Hogan: 2017 Legislative Session A 'Mixed Bag So Far'

The 2017 Maryland Legislative Session comes to a close on April 10.

Governor Larry Hogan had a lot to say about the past two and a half months when he joined The Jimmy Mathis Show on Saturday morning.

"It's sort of the good, the bad and the ugly," he said. "We got a lot of things done. ... Many of our initiatives have already been passed in both houses."

Though, Hogan mentioned that some terrible things have happened -- the 'sanctuary state' bill and the attorney general's new power, to name a few.

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An Obama Plot to Sabotage Trump?

Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons.

Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump's tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point.

The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, "unmasked" their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked.

If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency, before it began.

Comey readily confirmed there was no evidence to back up the Trump tweet. But when it came to electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign, Comey, somehow, could not comment on that.

Which raises the question: What is the real scandal here?

Is it that Russians hacked the DNC and John Podesta's emails and handed them off to WikiLeaks? We have heard that since June.

Is it that Trump officials may have colluded with the Russians?

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World’s First Human Head Transplant (Graphic)

CNN INVESTIGATES: IS TRUMP AFRAID OF STAIRS?

Another example of why network considered "very fake news"

CNN, the “Counterfeit News Network” according to media analyst Mark Dice, actually ran a report asking whether President Donald Trump is afraid of stairs – you cannot make this up.

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Former Vice President of National Construction Company Pleads Guilty to Stealing Over $4.5 Million from Employer

Stole Company Funds to Buy 2 Porsches, a Mercedes-Benz, 2 Race Cars, and Spent $90,000 at a Steak House, Over $90,000 at Ethan Allen, William Sonoma and Pottery Barn, $55,000 for Washington Redskins tickets, and $14,500 at a Vineyard

Baltimore, Maryland – Wendy Collins, age 46, of Woodbine, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to wire fraud, in connection with a scheme in which she stole more than $4.5 million from her employer.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; and Postal Inspector in Charge Robert B. Wemyss of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service - Washington Division.

According to her plea agreement, Collins worked at a national construction company (the “Company”) with projects throughout the United States. In 2010, Collins was promoted to the Company’s Vice President of Administration, and was responsible for managing the Company’s finances, including payroll, accounting, petty cash, health reimbursement account (HRA) and overseeing payments to the Company’s subcontractors and employees. Collins also had access to the Company’s bank and credit card accounts, including multiple American Express credit card accounts.

“Indifferent” Muslim Woman Walks Carelessly Through TERROR Attack Scene- Internet Responds

First off, can everyone just calm the hell down?! Before we start into this hot mess, let’s get one thing straight right off the bat:

NO ONE knows what is really happening, okay? Not the first Tweeter, not the second, not the third, fourth, and so on and so on…Now, read on to understand what I mean:

A hunge fight broke out today – on Twitter, or course – over a photo of a Muslim woman who was both blamed and defended after strolling through a terror attack on Westminster Bridge while looking at her cell phone.

The pedestrian was wearing a brown headscarf and grey coat, and was captured holding one hand to her head while walking past a victim on the ground being treated on for his wounds.

She was picked apart by one social media user for supposedly appearing apathetic to yesterday’s attack that brought terror to London – but there were still others that to defend her.

One Twitter user named ‘Texas Lone Star’ posted a picture of the woman walking past the hurt victim, criticizing her in a tweet for allegedly not caring.

He wrote: ‘Muslim woman pays no mind to the terror attack, casually walks by a dying man while checking phone #PrayForLondon #Westminster #BanIslam.’

But his tweet aggravated a lot of people to anger, with other users criticizing his comments and one even going as far if not further than he did, and calling him ‘the real monster here’.

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US border agents seize 40,000 counterfeit condoms in Puerto Rico

Federal border agents have seized more than 40,000 counterfeit condoms in a series of raids over the last five days.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the seizure, and said the goods were taken with the help of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit, and the Food and Drug Administration.

CBP said the counterfeit condoms were imported into Puerto Rico from China.

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South Korea Tries To Raise Sewol Ferry Nearly 3 Years After Deadly Sinking

Almost three years ago, the ferry Sewol sank in rough seas off South Korea. More than 300 people perished, mostly high school students on a field trip.

Now, South Korea's government is trying to raise what's left of the 6,800-ton ship. As NPR's Elise Hu reports from Seoul, nine of the people who were aboard that day in April 2014 remain missing, and families hope to recover those bodies once the Sewol has been lifted out of the water and put in dry dock.

Dozens of divers are involved in the salvage operation, Elise says.

Crews had the ship partway out of the water when their efforts hit what could be a significant snag.

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One Of The Oddest Geological Wonders Is Located Right Here In Maryland

If you’ve ever traveled along Interstate 68, you’ve likely driven through one of the most impressive wonders in the northeastern United States. This geological wonder strikes awe in curious passersby and even science enthusiasts drive for hundreds of miles to get a glimpse of its glory. Read on to learn more about this must-see Maryland attraction.

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GSA Says Trump D.C. Hotel Lease Is Valid, Despite Ban On Elected Officials

President Trump got good news on Thursday from the federal agency that oversees the three-year-old lease on his five-star hotel in Washington, D.C.

The General Services Administration said in a letter that the Trump Organization is in "full compliance" with the lease on the luxury hotel that's located just blocks from the White House.

