Governor Hogan Announces Extension of Homeowners’ and Renters’ Property Tax Credit Deadlines

 ANNAPOLIS, MD—Governor Larry Hogan today announced that the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) is extending the deadline to apply for 2020 Homeowners’ and Renters’ Property Tax Credits from October 1 to October 31. These two tax credit programs save Marylanders more than $65 million per year, with homeowners receiving an average credit of $1,348 on their tax bill and renters receiving an average direct payment of $414. Applications can be submitted online through Maryland OneStop.

“This is yet another step our administration is taking to ensure more of our citizens can remain safe and secure in their homes,” said Governor Hogan. “Tens of thousands of Marylanders who have not yet applied may still be eligible for these tax credits, and now have an additional month to apply for this much-needed relief.”

The Homeowners’ Property Tax Credit Program provides relief for eligible homeowners by setting a limit on the amount of property taxes owed based on their income. If a resident has already paid their property tax and applies before October 31, any tax credit that the homeowner may be eligible for will be refunded by their local county finance office. Many counties and municipalities also provide supplemental homeowners’ credits, which will be automatically applied if the applicant is approved for the state homeowners’ credit.

The Renters’ Property Tax Credit Program provides tax relief for eligible renters who pay high monthly rent relative to their total income and do not receive federal or state housing subsidies or reside in public housing. The credit is issued in the form of a direct check payment of up to $1,000.

SDAT is also encouraging Maryland homeowners to submit an application for the Homestead Tax Credit if they have not yet done so. Once approved, the Homestead Credit accrues over time by limiting the increase in taxable assessment each year to a fixed percentage, and is a one-time application without a specific filing deadline. The Homestead Credit provides nearly $20 billion in assessment relief per year.

Sufficiently completed tax credit applications will be processed 30-90 days after they are submitted, although online applications will be processed significantly faster than those submitted by mail. For additional questions about these credits, applicants should visit www.taxcredits.sdat.maryland.gov or contact SDAT as follows:

• Homeowners’ Property Tax Credit Program: sdat.homeowners@maryland.gov, 410-767-4433
• Renters’ Property Tax Credit Program: sdat.renters@maryland.gov, 410-767-4433
• Homestead Property Tax Credit Program: sdat.homestead@maryland.gov, 410-767-4433 

For more information about these programs, please visit dat.maryland.gov/Pages/Tax-Credit-Programs.

A Viewer Writes

At 3:55 pm I came across this trio of cars just as they finished destroying the trump sign at the corner of rt 610 and old ocean city road. 

I saw two young black males running from the field to their cars. 

I wasn't able to get close enough for tag numbers of the white suv and the black Honda car in the picture but did get the tag number in the picture of the black Chevrolet truck. 

People have no respect for other peoples property and they should be held responsible. Hopefully this will help whomever put the sign there to get justice.

Florida bars packed after state lifts COVID-19 restrictions

Crowds packed into some Florida bars over the weekend after Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted coronavirus restrictions on them and other businesses, according to a report.

Footage showed patrons overflowing out of the Elbo Room in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday after the governor’s surprise order, news station WPLG reported.

“I’m healthy, I’m strong and I feel comfortable with all my friends,” said Dan Gibby, who was at the watering hole.

In Davie, Gaffer’s Pub owner Debbie Qualls said the greenlight to reopen was a lifesaver for the business.

“We’ve had to pay the rent, the electric, all the bills. If it was too much longer, we wouldn’t be here,” Qualls said.

DeSantis’s announcement Friday allowed all bars and restaurants to reopen effectively immediately — and prevented local municipalities from implementing restrictions that would force them to operate at less than half-capacity unless it can be justified for health or economic reasons.

“We’re not closing anything going forward,” DeSantis said.

Progressive groups buy Amy Coney Barrett domain name in attempt to smear her

Progressive groups launched the first salvo in the looming war to stop the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, buying up her domain name online.

Anyone searching for more information at AmyConeyBarrett.com will now be redirected to a site owned by the liberal activist organization Demand Justice.

