UPDATED: Local and Federal agencies on the scene of residences in the Oyster Harbor community

UPDATE

West OC Raids Come After Federal Indictment; Ramadan Held On Fugitive From Justice Warrant

WEST OCEAN CITY — The investigation involving the execution of a search and seizure warrant at residences in West Ocean City early Thursday morning is still active, but a few more details have trickled out Thursday.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson on Thursday afternoon confirmed federal ICE and Homeland Security (HSI) officials, assisted by other federal and local law enforcement partners on Thursday morning, executed a search and seizure warrant in the Ocean City area as a result of a federal indictment being issued. The residences at which the search and seizure warrant was served is located in the Oyster Harbor community in West Ocean City.

A similar raid was conducted at the same residences in 2013 and resulted in the indictment and eventual conviction of two local men — Basel Ramadan and Samer Ramadan — in a vast cigarette smuggling and money laundering operation. In 2015, Basel Ramadan, who was deemed the ringleader of the operation, was found guilty on all 198 counts against him including enterprise corruption, money laundering and numerous tax crimes.

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Some Call It Lipstick On A Pig

This year's Community Development Block Grant awardees, MoJo's, Riverview Commons LLC, Deadstock SBY, and 212 E. Main St. LLC! These businesses have been awarded CDBG funds for the beautification and improvement of their storefronts and building facades.

Expert Witness Maintains Topless Women Would Not Offend Majority

OCEAN CITY — The plaintiffs’ expert witness on the female toplessness issue in Ocean City opined in written testimony the town’s ordinance passed in 2017 does not reflect “public sensibilities” on the subject.

Last January, a civil suit was filed in U.S. District Court challenging an emergency ordinance passed by the Mayor and Council last year prohibiting females from going topless in the same areas as men are allowed to go shirtless, including the beach and Boardwalk, for example. In June, the plaintiffs in the case, including local resident Chelsea Eline and four others, filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would allow them to go topless in certain areas of the resort while the larger case runs its course.

A hearing originally set for September was postponed at the last minute to allow the attorney for the plaintiffs in the case to acquire the services of an expert witness to weigh in on Ocean City’s assertion allowing female toplessness in certain public areas including the beach “offends the sensibilities of the general public.”

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Devon Jacob, enlisted Dr. Debra Herbenick, professor and director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University-Bloomington, to research the “public sensibilities” issue in regard to Ocean City’s ordinance that prohibits female toplessness in certain public areas and make an official report to be entered as evidence in the ongoing civil suit. Herbenick, also a noted sex educator and sex advice columnist, formally filed a pair of reports on the issue last Friday.

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Liberal Meltdown

Mississippi governor condemns high school band’s halftime show

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is condemning a high school band for a football halftime performance that he said was “unacceptable in a civilized society.”

Many are saying the performance Friday night by the band from Forest Hill High School depicted students dressed as doctors and nurses pointing toy guns at SWAT team members prone on the ground, WLBT-TV reported.

Bryant issued his condemnation Saturday in a tweet.

The performance was held at the high school in Brookhaven where two police officers were killed in the line of duty Sept. 29 responding to a call of shots fired, the station reported

Brookhaven’s mayor said the band director was placed on administrative leave, the station reported.

Reports said the performance was based loosely on the movie “John Q,” in which a father played by Denzel Washington takes patients at a hospital hostage in order to secure treatment for his son.

“The band’s performance does not depict the values and people in our community, and was incredibly insensitive to the students, families, law enforcement officials and the entire Brookhaven community,” Jackson superintendent Errick Greene said.

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/mississippi-governor-condemns-high-school-bands-halftime-show

Sharpton: Trump Base Are Like People Who Attended Lynchings After Church

Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” Al Sharpton said President Donald Trump’s supporters are like people who “would go to church and then go to the lynching after clothing themselves in morality.”

More here/video

Robert Redford Now Feels ‘Out of Place’ in the America ‘I Was Born Into’

Perhaps this Hollywood liberal and others can understand how many fellow citizens felt during the Obama presidency

Actor, filmmaker, and Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford published an essay titled “A Brief Statement About Big Things” on the Sundance Institute’s website Saturday, writing that he feels “out of place in the country I was born into.”

Known for iconic acting roles in the classics “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with screen legend Paul Newman, and the Nixon-era Watergate investigation classic “All the President’s Men,” the 82-year-old is also well-known as the director of “Ordinary People” and “A River Runs Through It.”

Redford is known, too, as an outspoken liberal activist, and although he and other liberals might not ever acknowledge it, his feelings mirror how many Americans felt during the Obama presidency. That administration ushered in the Affordable Care Act, aggressive “comprehensive sex education” in the nation’s classrooms, the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” LGBT policy in the military, and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal — which President Donald Trump abandoned earlier this year.

Redford’s “overtly political speech” was published the same day that Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was voted onto the Supreme Court after a protracted and fraught confirmation process.

Kavanaugh is not mentioned by name in his piece, but Redford called out “bigotry, mean-spiritedness, and mockery as the now-normal tools of the trade,” which follows the liberal activist playbook.

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Calls Come for Delaware's Carper to Resign Over Domestic Violence

Alice Butler-Short, a Virginia political activist and Trump supporter, called Thursday for Delaware Sen. Tom Carper to resign based on a reported incident of domestic violence in the early 1980s against his then-wife Diane.

Butler-Short, founder and president of Virginia Women for Trump, presented a letter calling for Carper’s resignation at his Senate office on Capitol Hill. She said she coordinated the letter with the director of Delaware Women for Trump, the Delaware affiliate of her organization.

Butler-Short told Newsmax she demanded Carper’s resignation on behalf of all women “to point out the hypocrisy and double standard” of his recent opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“Sen. Carper has admitted to giving his wife a black eye, and Sen. Carper voted no on Judge Kavanaugh,” Butler-Short told Newsmax. “Two and two don’t add up in this case.

“If he feels that Judge Kavanaugh, now Justice Kavanaugh, was not qualified for his positon, what qualifies him as a self-admitted wife beater to be a senator from Delaware?”

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