Many ethics and contract experts have called upon GSA to end the lease, noting that the contract language specifically says no "elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom[.]"

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State Ag Department Discourages Residents from Buying Chicks this Spring

Tips to avoid serious illness including Salmonella, High Path Avian Influenza

ANNAPOLIS, MD – The Maryland Department of Agriculture warns citizens that incorrectly handling live poultry, including chicks and ducklings, can cause serious illnesses, and the department strongly discourages citizens from buying chicks as presents for children this spring.

“We ask people to think twice before bringing baby chicks and other live poultry into their homes. The risk of illness from improper handling is much higher this time of year, especially among people not used to handling live birds,” said Agriculture Secretary Joe Bartenfelder. “Anyone with poultry should practice heightened biosecurity to prevent diseases like bird flu from entering their flock.”

Tips for Handling Live Poultry

Contact with live poultry can be a source of human Salmonella infections, which can cause a diarrheal illness in people that ranges from mild to life threatening. Each spring, chicks are specially hatched in large quantities and then shipped around the country – a practice that makes them much more prone to disease.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture joins the Centers for Disease Control in recommending against buying chicks for children this spring. For those who choose to purchase chicks, however, here are some tips:

Can You Read My Mind?

Negligent Driving Bill Clears House

BERLIN — Legislation with roots in Worcester County introduced by Delegate Mary Beth Carozza (R-38C) that would increase the penalties for causing life-threatening injuries by vehicle or vessel breezed through the House last week by a unanimous 140-0 vote.

Last year, a Stockton man drove through a work zone along a roadway in the south end of Worcester County, killing one county roads department employee and critically injuring another. The driver, Marion Jones, 60, was ultimately indicted on charges of manslaughter, criminal negligence manslaughter, negligent driving and reckless driving.

In August, Jones was found guilty of negligent driving and reckless endangerment and was fined $500 for each conviction. The vehicular manslaughter charges were not prosecuted. The case revealed a gap in current law when it comes to prosecuting individuals who cause life-threatening injuries with a vehicle in a criminally-negligent manner.

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Parrots flying high on drugs are annoying farmers by plundering poppy fields to feed their opium addiction

Drug-addled birds sit perched in wait before swooping down behind workers' backs for a nibble before retreating to high branches - where some then fall to their death passed out

Parrots flying high on drugs are annoying farmers by plundering their poppy fields to feed their opium addiction.

The drug-addicted birds sit perched in wait until the morphine-rich area is exposed by workers slitting open the flowers' pods to help them ripen.

The parrots then swoop down in silence into the opium fields - having learned not to squawk - and frantically nibble off the stalks below the pod before they are spotted.

Video shows them retreating to high branches where they gorge on the plants leaving them sleeping for hours - and even falling to their death.

This phenomenon was first reported in 2015, but this year it has spread across to other regions for the first time.

Farmers now claim they are getting warnings from the Government's narcotics department - which controls opium farming - over their reduced yields.

Sobharam Rathod, an opium farmer from Neemach, India, estimates parrots are stealing around ten per cent of his crop and he has been given a warning.

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Right stuff: Don't buy excuses on redistricting

It's no surprise the Democrats killed Gov. Larry Hogan's nonpartisan redistricting bill. But don't buy for a second that it is in response to recent Republican redistricting in other states. Maryland Democrats were carving up the state long before Republicans got in the game elsewhere.

Maryland's Democrats like to say, "Look what they do in Texas," as if that justifies their legerdemain.

Texas had been a Jim Crow state under Democratic control since Reconstruction. The Voting Rights Act put redistricting in Texas and several other states of the old Confederacy under federal supervision.

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The Anti-Trump Anarchists

A fascist movement professes its own opposition to “fascism.”

Refuse Fascism (RF)—which was one of the organizations responsible for the ugly anti-Milo riots at UC Berkeley last month—was established shortly after the November 2016 U.S. presidential election in which Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The creators of RF were Revolutionary Communist Party members Carl Dix, Sunsara Taylor (an advisory board member with World Can't Wait), and Andy Zee (a spokesman for the Manhattan-based Revolution Books shop managed by the Maoist activist C. Clark Kissinger).

RF laid out its political and ideological platform in a December 2016 manifesto depicting President Trump as an illegitimately elected “fascist” and declaring: “In the name of humanity we REFUSE to accept a fascist America!”

Emphasizing the fact that Trump had lost the popular vote to Mrs. Clinton by some 2.5 million votes, RF characterized the Electoral College—which of course was where Trump had won the presidency—as an outdated and useless “product and legacy of slavery.” The illegitimacy of the Electoral College was compounded, said RF, by the fact that “Republican Party representatives and operatives have over the years … systematically suppressed the votes of Black, Latino and poor people” by means of such measures as Voter ID requirements.

Moreover, RF tried to draw a connection between nonwhite voter suppression and “the overturning of the Voting Rights Act [VRA] in 2013 by the Supreme Court”—a gross mis-characterization of the Court's decision to strike down an anachronistic VRA provision that required certain states to obtain federal pre-clearance for any proposed changes to their election laws.

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High School Rapists Entered U.S. as Unaccompanied Alien Children, Lived in Sanctuary County

The teenage illegal immigrants charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in the bathroom of a Maryland public high school last week entered the United States under an Obama program that’s accommodated tens of thousands of Central American youths who crossed the Mexican border. The administration coined them Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and portrayed them as innocent, desperate kids fleeing violence and famine in their homeland. Most are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and the influx has overwhelmed border agents, government health agencies and military bases that serve as shelters not to mention public schools nationwide.