“Amy Coney Barrett is exactly who Donald Trump said he would pick as a Supreme Court justice: someone who could be counted on to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the Affordable Care Act,” reads a sparse website statement.

“Barrett has also ruled repeatedly for companies that discriminate — including one that employed a “separate but equal” system of sorting employees by race,” the group said.

These are just a few of the lies published on the website.

Democrats will stop at nothing.

Video Shows Biden Calling Soldiers 'Stupid Bastards'

Just when you think Joe Biden could not embarrass himself any more, he can’t help but prove you wrong.

A recently resurfaced video now making the rounds shows the Democratic presidential nominee calling a crowd of U.S. service members “stupid bastards.”

This most recent gaffe is not a new one, but it is certainly just as cringeworthy as the rest of Biden’s biggest hits.

“I have incredibly good judgment,” Biden says in the video.

“One, I married Jill, and two, I appointed Johnson to the academy. I just want you to know that.”

There is then a short pause as Biden awkwardly waits for applause that isn’t going to come.

“Clap for that, you stupid bastards,” he says

GOP fights back against attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s adopted children

So much for keeping kids out of politics.

Liberals on social media are questioning whether two children adopted by President Trump’s expected Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, were adopted legitimately — as Senate Republicans leaped to defend her.

“Some adoptions from Haiti were legit. Many were sketchy as hell,” wrote a Democratic activist and former Capitol Hill staffer, Dana Houle, in a since-deleted tweet on Friday. “Would it matter if her kids were scooped up by ultra-religious Americans, or … when there was family in Haiti?”

Another left-wing activist, John Lee Brougher of the NextGen America PAC, added fuel to the fire.

“As an adoptee, I need to know more about the circumstances of how Amy Coney Barrett came to adopt her children, and the treatment of them since,” Brougher wrote, according to Breitbart News. “Transracial adoption is fraught with trauma and potential for harm.” Brougher’s tweet has also been removed.

Houle’s tweet served as cannon fodder for Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has set up a campaign-style online “war room” to combat Democrats’ attacks.

“Disgusting,” Cotton responded in a tweet that was amplified on his Supreme Court War Room website. “The left now smearing Amy Coney Barrett for adopting children.”

“It was the most predictable thing in the world that Democrats would attack Amy Coney Barrett’s children,” Cotton posted Saturday.

Sarah Palin Shreds Lisa Murkowski, Then Threatens Primary Run Against Her

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dared Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to “do the right thing” in terms of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and said there could be consequences in 2022, including a challenge from Palin herself.

Palin made her comments in videos released on Instagram Saturday and also shared on YouTube.

After the Sept. 18 death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Murkowski said she opposed filling Ginsburg’s seat before the November elections.

Palin, playing off the SNL skit "I can see Russia from my house" told the sitting Senator, If you can’t do that, remember my house? I can see a lot of things from my house. … Lisa, I can see 2022 from my house,” Palin said.

Grandma dubbed ‘Zoom Karen’ goes viral after interrupting virtual class to blast BLM, Obama

A TikTok video of a grandmother becoming enraged after hearing Black Lives Matter discussed in her grandchild’s virtual Zoom class has gone viral.

The video posted by TikTok user @stayflyest, “Karen found in Zoom Class going off,” appears to interrupt her grandchild’s class to confront the teacher over “talking about BLM and all that stuff.”

The woman, whose face has been blurred out, waves her hands at the teacher, who calmly explains that the lesson was a discussion of historical events.

“No, you’re talking about BLM and all that stuff. And we’re not going to talk about it. Unless you want to hear what I have to say,” she said, before adding, “And Barack Obama was biracial. He wasn’t just black. He should have owned both sides of his family.”

“Karen found in Zoom Class going off,” has been viewed over a million times and earned nearly 400,000 likes and nearly 8,000 comments.

More

Man who defied governor's order by holding bonfire sentenced

A Charles County man will serve one year in jail for violating the governor's state of emergency executive order.

In March, police were called twice to respond to Shawn Myers' home in Hughesville, where he threw a party with more than 50 people. Gov. Larry Hogan's executive order banned large gatherings of any kind.

