Rick Perry Files Lawsuit To Get On Virginia Primary Ballot

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry filed a lawsuit in federal court to get his name on the Virginia primary ballot, according to a story in businessinsider.com.

Perry, currently the governor of Texas, will not be on the Virginia primary ballot for the state's March 6 primary after his campaign did not file the required number of valid signatures by the deadline.

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Eight States Raise Minimum Wage For New Year

Finally there's some good news for the millions of Americans who must to live on pay at or close to the legal minimum wage. Eight states are raising their minimum wage on January First, in line with state laws requiring the minimum to keep pace with inflation.

The raises to come are modest by any measurement. But any increase must be welcomed as desperately needed and hopefully as a major start toward increasing the minimum wage everywhere to a level that will provide a decent living to all working Americans, many of them living in poverty or near-poverty.

The minimum wage is just as important now as it was in 1938, when the wage law was enacted as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, with a promise of guaranteeing workers "a standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general wellbeing."

The federal rate was set at 25 cents an hour, with states and local governments free to set their own minimums, as long as they are above the federal rate.

Today's rates are much higher, of course, although barely adequate. The federal rate is $7.25 an hour, only about $15,000 a year for full-time workers before taxes and other deductions. Eighteen states, more than 100 cities and counties and the District of Columbia have higher rates, but their rates also are clearly inadequate.

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Group Hopes To Take State Redistricting Case To Supreme Court

Representatives of the Fannie Lou Hamer Foundation Political Action Committee said yesterday they hope to challenge the state's new congressional districts in the U.S. Supreme Court.


On Friday, a three-judge panel ruled against nine African-American plaintiffs backed by the Hamer Foundation and financed by the conservative Legacy Foundation. The judges upheld the maps despite saying that some of the districts outlined by the new plan resembled a "Rorschach-like eyesore."


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Were Your Car Windows Shot Out Last Night?

Hi Joe,

Just wondering how many other people had their car Windows shot out by a pellet gun last night? Around 9:30 we heard an odd noise outside but thought little of it. My husband went to get coffee this morning to find his rear window shattered. The officer who came to write the report said they've gotten calls from all over the county about the same scenario. Little hope of catching him, of course.

His joyride is costing us $260. I hope he enjoyed himself.

Congress Ends Corn Ethanol Subsidy

Washington —The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol. Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that's drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others. The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks. Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.

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HO HO HO-RMUZ

When the domestic situation in a country gets too bad, leaders always find an external “threat” to distract the masses. Would Obama go to war with Iran in order to get re-elected? Will the American people fall for this bullshit again, just like they did with Iraq? I wonder what a war with Iran would cost. Maybe someone can call Cheney or Rumsfeld and get their estimate. Their $50 billion estimate for the Iraq War was so accurate. Only off by $3.950 TRILLION. Paul Krugman would be gleeful, as wars always pump up the economy in his Keynesian dreamworld of theories and models.

A false flag or Archduke Ferdinand moment awaits

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Today's Survey Question 12/28/11

When was the last time you went though your cell phone contacts and removed the one's you don't call anymore?

Gingrich Divorce Papers Magically Appear In Media Hands

To this day, Barack Hussein Obama remains a man of mystery. Copious amounts of documentation from his early life and academic career have never been released. It took years of pressure, plus Donald Trump as the ringmaster of a media circus, just to see his birth certificate.

When the L.A. Times obtained a potentially embarrassing videotape of Obama laughing it up at a party for Arafat minion Rashid Khalidi, the paper pursed its lips and fastidiously hid the tape from public view. Their newspaper account of the part didn’t even mention that domestic terrorist Friends of Obama Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn attended the event. Another important connection from Obama’s past, his long attendance at Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church of racial hatred, was carefully buried by the media until conservative radio hosts and bloggers dragged it into the open.

The rules for “vetting” are very different for Republican candidates. We’ve already seen murky allegations from Herman Cain​’s past assigned a level of instant credibility that would never have been granted if he were a black Democrat. Even after a much more serious accusation of a long-running consensual affair caused Cain to suspend his campaign, we still don’t know exactly what the initial “sexual harassment” accusers complained about.

Now CNN has magically obtained the sealed records of Newt Gingrich​’s first divorce. Here’s the wonderful story of how this Yuletide journalistic miracle came to pass:

After initially being told that the divorce documents were sealed, CNN on Thursday obtained the folder containing the filings in the divorce, which had been stashed away for years in a Carroll County, Georgia, court clerk's drawer. Retired clerk Kenneth Skinner told CNN his deputy took Gingrich's file out of the public records room around 1994, "when he (Gingrich) became the center of attention," because Skinner feared tampering and theft.

"During these years, you had to make sure those papers were there," Skinner said. "People could go in those files and get things out. We didn't have enough security to control it."

Current Carroll County Clerk of Court Alan Lee said he called the retired deputy clerk, who told him where to find the papers, after CNN began looking for them last week.

