commission will tightly regulate these dispensaries and looks forward to a productive working relationship with their management and staff.”

Video: ‘Migrant’ kicks young woman down flight of stairs

'This is cultural jihad. Gangs roam the streets and terrorize the weak'

Video emerged Wednesday of a young woman in a German subway station being kicked down a flight of stairs, in what some are calling an unprovoked attack by a “migrant gang.”

The security footage from the station in Berlin was posted from several sources, including the German newspaper Bild, which published it online with the headline, “Shocking video.”

See the video from Bild:

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ICE publishes quarterly international student data

WASHINGTON — There are 1.23 million international students with F (academic) or M (vocational) status studying at 8,697 schools in the United States according to the latest "SEVIS by the Numbers." This quarterly report on international student trends is prepared by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

The report, released Thursday by SEVP, highlights November 2016 data from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a web-based system that includes information about international students, exchange visitors and their dependents while they are in the United States.

Based on data extracted from SEVIS Nov. 7, the international student population increased 2.9 percent compared to November 2015, but the number of SEVP-certified schools decreased one percent during the same timeframe. California, New York and Texas had the highest international student enrollment in the United States, with the largest number of students in these states coming from China, India and South Korea. International students in these states chose to major in business and engineering more than any other field of study.

Arkansas and Alabama saw the highest percentage increases in international student enrollment compared to the previous year, at 14 and 13 percent, respectively.

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School censors Charlie Brown Christmas poster

One of the most poignant scenes in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is when Linus stands on a stage and recites a passage from the Holy Bible describing the Christmas story.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior which is Christ the Lord. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” Linus said.

It really does sum up the true meaning – the true reason for the holiday season – the birth of our Lord.

Dedra Shannon, a staffer at Patterson Middle School in Killeen, Texas, was so inspired by the scene she decided to use images to decorate the door to the nurse’s office.

The decorations included a picture of Linus, the scrawny Christmas tree and that classic passage of dialogue about the true meaning of the holiday.

The decorations were installed on December 5. On December 7, Ms. Shannon was confronted by the school’s principal.

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Police: Shoplifting Family Affair At Babies R Us Ends In Car Chase

PASADENA, Md. (WJZ) — A man and a woman were charged, and the woman’s 10-year-old niece and 11-year-old daughter were given juvenile citations, after the four of them conspired to rob a Babies R Us in Pasadena Thursday night, police say.

The incident ended in a police chase on Ritchie Highway, where officers say the suspects were throwing the stolen merchandise out of the vehicle.

Officers responded to Jumpers Junction Mall around 7:43 p.m. for a report of shoplifting.

When they arrived, they say 28-year-old Tierra Latasha Reid and the children were running from the store to a getaway vehicle waiting in the parking lot, where 50-year-old Erik Benjamin Prestbury was waiting.

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Subject: Black Homeless Woman Says Trump Allowed Her to Live in Trump Tower Rent Free For 8 Years

This doesn't fit with the media's portrayal of Trump as a racist bigot

A homeless black woman reveals that she has been living in Trump Tower for eight years with the blessings of the Donald himself.

Filming from her hotel window, the woman says she originally snuck in the building before becoming a squatter in one of the empty rooms. Police arrived the next day and told the woman to leave or she’d be arrested.

“When I told them I would not go, they contacted Mr. Trump over the phone and he came down here. Instead of evicting me off the property, he said that I can stay and it’s been eight years I’ve been here,” the woman reveals.

“Not only did he not evict me off the property, he made sure that I ate three meals a day by room service and that I get a delivery of fresh flowers every week,” she adds.

The African-American woman expresses her displeasure at the characterization of Trump as a “bad guy”.

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SPD Press Release - (Armed Robbery-Bank of Delmarva) 12-10-16

U.S. Chamber Said to Tell Mexico It Will Defend Nafta Deal

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce told a closed-door gathering of Mexican and American corporate and government leaders that it is aiming to keep Donald Trump from fulfilling his campaign threat to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Tom Donohue, head of the biggest U.S. business lobbying organization, told members of the U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue in Mexico City on Wednesday not to panic and to wait and see what the president-elect proposes once he takes office, said the three people, who spoke about the private event on condition of anonymity. The audience included cabinet officials from President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, and more than 100 business and government leaders.