This week two of the UACs protected by Obama’s outlaw amnesty measures were charged with the rape of a ninth-grader at Rockville High School in Montgomery County, a Maryland jurisdiction that offers illegal aliens sanctuary. The illegal immigrants, 17-year-old Jose Montano and 18-year-old Henry Sanchez, were both charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense. Both illegal aliens were in the ninth grade like their victim, according local news reports. Montano came to the U.S. from El Salvador and Sanchez, who reportedly had been ordered deported, from Guatemala. Both are being held without bail. Several local media outlets printed a letter sent to parents by the school district describing the rape as a “serious incident” that “is being addressed.”

Back in the summer of 2014, when the first batch of UACs began arriving, Judicial Watch reported that many were not harmless children fleeing violence as the media was largely reporting. Border Patrol sources on the ground divulged that a lot of the Central Americans were in their late teens and had ties to violent gang members and other criminal elements. Federal authorities handling the crisis offered a vastly different depiction than the government’s official version in the media. From the start, the barrage of illegal alien minors created an out-of-control disaster with jam-packed holding centers, rampant diseases and sexually active teenagers at a Nogales facility that housed the first arrivals, Homeland Security sources told Judicial Watch.
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Wicomico County Executive Announces Public Hearing On Proposed Operating Budget

Former Attorney for George W. Bush, Richard Painter, Says Alt-Right Websites Are Guilty of Treason

The former ethics attorney for the idiot Bush made reference to an article which said the FBI was investigating 'right wing' websites -- who might've been complicit in helping the, err, Russians win the election for their agent -- Donald J. Trump. You've got to be kidding me with this sh!t.

A little background on Mr. Painter.

Professor Richard W. Painter received his B.A., summa cum laude, in history from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Following law school, he clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and later practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City and Finn Dixon & Herling in Stamford, Connecticut.

He also writes for Huffington Post -- where he shills all day.

His Twitter feed reads like a disjointed Anti-Trump fanatic -- hedged by his role inside of the GW Bush administration.

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Wicomico County Executive announces 150 Year Celebration events

The "Retail Apocalypse" Is Officially Descending Upon America

Consumerism has long been a defining element of American society, but retail giants are now shutting down thousands of their locations amid a long-anticipated “retail apocalypse."

BI reports that over the next couple months, more than 3,500 stores are expected to close:

“Department stores like JCPenney, Macy’s, Sears, and Kmart are among the companies shutting down stores, along with middle-of-the-mall chains like Crocs, BCBG, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Guess.”

Some stores, like Bebe and The Limited, are closing all of their locations to focus more on online sales. Other larger chains, like JC Penney, are “aggressively paring down their store counts to unload unprofitable locations and try to staunch losses,” Business Insider notes. Sears and K-Mart are following a similar trajectory moving forward.

Sears is shutting down 150 Sears and Kmart locations, about 10% of their shops. JCPenney is shutting down 138 stores, about 14% of their total locations.

These closures are the consequence of several different factors. First, the United States has more shopping mall square footage per person than other parts of the world. In America, retailers reserve 23.5 square feet per person; in Canada and Australia, the countries with the second- and third-most space have 16.4 and 11.1, respectively.

Another reason retail brick and mortars are failing is the growth of e-commerce. Between 2010 and 2013, visits to shopping malls declined 50%, according to data from real estate research firm Cushman and Wakefield. Meanwhile, online sales from huge online outposts, like Amazon, have exploded.

Back in 2015, Forbes observed this trend:

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Is This The Sound Of The Bottom Falling Out Of The Auto Industry?

Not quite, not yet, but it’s not good either.

Let’s hope that the problems piling up in the used vehicle market - and their impact on new vehicle sales, automakers, $1.1 trillion in auto loans, and auto lenders - is just a blip, something caused by what has been getting blamed by just about everyone now: the delayed tax refunds.

In its March report, the National Association of Auto Dealers (NADA) reported an anomaly: dropping used vehicle prices in February, which occurred only for the second time in the past 20 years. It was a big one: Its Used Car Guide’s seasonally adjusted used vehicle price index plunged 3.8% from January, “by far the worst recorded for any month since November 2008 as the result of a recession-related 5.6% tumble.”

The index has now dropped eight months in a row and hit the lowest level since September 2010. The index is down 8% year over year, and down 13% from its peak in 2014.

The price decline spanned all segments, but it hit the two ends of the spectrum — subcompact cars and the luxury end — particularly hard. The list shows the change in wholesale prices from January to February in vehicles up to eight years old:

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Watchdog Requests Investigation of Dem Rep Who Maxed Out Salary to Girlfriend

Rep. Alcee Hastings has paid his girlfriend the maximum congressional salary for five straight years

A government watchdog group has filed acomplaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics calling for an investigation of Rep. Alcee Hastings (D., Fla.) for maxing out the congressional salary of his longtime girlfriend for five straight years.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a D.C.-based group, filed the complaint following the publication of a story in the Washington Free Beacon on the amount the Florida congressman has paid his girlfriend, Patricia Williams, who works out of his Broward County, Fla. office.