The second time police responded to his home, Myers became argumentative and told his guests to stay.

Prosecutors announced Myers was convicted Friday after a bench trial on two counts of failure to comply with an emergency order.

Myers, 42, was also sentenced to serve three years of probation upon release from jail.

Lawyer says cop shot Jacob Blake after hearing a mother's plea: 'He's got my kid. He's got my keys'

Police Officer Rusten Sheskey has told investigators that it wasn't just his life he was defending when he fired his weapon seven times at Jacob Blake last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said he used deadly force during the chaotic encounter because he was afraid Blake, while attempting to flee the scene, was trying to kidnap a child in the backseat of the vehicle.

"He's got my kid. He's got my keys," Sheskey heard a woman say, according to attorney Brendan Matthews, who is representing the officer. If Sheskey had allowed Blake to drive away and something happened to the child "the question would have been 'why didn't you do something?'" Matthews said.

That explanation, provided in an exclusive interview with CNN, offers the most detailed rationale to date for Sheskey's highly scrutinized decision to shoot Blake, who is Black, as he leaned into an SUV with his children inside it on Aug. 23.

More

More than 100 arrested in Ocean City during 'unruly' rally; trooper knocked unconscious

Police in Ocean City arrested more than 100 people this past weekend.

Officials said people who attended the H2o popup rally became unruly and destructive throughout the night Saturday. Those arrested were charged with various criminal and traffic offenses.

Ocean City Police Chief Ross Buzzuro said the visitors were not car enthusiast, but rather were in town to "disrupt, destroy and disrespect our community and our law enforcement officers Our policing philosophy is to be friendly, fair and firm. Unfortunately, this disorderly behavior and unruly crowds left no choice but to shift out philosophy and take additional stapes to protect our officers and our community."

A 23 year old Norfolk, Virginia man was arrested and charged after he resisted arrest and knocked a State Police Officer unconscious.

Philadelphia treasurer charged with embezzlement, entering sham marriage

Philadelphia’s treasurer was fired Friday after federal authorities charged him with embezzlement and entering into a sham marriage to obtain US citizenship.

Although the allegations against Christian Dunbar did not involve his work with the city, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said that he had asked the city’s inspector general to review the treasurer’s office during Dunbar’s tenure beginning in 2016, the Associated Press reported.

“This review can help resolve any concerns about the office´s conduct and transactions during this period,” Kenney said.

Federal prosecutors said that Dunbar, 40, stole $15,000 from two of his clients while working at Wells Fargo as a financial adviser, before he began working in city government. In both instances, he was assisting customers who wanted to transfer funds and had them sign several documents, including a blank withdrawal slip.

He later allegedly used the blank slips to withdraw cash from both victims’ accounts and deposit those funds into his own bank account, prosecutors said.

Dunbar, who was born in Liberia, allegedly entered into a fake marriage with a former classmate at Temple University, prosecutors said.

During his marriage, he secretly wed another classmate in a ceremony in the bride’s home country in Senegal in 2013, according to the indictment, which also alleges that the woman entered into her own shame marriage to obtain permanent residency status in the US. After he became a US citizen, he divorced his first wife in 2016, prosecutors said.

Delaware State University denies Biden was a student after claim he ‘got started’ there

Delaware State University has denied that Joe Biden was ever  a student there, after the presidential candidate’s claim that he “got started” at the historically black college.

The 77-year-old Democrat made his claim while praising historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) during a town hall event last October before the South Carolina Democratic primary, video shows.

“I got started out of a HBCU, Delaware State,” he told pupils at Wilson High School in Florence, which was founded in 1866 by the Freedmen’s Bureau for Black children seeking an education.

“Now, I don’t want to hear anything negative about Delaware State. They’re my folks,” he told the pupils to chuckles.

However, the politician’s claim came back to haunt him when the university said he had only been a commencement speaker there decades after his start in politics.

“Vice President Biden did not attend DSU,” the college’s director of news service, Carlos Holmes said.

Biden did graduate from University of DE, and he went on to study at Syracuse University College of Law. where he failed a class after being accused of plagiarism.