Relations between the president-elect and the Chamber were strained during the 2016 campaign when they sparred over trade policy. Trump made what he called the unfairness of the U.S. relationship with its biggest trade partners a central theme of his campaign, and he singled out Nafta, which also includes Canada, as ripe for being gutted or renegotiated.

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President-elect Trump to attend Army vs. Navy football game

Dover speedway removing more seats

DOVER — Section by section, row by row and seat by seat, large chunks of the grandstands that once nearly circled the entirety of Dover International Speedway are disappearing.

More than likely, they will never return.

Due to an extended sputtering economy and a declining interest in NASCAR over recent years, officials at Dover are downsizing the track’s seating capacity for a third time in order to get rid of some of the large pockets of empty seats that have glaringly stood out at its races the past several years.

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Will this puppy be Donald Trump's presidential pet?

In many ways, the Trumps are different from families that have lived in the White House — for starters, the entire family is not planning to live there right away.

One philanthropist wants to do one thing to make the Trump White House more like those in the past: She wants Donald Trump to have a presidential pet.

Every previous president has had pets in the White House, among them dogs, cats, parrots, sheep, horses, bear cubs, a pygmy hippo and an alligator. (John Quincy Adams let an alligator live in a White House bathroom, according to the Presidential Pet Museum's website.) President Obama didn't have any pets when he was elected, but swiftly remedied that by bringing home Bo and, later, Sunny, both Portuguese water dogs.

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Kane Company closing, laying off about 900 workers

ELKRIDGE, Md. (AP) — The Kane Company, an Elkridge-based commercial mover, is shutting down most of its operations and laying off at least 900 workers in Maryland and Virginia.

Owner John Kane announced Thursday that most divisions would cease operations Sunday.

Kane says the family-owned company found itself facing $2 million in lease costs it couldn’t pay involving a move into new warehouse space.

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Requiem for a Narrative

Analysis: Eight years of fake news

At a dinner in Washington earlier this week—one packed with well-meaning folks who really, really wanted this year’s election to have gone the other way—I heard a speaker cite Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art by way of consoling the audience. “The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” the poem famously begins. The speaker hastened to remind the room that, later in the poem, we are informed numerous times that losing “is no disaster.” With that in mind, those who didn’t like the election’s result should buck up and dive back into the fight, and so forth.

It didn’t seem like the time or place for me to point out that the poem’s declarations that losing isn’t a disaster are clearly ironic. It also didn’t seem the time to note that among the most important reasons why so many people supported Trump was that they were conscious of a series of painful disasters, the existence of which the Obama administration, abetted by a friendly press, refused to acknowledge. The nature of our politics today—and perhaps immemorially—is that every ambitious mayor or governor of a state feels the need to create a narrative of success: build a stadium or bridge that he can slap his name on, massage the crime statistics to show civic healing, and call it good.

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Cries, prayer fill courtroom at sentencing for driver in fatal Md. crash

ROCKVILLE, Md. — A young man who had a few speeding tickets on his record will spend the next 12 years in prison after one out of control joy ride took the lives of three people.

Emotions ran raw in the Montgomery County Circuit courtroom Friday afternoon as Judge Mary Beth McCormick sentenced 21-year-old Ogulcan Atakoglu to 30 years in prison, with all but 12 years suspended. He’ll have five years probation; three of which he can’t drive. And once he gets out, he’ll serve 150 hours of community service to impress upon teens the importance of driving safely.

Atakoglu’s feelings of invincibility, in his words, led him to drive so recklessly that prosecutors say he slammed into Helena Buarque de Macedo’s family car like a bullet. He was traveling down River Road at 115 mph in a 45 mph zone, breaking only 2.5 seconds before impact, according to court documents.

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Maryland Town Blocks Federally Licensed Gun Dealer From Starting Small Home Business

The town council of Mount Airy, Maryland voted this week to block a federally licensed gun dealer from operating a small, appointment-only gun business out of his home.

In a vote of four to zero with one abstention, the council rejected Michael Wonsala’s request for a zoning change to allow him to operate a small gun business focused on the repair and sale of collectible and historic firearms out of his house. The council now plans to update the town code to prohibit firearms sales.

The vote ended a process Wonsala began 15 months ago, and the planned update to the town code may put an end to his efforts to start a side business.