Hastings has paid Williams the maximum congressional salary allowed, $168,411, for five straight years and has employed her since 1993. Williams has collected $2.4 million in salary since 2000, the first year congressional salary data is readily available. Williams is also paid more than Hastings' D.C. chief of staff, a position that is normally the highest paid in a congressional office.

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Summer of Love 1967: Intimate rock star photos revealed

It was an iconic event that would come to symbolize the height of hippie culture: San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love drew an estimated 100,000 people from all over the country in an explosion of music, art, expression and drugs.

In the midst of it all was Jim Marshall, the legendary ‘rock’n’roll photographer,’ who documented the gatherings in the street, the general ambiance in the city’s Haight-Ashbury district, and – most importantly – intimate glimpses into the lives of musical legends.

Now, 50 years later, the work of the photographer – the first one ever presented with an honorary Grammy – is being showcased in a free exhibition coinciding with the Summer of Love anniversary.

‘We’re thrilled to be presenting, for the first time, an exhibition that focuses on the way that photographer Jim Marshall helped to define our cultural understanding of the Summer of Love, the San Francisco hippie movement, and the birth of psychedelic rock and roll,’ says exhibition co-curator and director of San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries Meg Shiffler.

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Pugh To Veto Minimum Wage Bill

Mayor Catherine Pugh said she will veto a bill that would raise Baltimore City's minimum wage. In a press conference Friday, she said her office will instead support statewide measures in Annapolis.

"I don't think there's anybody that wants to see the minimum wage increased more than I do," Pugh said. "But when I think about the economic impact...I think it's important that we follow the lead of the state."

If Baltimore City raises its minimum wage and encircling jurisdictions don't, the city will be the "hole in the donut," Pugh said, economically speaking.

Pugh said she spoke to counterparts across the state, as well as former mayor Kurt Schmoke and representatives of a number of nonprofits.

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Potential 'smoking gun' showing Obama administration spied on Trump team, source says

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretapped him in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.

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US Sees 'Activity' at N. Korea Nuke Sites: US Official

The US military has observed activity in North Korea that suggests Pyongyang may be gearing up for another nuclear test, a US official said Thursday.

"At the sites where we watch tests, we see a level of activity that's similar to what they've done before other tests," the defense official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Fox News reported earlier on Thursday that North Korea is in the final stages of readying for another nuclear test, possibly within the coming days.

North Korea may have dug new tunnels around the Punggye-ri test site in the northeast of the country, Fox said, citing a US official.

It also reported that the US Air Force has deployed a special surveillance plane used to take air samples after nuclear tests.

North Korea is on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and staged two nuclear tests and multiple missile launches last year.

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Ex-Navy SEAL: UK's Muslim 'Mini Societies' Enable Terror

The United Kingdom has allowed Muslim immigrants to "create mini societies within the British empire" that lead to Islamic radicalization and end in tragedies like Wednesday's bloodbath outside Parliament, Carl Higbie, a retired Navy SEAL, told Newsmax TV.

The British government, British society has become so accustomed and so engrained that this [terrorism] is a potential possibility . . . that this is just a part of society now," Higbie told host Bill Tucker on Thursday's "America Talks Live."

"It's a norm to have Islamic extremists come in, run people over, and stab people . . . They've allowed this mass migration of predominately Muslim people to come in, take over entire regions. Not hostilely, but move in and basically create mini societies within the British Empire.

The British government has allowed this to happen, and if they deny that it has anything to do with their immigration policies, they are completely false and profoundly ignorant."

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Federal Law Enforcement Resources Overwhelmingly Spent on Immigration Crime

Immigration-related crimes made up half of all federal law enforcement arrests in 2014, according to a new Department of Justice report released Thursday.

Immigration offenses accounted for more than 81,000 of the 165,256 arrests made by federal authorities in 2014, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in its study. Nearly two-thirds of the total number of federal arrests occurred in the five jurisdictions that sit along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"These statistics make it clear that immigration-related offenses along the United States border with Mexico account for an enormous portion of the federal government's law enforcement resources and that we must enforce our immigration laws in a way that consistently deters future violations," Justice Department spokeswomen Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement Thursday.

The study comes three days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released its first weekly report on the impacts of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. ICE revealed on Monday that local authorities released more than 200 undocumented immigrants from prisons and jails in sanctuary jurisdictions over a week-long span earlier this year.

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This is from April 2016....2 more illegals raping children

A Montgomery County man charged with kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl told his friend that she was “fresh meat” before the friend raped her as well, according to arrest records filed in court this week in a case that includes alleged crimes committed in the District.

After the alleged attack in Montgomery, the 12-year-old spoke to detectives and participated in a texting sting in which one of the suspects made incriminating statements, according to the records. The two men were being held Friday in the Montgomery jail on $500,000 bonds, according to court records.

Officials identified the suspects as Enrique Carbajal, 24, and Victor Tome, 19, both of the 11500 block of Elkin Street in Wheaton. Detectives said that at least one of the suspects knows the girl’s mother.

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Man who taped dog's mouth shut is sentenced

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) —A North Charleston man who admitted severely injuring a dog when he taped her mouth shut has been sentenced.

William Dodson was arrested in June 2015 after the dog, Caitlyn, appeared on the doorstep of a North Charleston home with electrical tape wrapped around her muzzle.