Shazam! Those papers just popped right out of a clerk’s drawer, where they were supposedly tucked over fifteen years ago, to keep people from nosing around in them! Oh, the irony! Who knows what CNN might be able to discover about Barack Obama, if they bothered to look for some of his records with the intensity reserved for Republicans’ sealed divorce papers?

By an amazing coincidence, previous Obama opponents have also seen their campaigns destroyed by the sudden exposure of “sealed” divorce papers. It happened to both Obama’s primary and general-election opponents in his 2004 Senate race. In fact, it’s likely that the only reason Obama became either a senator or President is that Chicago Democrat machine operatives and their media allies were able to pull lurid details from Republican Jack Ryan’s divorce records, unsealed for the Chicago Tribune​ by a very helpful California judge.

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The Nurse-In: Why Breast-Feeding Moms Are Mad At Target

If shopping at Target is part of your Wednesday morning plans, here’s hoping you’re not squeamish about public breast-feeding. Nursing mothers intend to turn out en masse from Maine to Oregon to breast-feed their babies while wandering through after-Christmas markdowns or sipping a latte in the in-house Starbucks — it’s a maternal twist on civil disobedience: the nurse-in.

In recent years, the nurse-in — a.k.a., the breast-feeding flash mob — has become a protest vehicle for nursing mothers, a means of banding together in solidarity over perceived mistreatment. In the most recent protest of significant size, moms gathered in Whole Foods stores last summer to express their unhappiness that a shopper had been told to cover up while nursing. (Whole Foods apologized, even offering snacks to the miffed crowds.)

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2012 Presidential GOP Caucus Candidate Survey

As a service to Iowa homeschoolers, Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators created a survey addressing issues of interest to home educators and invited all declared GOP presidential caucus candidates to respond.

Below are all of the candidates, in alphabetical order, who responded to our survey.

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Michigan A Step Closer To Detroit Takeover

DETROIT — Heading down a path that could lead to the state of Michigan taking over the running of Detroit, Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday appointed a team to review the city's finances.

The team was named after a preliminary review of city finances showed "probable financial stress" after Detroit was unable to tackle its mounting deficits.

The team, which includes State Treasurer Andy Dillon and other local officials, has 60 days to complete its work. The formal review was announced last week.

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BICYCLIST FOUND UNRESPONSIVE AFTER FALL

On December 22, 2011, at approximately 7:50 p.m., Ocean City Police responded to the area of 11621 Coastal Highway for a check on the welfare of an individual who was observed lying on the ground near a bicycle. When officers arrived on scene, they located a man, who was later identified as Paul Christopher Day, 54, of Ocean City, on the ground and unresponsive.

Officers began administering CPR on Day until Ocean City Paramedics arrived at the
scene and subsequently transported Day to Atlantic General Hospital. An investigation
revealed that Day had fallen from his bicycle and struck his head. On December 24, 2011 at approximately 1:20 a.m., Ocean City officers were advised that Day had not recovered from his injuries and was deceased.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson Announces Retirement

Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, a pivotal figure in the health care debate, announced his retirement Tuesday in a letter to Nebraskans, saying, "Simply: it's time to move on."

"It's time for me to step away from elective office, spend more time with my family and look for new ways to serve our state and nation. Therefore, I am announcing today that I will not seek reelection," he said.

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OCEAN CITY NARCOTICS INVESTIGATION LEADS TO ARREST

The Ocean City Police Department’s Narcotics Unit recently concluded a follow-up investigation that stemmed from a vehicle collision on December 16, 2011. Andrea James Kaczynski, 47, of Ocean City, was charged with driving while impaired, after the pick-up truck he was driving at a high rate of speed struck another vehicle that was stopped at a red light.

Officers located an amount of Phencyclidine (PCP), a schedule II, controlled dangerous substance, in Kaczynski’s pick-up, which initiated the investigation. On December 22, 2011, Ocean City Police, with the assistance of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Department, the Worcester County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Ocean Pines Police Department, executed a search and seizure warrant at Kaczynski’s home and found amounts of marijuana and PCP.

Kaczynski, who was not at home at the time of the search, was arrested and charged with possession of PCP and possession of marijuana.

Bob's Auto Repair

Absentee Ballots Key To Florida GOP Primary

The attention may be focused on the Republican presidential contests around the corner in Iowa and New Hampshire, but the candidates ignore what’s under way in Florida at their peril.

More Florida Republicans — about 370,000 — already have requested absentee ballots for the Jan. 31 primary than the number of Republicans who voted in the 2008 Iowa and New Hampshire contests combined.

The ever-growing volume of votes cast before Election Day in Florida is one of the factors that make the state a very different challenge from the earliest elections in Iowa Jan. 3, New Hampshire Jan. 10 and South Carolina Jan. 21. Candidates not only have to grapple with the sheer size and diversity of Florida, but they must prepare for a contest where half the votes or more are in well before Election Day.

“Under the old model in Florida, a campaign would work toward a 72-hour program going into Election Day,’’ said Republican strategist Brett Doster, who is leading Mitt Romney’s Florida effort.