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Sears And Kmart Pretend To Run A Retail Business For Another Quarter

Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart, is focused on “restoring profitability,” but so far the only method that the massive department store chain has found to do that since 2012 is by selling its stores to an affiliated real estate investment trust. Sears has a lot more real estate to sell, and could keep this charade up for a while yet. Will it?

In the third quarter of 2016, Sears Holdings had $3.7 billion in long-term debt, with $618 million in short-term debt and $1 billion of its revolving credit line in use.

Comparable store sales across the whole company are down 7.4%, but the good news is that comparable store sales at Kmart are only down 4.4%. That leaves comparable Sears store sales down 10%. Dozens of the chain’s stores across the country are closing this month, which is why the “comparable stores” figure is important: that tells you useful things about a company’s health when its store total is expanding or contracting.

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Lawmakers Want Extra Protections for Staff Who Investigate Executive Branch

WASHINGTON – Congress is looking into providing additional legal protections to staff members who face reprisals for their work holding executive branch agencies accountable.

The Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism held a hearing on what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the panel chairman, described as “a very sensitive but real world problem” regarding legitimate congressional oversight functions that result in objections from federal agencies that could lead to criminal referrals.

Graham said Senate staff members frequently “are going to ask hard questions of powerful people to make sure they are accountable.” The subcommittee wants to make sure those staff members asking the questions “are not subject to reprisal in a way that would chill oversight.”

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Democrats Unveil 'Transition' Team

Study Finds Millennials Less Likely To Out-Earn Parents

(CBS Local) – Graduation inspires many different feelings in college students. First and foremost, pride. But not long after, anxiety sets in about the impending job search.

This generation is much less likely to out-earn their parents, according to a study conducted by Stanford and Harvard universities and UC Berkeley, via the LA Times which calls into question the so-called American dream.

In 1940, children were born with near certainty that they’d earn a higher income than their parents when they grew up, which is something every loving parent hopes for their kid.

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IRS Data: American Dream Evaporates, Amid Mass Immigration, Automation

The probability of American children earning as much as their parents has plunged from 92 percent down to 50 percent during the last seven decades, according to a new study of tax data and the shrinking American Dream of upward mobility.

Compared to people born in 1940, the “babies born in 1980 — today’s 36-year-olds — the index of the American dream has fallen to 50 percent: Only half of them make as much money as their parents did,” says a report in the New York Times.

“In the industrial Midwestern states that effectively elected Donald Trump, the share was once higher than the national average. Now, it is a few percentage points lower. There, going backward is the norm,” the newspaper admitted.

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Clinton Donors Infuriated They Didn’t Make The Cut For Thank-You Party

Some of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors are complaining because they weren’t invited to a thank-you celebration she is hosting in New York this month.

The former presidential candidate is throwing a party so she can thank her millionaire donors inside of the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza Hotel but, according to the Washington Post, those who weren’t invited aren’t too pleased with her.

“The remaining staff of the Clinton campaign has been fielding complaints from donors who were not included,” the Post said. “Some donors were told that the size of the party was dictated by the space constraints of the ballroom.”

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Hillary Reemerges, Slams "Dangerous Epidemic" Of Fake News

Having disappeared from the public scene for almost a month (with the occasional backwood spotting thrown in for dramatic effect), today Hillary Clinton reemerged from a self-imposed social quarantine, and in a exquisitely choreographed Podesta special, addressed the nation from Capitol Hill. What was first and foremost on the mind of person who the "impartial" media declared had a 90% chance of being America's next president: was it some intense introspection; perhaps it was some idea of how to reform and fix the imploding Democratic party; or maybe it was her finally accepting responsibility for her actions and her loss?

None of the above.

Instead, the one thing that appears to have preoccupied the former Secretary of State is the proliferation of so-called "fake news", a phenomenon she called an "epidemic." It was not immediately clear if she also lumped in the Washington Post into that bucket: recall that last night, in an editorial note to the WaPo's fake, slanderous story about "Russian Propaganda Fake News", the newspaper distanced itself from its primary source, PropOrNot, itself a source of propaganda, when the WaPo admitted it "does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so."

Speaking on Capitol Hill, Clinton said that “the epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences." Like, perhaps, poring through thousands of emails which the co=opted and captured mainstream press - especially those who had dinner with John Podesta to offer their PR services to the Clinton campaign - would not touch, revealing the crony and illicit dealings of the Clinton Family foundation, leading to - among other things - Clinton losing the presidency?

One can almost see why Hillary is not a fan of the "fake news."