A medical report from Veterinary Emergency Care described the dog's muzzle as "markedly swollen with evidence of tape," and the tongue as "significantly swollen, significantly bruised, discolored (dark purple) and oozing blood," court documents said.

Charleston Animal Society spokesman Aldwin Roman told the court he would never forget the sound Caitlyn made when the tape that bound her muzzle was removed.

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Republican Sen. Pat Roberts ‘deeply’ regrets mammogram joke

Sen. Pat Roberts apologized Thursday after receiving backlash for a joke he made about mammograms while discussing the Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

A Talking Points Memo reporter asked the Kansas Republican if he supports a potential change in the GOP’s plan that would scrap Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits rule, which requires insurers to cover “essential” health services like maternity care and mammograms.

“I sure don’t want my mammogram benefits taken away,” Mr. Roberts quipped, according to the website.

Other members of Congress quickly condemned the comment, saying mammograms are essential for detecting breast cancer in women.

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NSA To Provide "Smoking Gun" Proof Obama Spied On Trump

Yesterday, Republican Devin Nunez Nunes held an explosive press conference outside the White House in which he told reporters that communications from the Trump team were picked up and disseminated within the government during the 2016 campaign.

Not surprisingly, the comments ruffled some liberal feathers and the mainstream media launched an immediate smear campaign calling for Nunes to resign his post immediately.

Now, according to Fox News sources, congressional investigators expect that a potential “smoking gun” from the NSA establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee as early as tomorrow.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

The FBI hasn’t been responsive to the House Intelligence Committee’s request for documents, but the National Security Agency is expected to produce documents to the committee by Friday. The NSA document production is expected to produce more intelligence than Nunes has so far seen or described – including what one source described as a potential “smoking gun” establishing the spying.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.

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Transgender Activists Attack Pro-Family Campaign Bus With Hammer, Paint

Pro-family groups leased a big orange tour bus to highlight the big obvious — but perhaps temporary — fact that a person’s male or female sex is decided by biology, not by politics.

But before the bus could get out of New York, two attackers smashed several windows, punched holes in the side, and spray-painted political demands — “trans rights now!” and “trans liberation” — over the huge orange-and-white message on the side of the bus, which says:

It’s Biology

Boys are boys … and always will be

Girls are girls… and always will be.

You can’t change sex. Respect all.

The attack was inflicted after the conservative organizers had “call[ed] on all Americans to respect the free speech rights of citizens to debate these issues without fear of being demeaned, harassed, or threatened with retaliation.”

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Rockville Rape: Montgomery County School Superintendent Paid $275,000 Per Year, Rakes in Massive Benefits

Montgomery County School Superintendent Dr. Jack Smith, under fire for his delayed response to the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School last week, rakes in a taxpayer funded salary of $275,000, months of paid time off and a whole goody bag full of other pricey benefits.

According to Smith's contract, he receives the following:

-$275,000 salary per year, with a review each year for an increase and pay cannot be reduced

-$40,000 per year paid by the board for his retirement fund

-25 days of annual paid leave which can be rolled over and cashed out

-20 days of sick and/or personal leave per year, which can also be cashed out

-Disability insurance up to $8000 paid by the board

-All school holidays off

-A vehicle for personal and professional use with all "expenses for gasoline, insurance, maintenance, and repairs, in connection with the use of said vehicle" paid for by the school board

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The speech that stunned listeners into silence

Bill Federer remembers some of history's most famous words

The Declaration of Independence indicted King George III because:
“He has obstructed the administration of justice. …”
“He has made judges dependent on his will alone. …”
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people. …”
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies … independent of and superior to the civil power. …”
“He has combined … to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution … Giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation … for imposing taxes on us without our consent …”
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury. …”
“Establishing therein an arbitrary government … introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies. …”
“For … altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. …”
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us. …”
“In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress. … Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

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A Viewer Writes: Mathias

Hey Joe.

I was wondering if you noticed that Mathias was a co- sponsor on Senate Bill 471?

Its titled 'Morgan State University Task Force on Reconciliation and Equity'

It is basically a plan to set up a commission on advancing the social justice warrior agenda.

If you haven't read it I suggest you might. I would hope you could get the word out about it.

Thanks

House Judiciary Chairman Says Obama Admin's Immigration Policy Led to Rape

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, made the case in a letter Wednesday that the "lax immigration policies" of the Obama administration led to the rape of a 14-year-old girl in a suburban Maryland high school bathroom by two Central American illegal immigrants.

Goodlatte's letter was sent to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, theWashington Examiner reports.

"Once again, we have an example of how the Obama administration's lax immigration enforcement policies resulted in a life being seriously harmed–in this case, the life of an innocent 14 year-old-girl who was simply attending school," Goodlatte wrote. "There is no doubt that such heinous crimes by illegal immigrants who were encountered by the Obama administration, not removed by the Obama administration, and instead actually set free in American communities by the Obama administration, will continue to occur until sufficient enforcement has occurred."

Parents of students at Rockville High School are furious with the school's administration for allowing Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17, to attend the school as freshmen.

Both of the illegal immigrants had been apprehended in 2016, according to the Washington Post.