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Recount uncovers serious fraud in Detroit

Votes in Democrat stronghold may have been counted up to 6 times

There’s something fishy going on in Michigan, where a full one-third of precincts in Wayne County – which includes Detroit – were unable to have ballots counted due to discrepancies with ballot counts.

And one person reports single ballots being counted as many as six times.

On Wednesday, a federal judge halted Michigan’s recount after two days of ballot counting, saying there’s not a legitimate reason to continue. After all, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who asked for the recount – suggesting the possibility of vote fraud and stating, “We must have a system we can be confident in” – never even had a chance of winning with just 1 percent of the vote.

But the judge’s decision came just after news reports began surfacing of possible vote fraud.

The worst of the problems were in Wayne County, Michigan’s largest county, where 66 percent of voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton and just 29 percent for Donald Trump.

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NEWS IN NUMBERS

29

States where Electoral College members are legally obligated to support the candidate who won their state's popular vote. In Colorado, one of those states, electors are suing to overturn that law.

POLITICO | DECEMBER 9, 2016

71%

New Jersey voters who think Gov. Chris Christie should have been a defendant in the "Bridgegate" trial, which resulted in criminal convictions for two of his former aides. In the same poll, Christie's approval rating dropped to the second-lowest of any U.S. governor in recent history.

THE RECORD | DECEMBER 8, 2016

87

Voting machines that broke on Election Day in Wayne County, which could disqualify the affected precincts from Michigan's statewide recount of presidential votes. If that's the case, the original election results will hold in those places.

THE DETROIT NEWS | DECEMBER 7, 2016

15

States that don't require paper records that could be compared against electronic vote tallies in a recount.

GOVERNING | DECEMBER 6, 2016

$10,400

Amount four cannabis growers paid to the Alaska Department of Revenue -- the first-ever revenue from commercial marijuana taxes to hit the state treasury. Recreational marijuana was approved by voters in 2014.

ALASKA DISPATCH NEWS | DECEMBER 5, 2016

7 years

Time it takes Kansans with intellectual disabilities to get off the waitlist for treatment and state services that help them live on their own rather than in an institution. The long wait has prompted investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice.

KAISER HEALTH NEWS | DECEMBER 2, 2016

867

Hate-inspired incidents reported in the 10 days after the presidential election. Most of the threats and assaults targeted immigrants and minorities, but 23 came from people who were "anti-Trump."

THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER | DECEMBER 1, 2016

$860,000

What Nevada spent to build a new execution chamber even though drug companies have largely stopped supplying states with the lethal injections needed to carry out the death penalty.

THE LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 30, 2016

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Crime Solvers December 2016 Edition

Internet Users Lash at Hillary Clinton for Comments About 'Fake News Epidemic'

Mainstream media reports on Hillary's speech against fake news did not sit well with internet users

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton unexpectedly called for action against the “epidemic of fake news that spread across the world”.

She made a rare public appearance on Thursday to address the Pizzagate tragedy that unfolded over the weekend because of fake news.

A man opened fire in a DC pizzeria after reading a terrifying yet false story online. It claimed that the restaurant’s holding children as part of a sex slavery ring… run by Clinton. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the shooting. Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 presidential campaign was often accused of generating fake news, called to immediate action in her speech.

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A General Mattis Christmas Story

General Mattis is being considered to be the Secretary of Defense. What a great way to start rebuilding our military. His nickname is Mad Dog Mattis.

A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.”

General Krulak said, when he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, every year, starting about a week before Christmas, he and his wife would bake hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. They would package them in small bundles. Then on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. At about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day. He said that one year, he had gone down to Quantico as one of his stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty.

He went to the command center and gave a package to the lance corporal who was on duty. He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.” And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” The lance corporal, feeling a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis". General Krulak said that, about that time, he spotted in the back room a cot, or a daybed. He said, “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.” About that time, General Krulak said that General Mattis came in, in a duty uniform with a sword, and General Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have duty?” General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.

General Krulak said, “That’s the kind of officer that Jim Mattis is.

~The story above was told by Dr. Albert C. Pierce, the Director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at The United States Naval Academy. He was introducing General James Mattis who gave a lecture on Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Conflict in the spring of 2006. This was taken from the transcript of that lecture.

Oh, So NOW The Main Stream Media Is Begging To Gain Your Trust...

"What would you like to see in a newscast"?

You have an opinion, we know it! You give them to us every day on social media… but do you feel like your opinions are really being heard? 10News is looking for a select group of Visionaries to help us better understand what you are looking for in a television newscast. 

Publishers Notes: The Main Stream Media, (MSM) lied, delivered "fake news" and thought they were all powerful enough to convince Americans that Hillary was the answer and Trump was a racist, abused women and dozens of other harmful attacks. 

Now that Trump won, the MSM wants to know the TRUTH, something they know nothing about. They want YOU to tell them how they should do business. They want YOU to send videos, pictures and opinions so that THEY don't have to leave the building any more.

Here's what I can tell you on a local level. BIG advertisers called our local news outlets and told them to STOP ragging on Donald Trump, they refused. Today, MILLIONS of dollars worth of advertisers have cancelled their advertising with them, hence ALL of the commercials you are now seeing on WBOC & WMDT begging for advertisers. That's a fact Ladies & Gentlemen. 

These long term advertisers who dropped their business with WBOC & WMDT have put a major hurting on them. Oh sure, you'll see replacement advertisers for the short term but these smaller businesses simply cannot afford to run multiple ads each and every day like the ones who dropped out. 

Who knows, perhaps their requests to ask the public just what we're looking for in our news is a good thing though. I can recall the Daily Times making promises years ago that they'd do more local news and in depth reporting, they lied. In fact, they shrunk the paper, increased subscription rates through the roof and laid off tons of employees. 

The mere FACT that every single county on the entire Eastern Shore voted in favor of Donald Trump while they, (all of them) still continue to put out negative news about him should clearly tell you, they couldn't care less about what you think. 

As for their advertisers, do you people realize that us viewers MUTE the commercials and or fast forward right through them. I am always amazed on a daily basis at just how clueless these businesses are. They are throwing good money after bad money and need to get with the times. 

Hillary Clinton - The Queen of Fake News - Lectures Americans About Fake News

The woman who voted for a war that killed hundreds of thousands based on fake news now says fake news is putting "lives at risk"

Hillary Clinton – the woman who voted for a war that was sold on a diet of fake news – a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people – is now lecturing Americans about fake news putting “lives at risk”.

“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year – it’s now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences,” said Clinton during a speech on Thursday for retiring Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

“Lives are at risk — lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities,” she added.

Hillary went on to say that it was imperative for the public and private sector to take action against fake news “to protect innocent lives”.

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Maryland Struggles To Retain Young, Qualified Teachers

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — In nine years of teaching elementary school, Robin Beers has always felt the profession never came easy.

Beers did not decide she wanted to teach until after undergrad when she received her master’s degree in special education. Ever since entering teaching, she said she has felt as if she has not had enough time or support to consistently succeed.

Now that she is settled at an Anne Arundel elementary school teaching third grade, Beers has overcome many of the struggles young teachers face when first entering the profession.

“It’s overwhelming,” Beers said. “I often struggle to keep things in perspective. I sometimes have to tell myself, ‘You’re not running the Pentagon; it’s going to be okay.'”

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The MS13 Moves (Again) to Expand on US East Coast

Local police and justice officials are convinced that the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) has strengthened its presence along the East Coast of the United States. The alarm follows a recent spate of violence -- of the type not seen in a decade -- which included dismembered bodies and the murders of several youths. Investigations also show an increase in communications betweenMS13 members incarcerated in El Salvador and gang cliques in Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. And they illustrate that the incarcerated gang leadership has given explicit orders for the cells in those areas to take back the East Coast.

On December 13, 2015, José Adán Martínez Castro, alias "Chucky," called a meeting with several other gang leaders in Richmond, the Virginia state capital, which is about 175 kilometers south of Washington, DC. At least two dozen members of various gang cliques attended, so they could receive their marching orders from Chucky, the designated signal caller of the gang.

Beyond taking care of concrete issues such as the dispute between two Massachusetts cliques, Chucky (pictured below) took time to explain a key directive that had begun in mid-2015. It came from El Salvador's maximum security prison where the majority of the gang's leaders were then incarcerated. And that order was very clear: expand the gang, develop it throughout the US East Coast via an increased presence on the streets, all with the goal of providing more profits to the gang's members in El Salvador.

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'Beautiful' dinosaur tail found preserved in amber

The tail of a feathered dinosaur has been found perfectly preserved in amber from Myanmar.