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Trump Is 100% Vindicated On Wiretapping, and 7 Other Things You Should Know

1. Yes, Trump Is 100% Vindicated On Wiretapping

Yeppers, I said 100% vindicated, and those who disagree are either being stubbornly hyper-literal about the word "wiretap," or the placing of a "physical wiretap," or Obama himself placing the wiretap, or standing by the point Ben Shapiro makes that Trump is still wrong because the surveillance was "incidental."

I'll touch on the "incidental" issue at length in the points below, but to immediately address Ben's argument, even if the collection was incidental, once the unmasking and dissemination of that "incidental" information occurs, that is the Obama administration illegally targeting Trump using surveillance, and that is the exact same thing as outright spying. And being illegally spied on was, of course, Trump's overall claim.

As far as the THIS WASN'T A WIRETAP nonsense, it reminds me of someone accusing a 70-year-old (Trump's age) of lying when he claims someone stole his record collection after the bad guy is found only with the old man's iPod. You said records! Where's the vinyl! Where's the vinyl! Where's the vinyl!

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Black Lives Matter groups joining forces with wage activists

A cluster of Black Lives Matter groups and the organization leading the push for a $15-an-hour wage are joining forces to combine the struggle for racial justice with the fight for economic equality, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do in the last year of his life.

They are launching their first national joint action on April 4, the 49th anniversary of King's assassination, with "Fight Racism, Raise Pay" protests in two dozen cities, including Atlanta; Milwaukee; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago; Boston; Denver; and Las Vegas.

King was gunned down in 1968 while on a visit to Memphis to support striking black sanitation workers.

"When MLK was assassinated, he was talking to workers who were dealing with union-busting, unfair wages," said Kendall Fells, organizing director for the Fight for $15. "The bottom line is that every day, workers of color across the country face deep-seated racism that would seem to be out of Dr. King's era, but sadly it's still happening today."

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Susan Rice Warns White House Not to Put Out ‘Inaccurate If Not Deliberately False’ Information

(CNSNews.com) – Former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice was castigated on social media over a Washington Post op-ed accusing the Trump White House of dissembling and contorting the facts, but doubled down in a PBS interview Wednesday, saying when the White House puts out information seen to be “inaccurate if not deliberately false, it shakes the credibility and the confidence of our allies.”

The criticism greeting the op-ed almost universally pointed to the fact that, in an earlier role as President Obama’s ambassador to the U.N., Rice was sent by the White House to deliver to five Sunday television talk shows the message that the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was a “spontaneous reaction” to an online video mocking Mohammed.

Only later did the administration publicly acknowledge that it was a terrorist attack, with a likely al-Qaeda link.

The incident prompted suspicions that the administration had deliberately sought to mislead American voters – during Obama’s re-election campaign – about the nature of the attack. Reinforcing those suspicions was the subsequent revelation that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on the very night of the attack, told her daughter in an email that the deaths at the consulate were the work of “an Al Queda-like [sic] group.”

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Meet "Thankful Beggar" Seth Williams - Philadelphia's Most-Corrupt Politician Of The Year

Every Democrat politician in Philly is a dirtbag. The Federal Prison has an entire wing dedicated just for crooked Philly politicians.

But this scumbag takes the cake.

His blatant corruption is outrageous even for a Philly Democrat. This low-life scum sucking prick even stole his own mother’s social security and pension money to pay his expenses.

This guy is representative of the Democrat politicians running this city.

D.A. Seth Williams indicted on corruption, bribery-related charges

Authored by Jeremy Roebuck, David Gambacorta & Chris Brennan via Philly.com,

Describing himself as “merely a thankful beggar,” Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams sought thousands of dollars in bribes from deep-pocketed donors seeking his help with their legal woes, federal authorities said Tuesday as they unveiled a 23-count indictment charging the two-term Democrat in a sprawling corruption case.

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Former ‘First Grandma’ Marian Robinson caught up in another fake news hoax

Former First Grandma Marian Robinson just can’t catch a break from fake news.

First Michelle Obama’s mother was wrongly accused in fake stories of drawing a federal pension for taking care of grandchildren Sasha and Malia. Now she’s the victim of a new round of false reports that claim she’s being charged with a crime for doing so since former President Barack Obama left office.

"Obama’s mother-in-law charged with larceny and fraud," reads the headline on several Internet posts that started appearing on or after March 16, 2017. The posts all read roughly the same, claiming that Robinson was charged "for accepting money from the federal government under false pretenses."

The story stokes reader ire by admonishing Robinson for attempting to take money she didn’t deserve.

"While it may not have been her idea to ask for a $160K pension for being the Obama daughters’ ‘caretaker,’ she was the one who filled out the paperwork and signed her name," the posts read.

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LEGENDARY COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

Car Care

One of the nicest things about modern times is the automobile. I still remember two things my father told me when I was young. The first was, “The cheapest transportation you can have is a good used car.” The second was, “Never get anything you can’t afford to maintain”. These are two things he told me that I have never forgotten.

Most people today can’t remember the days when the only options you could get were a radio and a heater. The radios in those days could only get AM. There were no FM stations. The heater was usually a device that pumped hot air into the car directly from the exhaust manifold. As far back as the introduction of the Model T by Henry Ford, cars were sold with a tool kit. With this set of rudimentary tools, a driver could fix almost anything on the car. The first real advantage accessory was the electric starter. Before the introduction of this, the car had to be started with a hand crank in the front of the car. Flat tires were common place. I heard an old-timer tell about the time he went to Snow Hill from Salisbury with his family on a Sunday and had 17 flat tires. Today a flat tire is rare. If you catch it quick enough, they can put a plug in the hole and you can keep going, usually never having to replace the tire.

When I was growing up, the limit on a car was usually 100,000 miles. Some cars today are just broke in at that mileage. The options today are endless. I still remember my father telling me that the more you have on a car, the more you have to go wrong. The simplest thing nowadays costs $100 or more. And that doesn’t include the labor.

A body shop today has to paint and “clear coat” almost the entire side of the car just to repair a small dent in one of the doors. When I was young, C. F. Tull would fix a small dent for under $10. I gave Mr. Tull lots of business.

I had a set of Dodge four-bar lancers hubcaps on my old Ford. In those days you had to carry the receipt for them because the police would stop you and ask where you got them. Stealing hubcaps was commonplace then. I had stem locks to prevent this but still found my car sitting on four flats one night when someone ripped them off with a pair of pliers.

We had to take better care of cars back in the 1960’s. A weekly wash and annual wax were commonplace. When I look back at the stupidity of spending all Saturday cleaning my car, only to go out Saturday night and end up running through some farmer’s field. But the cars in those days were built like tanks. There was very little plastic involved in it, just a lot of heavy metal. Every week I would go over the entire car with a Phillips head screwdriver and tighten everything up. This was after I had gone over the railroad tracks on Priscilla Street and really rearranged things. It seemed to work pretty well.

A tank of gas cost about $3.50 so you could ride all night and still have enough for a snack for under $5. Now that will get you a gallon of gas and around town you might get 18 miles to the gallon. Ah, those were the days.

You Just Have To Love Unconditional Conservatives

General McInerney Says Obama Was 'Heavily Listening to What Was Going on in the Trump Campaign'

GUILTY of the espionage act.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Mcinerney weighed in on Devin Nunes' bombshell revelations that said the Trump team were being spied on by the NSA/CIA -- and it wasn't Russia related. The whole cover for the surveillance was supposed to be because Trump had a bunch of Ivans working for him, but that simply wasn't the case, or the concern, inside the Obama White House.

McInerney believes when all of the evidence comes out, Obama will rue the day he decided to spy on Trump. Moreover, he said the democrats are chimping out and fabricating a Russian spy novel in order to avoid Trump investigating the Clinton server and how both Hillary and Obama violated the espionage act, a crime punishable by heavy fines and up to 10 years in prison.

Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust.

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Caption This Photo 3-25-17

The Obama Plot

Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons.

Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump’s tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point.

The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, “unmasked” their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked.

If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency, before it began.

Comey readily confirmed there was no evidence to back up the Trump tweet. But when it came to electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign, Comey, somehow, could not comment on that.

Which raises the question:

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Good Food - Good Cause , Chicken and Dumpling Dinner March 26,2017

The Delmar VFW Auxiliary will hold a Chicken and Dumpling Dinner from 12 noon - 4:00 pm on Sunday, March 26, 2017 at the VFW post, 200 West State St., Delmar, MD. 

Dinner includes chicken and dumplings, green beans, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, roll/butter, beverage and dessert all for only $12.00 ! Carry outs available, call 410-896-3722. 

Proceeds benefit the Maryland VFW Auxiliary President's Special Project, McVET HOUSE. Bring your family and friends out for "Sunday Dinner" and support this worthy event!

A Viewer Writes: Maryland Public Schools - why would anyone take their children there?

As if it is not enough that DeRay McKesson is employed by Baltimore City skools as HEAD OF HUMAN CAPITAL..........

The Governor of MD has the following to say about the rape that occurred in a Montgomery County school last Thursday. In case you are not aware, the Democrat majority MD Legislature voted on Monday to claim the State of MD as a "Sanctuary State".

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/24/no-assurance-childrens-safety-in-school-maryland-governor-warns.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/22/sanctuary-state-maryland-may-be-misguided/

Do any of your neighbors know what our State Senator James Mathias' position is on this issue? What about "MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT"?

Why You Should Care About The Supreme Court Case On Toner Cartridges

A corporate squabble over printer toner cartridges doesn’t sound particularly glamorous, and the phrase “patent exhaustion” is probably already causing your eyes to glaze over. However, these otherwise boring topics are the crux of a Supreme Court case that will answer a question with far-reaching impact for all consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it? 

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FBI searches for SC teen feared to have been fed to alligators

The FBI searched a remote location in South Carolina Friday in connection with the disappearance a teenage girl who investigators believe was abducted nearly eight years ago.

A jury heard testimony last summer that a jailhouse snitch told the FBI that in 2009 the body of 17-year-old Brittannee Drexel was fed to alligators after she was shot and killed trying to escape from a drug stash house where she was being held being held against her will by captors who raped her repeatedly.

An attorney for Drexel’s mother said the FBI was searching a location in Georgetown County, Fox Carolina reported.

BRITTANEE DREXEL, TEEN WHO VANISHED IN 2009, WAS RAPED, SHOT, EATEN BY ALLIGATORS, FBI SAYS

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Order Beer At Home Just By Yelling At An Alexa Device

All of this connected home technology is great, but when will it do something useful and bring me a beer without me having to leave the couch? While it hasn’t quite reached the couch yet, you can restock your fridge with beer by speaking to an Alexa-enabled device. The suite of services are built around Miller Lite. 