The one-of-a-kind discovery helps put flesh on the bones of these extinct creatures, opening a new window on the biology of a group that dominated Earth for more than 160 million years.

Examination of the specimen suggests the tail was chestnut brown on top and white on its underside.

The tail is described in the journal Current Biology.

"This is the first time we've found dinosaur material preserved in amber," co-author Ryan McKellar, of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, told the BBC News website.

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Maryland prosecutor guilty of indecent exposure

SNOW HILL, Md. (AP) — A Maryland county prosecutor has been convicted of indecent exposure and disorderly conduct.

A Worcester County jury on Friday convicted Cecil County State’s Attorney Edward Rollins III on one count each of indecent exposure and disorderly conduct but acquitted him on two similar charges.

Rollins will be sentenced later. Indecent exposure carries up to three years in prison and a $1,000 fine. Disorderly conduct is punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

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Here's a more detailed story about the case.

New York firefighter charged with setting fire to own home — and blaming it on Black Lives Matter

A New York firefighter was arrested after allegedly setting fire to his own home in an apparent attempt to smear anti-police brutality activists.

Jason Stokes pleaded not guilty Tuesday to arson in connection with the August fire at his house in Endicott, reported WBNG-TV.

A family member said at the time that they believed their home was targeted because of the “Blue Lives Matter” flag flying out front.

Investigators found the message, “lie with pigs, fry like bacon,” written on some siding outside the burned home.

The slogan apparently referenced an incident from August 2015, when some demonstrators chanted, “pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon,” during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Minnesota State Fair that was widely reported by conservative media.

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The Left's Arrested Development

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, the emotional instability many leftists have demonstrated is mind-boggling and, in some cases, downright hysterical.

We get being disappointed when your candidate loses. After all, there was plenty of disappointment — and even some fear — among Liberty-loving conservatives when Barack Obama ascended to power with the promise to “fundamentally transform” the land of the free and the home of the brave. There was even more dismay when the country saw what Obama had done … and re-elected him anyway.

But we didn’t ditch dating, chop off our hair, or lose our faith because of it. Clearly, “progressives” are outdoing us in their post-election mourning.

So great was the grief of Trump’s win for single mom Stephanie Land, for example, that she gave up dating. And not just in theory. She actually ditched a man who was a potentially promising husband. “There is no room for dating in this place of grief,” Land wrote in the Washington Post. “I’ve lost the desire to attempt the courtship phase. The future is uncertain. I am not the optimistic person I was on the morning of Nov. 8. … Dating means hope. I’ve lost that hope in seeing the words ‘President-elect Trump.’” And so, Land told her almost-significant other, “I can’t. I just can’t”. (Despite her emotional dependency on Hillary Clinton, Land apparently didn’t embrace Clinton’s mantra that we are “stronger together.”)

Then, there is hair..

Democrats: From Temper Tantrum to Self-Delusion

Hard to believe, but Hillary Clinton’s campaign team thinks it lost because Donald Trump ignited America’s inner bigot, which caused the KKK and Aryan Brotherhood members and sympathizers to show up in droves and vote Trump.

Following Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, Democrats and pundits predicted GOP defeats as far as the eye could see, because there aren’t enough white voters for Republicans to win. But now the narrative is, “Trump won by appealing to white voters.” Could they please pick one and stick to it?

That’s the takeaway from the Harvard quadrennial postmortem in which the two campaign camps participated. About Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign CEO, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said, “If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am glad to have lost. … I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”

To this Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, angrily responded, “No, you wouldn’t. That’s very clear … respectfully. No, you wouldn’t. … Jenn … do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform? Are you going to look me in the face and tell me that?”

“It did, Kellyanne. It did,” countered Palmieri.

Astonishing.

Fact: Based on exit polls, Trump got a lower percentage of the white vote than Mitt Romney did in 2012, and a higher percentage of the black vote and the Hispanic vote than Romney. Initial post-election tabulations find that nationwide, Trump won 209 of the 676 counties that voted for Barack Obama twice — in both 2008 and 2012..

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LEGENDARY COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 12-10-16

Isolation

It has long been a bone of contention with Eastern Shore natives that they have to contend with “come heres”. They have a good argument in that people come here from off the Shore because they like the life style, the climate and the amenities. But the problem lies in the fact that as soon as they get here, they treat the locals like a bunch of bumpkins and try to change things. Before the Bay Bridge was opened in 1952, the Eastern Shore was fairly isolated.

I remember my grandmother telling me that the Depression went over Salisburyvirtually unnoticed. We had everything we needed without outside help. She said the only difference was that more men showed up at her back door asking for some work to do so they could earn some food.

The Eastern Shore had plenty of things to eat that are grown right here on the Shore. There were fish aplenty wherever you wanted to go to get them. The Atlantic Ocean was bountiful, as well as the many rivers and streams for fresh water fish. My grandfather used to go to Roaring Point down by Nanticoke and fill a bushel basket with rock fish in a half hour. I never saw a can of cat food until I was grown. All our cats were fed fresh fish.

For those who chose to hunt their food, there were deer in the forests. Rabbits and squirrels also were a staple in some families. In the spring and fall the Atlantic flyway sent enough ducks and geese over the Easter Shore that you could get all you could carry home any time at all.

The late Bill Phillips from Party Line on WICO grew up in Caroline County. I once heard him say that he never saw any money growing up. When it came time to go back to school at the end of summer, his mother used to go to town and barter eggs and butter for his new school shoes. Everything else he wore, she made. Many a farm wife had their husbands bring home feed sacks from the farm supplier in identical patterns. Many times she would accompany him to make sure he got the right pattern. From these feed sacks, she made her dresses, curtains, bed clothes, shirts and what ever else she needed.

What we had here on the Shore was enough to sustain the population. With the BayBridge and now the Bridge-Tunnel, we have lost forever that feeling of independence we knew for so many years.

Concern for schools who aren't teaching kids very much

The little red school house, famous in the lore of the early days of the republic, is long gone, but the memory of it is a nostalgic reminder of how the education of children was once the responsibility of the town. As public education has grown into extensive public school systems in towns big and small, the schoolhouse is no longer the source of civic pride.

Restoring the importance of the public schools in towns big and small has become a cliche of our politics. Everyone knows that schools are failing large numbers of children. Parents quail, politicians rail, teachers’ unions squeal, and nothing much changes from election to election. There’s a growing appetite for shaking things up.

The concern is not new. A loud alarm was sounded in 1983 with a report titled “A Nation at Risk,” and Ronald Reagan held it up at a press conference, decrying the substandard performances of school children across America. “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today,” the report concluded, “we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”

President Reagan wanted to get rid of the Department of Education and return education to local control, but he couldn’t come close to doing that. So 33 years later we’ve continued “unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.”

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Stop Pointing Fingers At Law Enforcement & Judges For Major Crime (recidivism) In Salisbury & Wicomico County

COSTA MESA (CBSLA.com) — A political discussion in a college class touched off a firestorm.

A college professor went off on president-elect Donald Trump in her Orange Coast College class.

There are now threats of expulsion and threats of legal action.

CBS2’s Stacey Butler listened to the controversial rant. The human sexuality teacher — Olga Perez Stable Cox — called Trump’s election “an act of terrorism.”

“Our nation is divided. We have been assaulted. It is an act of terrorism,” she told the students.

She added, “One of the most frightening things for me, and most people in my life, is that the people who are committing the assault are among us.”

That was part of the teacher’s rant about Trump .

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Black Lawyer Calls on Black Jurors to Vote ‘Innocent’ for Any Black Person Accused of Murdering a White Person

An African-American lawyer and editor of a popular legal website is calling on all black jurors across the country to automatically vote to free any black person accused of murdering or committing a crime against a white person despite the evidence.

Elie Mystal, an editor and contributor to the law blog Above The Law, posted a December 7 article urging all black Americans who end up on juries to engage in “jury nullification” by automatically voting to acquit all blacks accused of crimes, especially that of murder, against white victims and to do so no matter how much evidence is brought to bear against the suspect.

Mystal justified this lawlessness by claiming that “African-Americans live in a world where the police can murder us and get away with it.”

“There is no justice for black people. And yet violently revolting against the system will get us nowhere,” he added.

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DUDE

A grim tally soars: More than 50,000 overdose deaths in US

NEW YORK — More than 50,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, the most ever.

The disastrous tally has been pushed to new heights by soaring abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers, a class of drugs known as opioids.

Heroin deaths rose 23 percent in one year, to 12,989, slightly higher than the number of gun homicides, according to government data released Thursday.