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Health Care Bill's Failure: Just Part of the 'Art of the Deal'

Exactly two weeks ago, this author predicted the defeat of the American Health Care Act — and explained that it was a step towards the final, actual deal that will repeal and replace Obamacare.

President Donald Trump faces three irreconcilable factions: the GOP establishment, conservatives, and Democrats. He must bring them together — to “deliver the goods,” a key rule in The Art of the Deal. But first he must show them “the downside” — and convince them they will fail on their own.

The most difficult faction to deal with is the Republican establishment — not because they are politically strong, but because on policy issues like health care, they are convinced that they have all the answers and that Trump just does not understand.

So he let them make the first move — and he exposed two things about them: first, that they had not come up with a plan that was ready for prime time; second, that they had not done any of the political legwork necessary to sell their plan to voters.

Trump gave Speaker Paul Ryan and the House Republican leadership enough rope to hang themselves. Instead of dictating terms to him, they will now depend on him to save them, politically. They must accept whatever plan he will put forward.

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Coming to O.C....

By the numbers: Lifetime Performance of World’s First Offshore Wind Farm

Decommissioning of world’s first offshore wind farm offers an opportunity to see how industry costs have changed over the past 25 years.

Guest essay by T. A. “Ike” Kiefer, CAPT, USN (ret.)

Lifetime Performance of World’s First Offshore Wind Farm

The first offshore windfarm in the world has just been decommissioned and is now being torn down ( http://www.windpoweroffshore.com/article/1427436/dong-begins-vindeby-decommissioning-pictures ). Its lifetime performance specs are illuminating in comparison with recent wind industry data, and alternative generation options.

1991 Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm – Denmark

Years of Operation: 1991-2016 (25)

Capital Cost: 75M Kroner = $13M (1991USD) = $23M (2017USD)

Number of Turbines: 11 @ 450 kW

Lifetime Generation: 243 GWh

Nameplate Capacity: 4.9 MW

Average Power Output: 1.1 MW

Cost/Nampepate Capacity: $2.65/Watt (1991USD), $4.7/Watt (2017USD)

Lifetime Capacity Factor: 22%

Cost/Effective Output: $12/Watt (1991USD), $21/Watt (2017USD)

Levelized Capital Cost: $53/MWh (1991USD), $95/MWh (2017USD)

Levelized VOM Cost: $65/MWh (Estimated using $130/kw-hr industry figures for 2015)

Lower Bound of LCOE: $160/MWh (2017USD)

2015 Industry Performance Data for Offshore Wind(http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1380738/global-costs-analysis-year-offshore-wind-costs-fell ).

Cost/Nameplate Capacity: $5/Watt

Capacity Factor: 40%

Cost/Effective Output: $12.5/Watt

O&M Costs: $130/kW-yr

Lower bound of LCOE: $150/MWh (2015USD), $154/MWh (2017USD)

Conclusions:

1. While turbines are getting larger, able to operate at lower wind speeds, and improving their capacity factors, the total lifecycle cost per unit of energy provided from offshore wind has not perceptibly decreased from 1991 to 2015. Higher costs of O&M for larger turbines farther offshore seems to consume savings from higher capacity factors.

2. As it is uncontrollably variable and weather dependent, offshore wind generation remains uncompetitive with gas and coal which are half the cost (~ $70/MWh LCOE) while providing fully dispatchable and weather-independent power that is of much higher value to a power grid.

Salisbury's Biggest Discount Shopping Event Returns to the WY&CC – March 30- April 1!

Coastal Kids Consignment offers area families the opportunity to sell, shop and save on high quality, gently used and new merchandise for infants to youth size 14/16 and maternity. Continuing its tradition, financial and in-kind donations will be distributed to Hope and Life Outreach Ministries (HALO) of Salisbury and local churches and shelters.

Shop With Us

Shoppers will find a mega selection of savings on clothing, toys, books, shoes, games, puzzles, strollers, baby and toddler furniture, baby gear and equipment, home school and educational supplies, crafts, sporting equipment and more. Our sales floor is organized similar to a department store so you don't have to hunt for what you need. We have clothing on racks sorted by gender and size and other items grouped together by similarity. The one stop opportunity to find items at 60-90 percent off retail is an event you do not want to miss!

Sell With Us

Empty your overflowing playrooms and children’s outgrown closets and earn extra spending money! You decide the price, tag it using our computerized system and we'll sell it for you! Consignors earn 60 to 70 percent of their sales and do not have to be present to sell. Payments are issued to consignors within seven days of the event close. Pre-registration required; visit www.coastal-kids.com/Seller.html. Seller registration ends March 26.

Details
Thursday, March 30, from 4 p.m.-8 p.m.
Friday, March 31, from 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Saturday, April 1, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Wicomico Youth & Civic Center, 500 Glen Ave., Salisbury, MD 21804

Located in the Midway Room. Free admission! Cash, Visa/MC/Discover accepted. Shopping bags available. Shoppers with strollers are welcome; however, no diaper bags or large purses are permitted while you shop.

Sell, shop and save! Learn more at www.coastal-kids.com or www.facebook.com/coastalkidsconsignmentsales.

Back In The Day: 1950

My Favorite Wine

Welcome To Selbyville

BOOM: Hilarious Cartoon DESTROYS Democrat’s Voter ID Arguments