Deaths from synthetic opioids, including illicit fentanyl, rose 73 percent to 9,580. And prescription painkillers took the highest toll, but posted the smallest increase. Abuse of drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin killed 17,536, an increase of 4 percent.

"I don't think we've ever seen anything like this. Certainly not in modern times," said Robert Anderson, who oversees death statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new numbers were part of the agency's annual tally of deaths and death rates in 2015.

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The Mental Dismemberment of Children

This past Halloween I had an opportunity to take part in an activity that I haven’t done in a couple of decades- hand out candy to the children on Beggers Night.

It was fun to see the creative costumes. Some of beautiful princesses; others, usually the boys, dressed as scary monsters from movies. The scariest was, hands down, a young man who dressed up as Michael Meyers from the Halloween movies. Even the other kids wanted to stay clear of him. He had it down so well, the jump suit, the walk. He said nothing as he approached, we carefully put the goodies in his bag.

A few of the kids simply wore outfits to look like bums or super heroes. I remember doing similar things as I prepared to rush the neighborhood in a contest to see how much I could collect. It was a good time with fine memories that rushed back as each new batch of kids came up with their open bags yelling “Trick or Treat!”

My main attention, however, was on the little children. So innocent. Some not really sure why their parents were encouraging them to approach these strangers. And why were they giving out candy? But always, with their parent’s encouragement they accepted and said “tank too.” So sweet. They made you want to huge them.

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Ad Watchdog: Lowe’s Should Clarify That Major Appliances Sale Excludes Most Brands

An annoyed customer brought a Lowe’s appliance ad to the attention of the National Ad Division, a self-regulation program for advertisers run by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Their complaint? An ad promoting “20% off appliances $396 or more at Lowe’s” was largely untrue, except for the parts that said “appliances” and “Lowe’s.” 

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Likely Pick For Next FCC Chair Thinks Net Neutrality’s “Days Are Numbered”

The FCC has approved a significant number of major pro-consumer rules in the last few years. Most, however, were contentious within the Commission, and passed on a 3-2 margin. One of the two reliable dissenters, commissioner Ajit Pai, is now on deck as the likely inheritor of the Chairman’s seat when President-Elect Donald Trump’s administration comes to power in January — and he’s already hoping to do away with some of the FCC’s recent rules. 

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Surgeon General: E-Cigarette Use By Young Consumers Is A “Major Public Health Threat”

Months after the Food & Drug Administration finalized rules that treat e-cigarettes like traditional cigarettes and cigars, including banning the sale to minors, a new report from the U.S. Surgeon General suggests the regulations may be too little too late, as use of the alternative tobacco products has skyrocketed among younger consumers, posing a public health threat. 

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What Does It Take To Get Banned From Riding With Uber?

We’ve heard some horror stories in the past about Uber drivers dealing with no good, very bad, and otherwise terrible riders, but now we know exactly what kinds of awful behavior will get riders banned from the platform forever.

Uber updated its community guidelines on Thursday to include a list of actions that will result in riders losing access to the service. The company says these are “some” of the reasons, as there are always folks out there who will come up with new ways to make life difficult for others.

“Courtesy matters,” Uber says. “That’s why you are expected to exercise good judgment and behave decently towards other people in the car when riding with Uber — just as you would in any public place.”

Here are the actions that will get you the boot:

• Damaging drivers’ or other passengers’ property: Damaging the car, breaking or vandalizing a driver’s phone, intentionally spilling food or drink, smoking, or vomiting due to excessive alcohol consumption.

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Because This Year Hasn't Felt Long Enough, 2016 Will Last One Second Longer

The deaths of great artists, global tragedies, an acrimonious U.S. presidential campaign — these events have made many of us are eager to get the seemingly interminable nastiness that was 2016 over with, once and for all. But thanks to the precision of modern timekeeping, we'll have to wait one additional second on New Year's Eve before we can welcome what hopefully will be a better 2017.

The additional second will be inserted precisely one second before midnight strikes at theRoyal Observatory at Greenwich in England. Since 1884 that's been the location of the Prime Meridian for Greenwich Mean Time, also known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which sets the standard for the rest of the world's time zones. Because that spot is five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time, the additional second will be inserted at one second before 7 p.m. at the U.S. Naval Observatory's Master Clock Facility in Washington, D.C., which sets the time for Americans.

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