Now, ballots come in right after the start of the new year, followed by a lull, then more absentees, then early voting, then Election Day.

In theory, that means a successful statewide campaign in Florida requires a formidable campaign apparatus to chase absentee ballots to bank as many votes as possible. But there’s a little secret that most professional campaign operatives in Florida prefer not to acknowledge: It’s not at all clear the ground game matters much in a presidential election.

Florida’s GOP primary results will be driven much more by national momentum — the results in Iowa and New Hampshire and what’s being broadcast on Fox News — than by campaign get out the vote efforts.

John McCain mounted a minimal field campaign in Florida four years ago and still won the primary with 36 percent of the vote to 31 percent for Romney. McCain did benefit, though, from an aggressive absentee ballot program mounted by supporters of the “Save Our Homes” property tax initiative as well as by targeting moderate Republicans in South Florida.

This year, it appears that Romney has the campaign operation best equipped to compete in Florida. He has not only campaign professionals and a grass roots operation built up over seven years, but the financial resources to campaign in a vast state with 10 major television markets.

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Seaford Man Arrested On Drugs, Weapons Charges After Being Caught Loitering Outside Apartment Complex

A man loitering in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Christmas Eve is in jail after being arrested for drug and weapons offenses.

Around 9 o’clock Saturday night, Seaford Police say 22-year-old Brandon Ways of Seaford was loitering in the parking lot of the Chandler Heights Apartment Complex, and crouched down as an officer passed. While he was crouched down, police say Ways then threw several items under a fence. The officer says he found a loaded handgun, along with cocaine, ecstasy and pot.

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Clerk Punches, Knocks Out Armed Robber

A clerk at a business in Western North Carolina punched a would-be robber and knocked him out cold just minutes after the man barged in with a gun and demanded money.

It happened about 15 minutes before closing time Friday night at We Buy Gold store in Hendersonville.

“When he came through the door he told me had a gun and he even flashed it," said Derek Mothershead. “I stood up and threw my hands up and said, 'Take the money.'”

Mothershead said the man came behind the counter with a bag.“I got the money and he had the bag out and instead of putting it in the bag I stuck it out and said, 'Just take it.'

So, when he reached out, I took a step in, I cocked back and preloaded and I hit him hard,” Mothershead told News 4's Mike McCormick.

The punch knocked out the would-be thief.

Mothershead was able to grab the man's weapon and realized it was a pellet gun.

“When I pulled it out of his waistband I started laughing,” said Mothershead. “I said, 'Man, you came in here with a fake gun?'"

Mothershead said he dragged the man over to a desk and held him down with one hand and called 911 with the other.

The man eventually regained consciousness.“He kind of begged me, begged me to let him go,” Mothershead said. “I said, 'You came in and tried to rob us. You’re going to jail.'

”While they waited for police and paramedics, Mothershead gave the man a roll of paper towels, sprayed the floor with cleaner and told him to clean up his own blood.

Police identify the would-be robber as Mostafa Kamel Hendi.

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Obama Wants ANOTHER $1.2 Trillion Dollars

It's déjà vu all over again. President Obama plans to ask Congress for authority to borrow another $1.2 trillion, the New York Times reports. That would raise the national debt to $16.4 trillion. No more increases would be needed until after the 2012 elections. The last raise in the debt ceiling resulted in a bitter fight on Capitol Hill. That might not happen this time. The borrowing would be in accordance with spending levels Republicans and Democrats agreed to under the Budget Control Act. The government has been borrowing 36 cents for every dollar it spends. Fiscal 2011 added $1.3 trillion to the debt.

Wicomico County Council President Joe Holloway On Benett Middle & More

Funding Decisions for Bennett Middle School

December 21, 2011

Much of our community is engaged in a discussion to replace the Bennett Middle School, a project which would already be under construction, except for a collision with the worst economic recession since the Great Depression., The recession has had a crippling affect on the financial strength of the Wicomico County government. There is great concern that this will continue for some time to come. Adjusting to continuously declining revenues over the past three years, the county has shrunk the size of its workforce and furloughed remaining employees, significantly decreased the level of county services and increased user fees for many of the services remaining. What has been most objectionable to many county residents has been our inability to adequately maintain our roads system, to adequately fund public education, or to fund capital infrastructure, of which 80% is dedicated to school projects.

With the hope of jump starting the project, a community forum was held at BMS on December 13th, at which the Board of Education and its staff, the County Executive and his staff, the County Council and interested citizens gathered to assess the project’s current status and to identify what is needed to put the project back on track. Director of Facilities Planning for the school board, Brian Foret, was the principal speaker.

Mr. Foret gave an informative presentation, clearly laying out that the projected cost of the school is $75.3 million, which through value engineering and cost shifting, will be a savings of $3.8 million from the previous estimate. Of the total project cost, the county will pay $42.8 million and the state will pay $32.5 million. All of the county portion will come from sale of capital improvements bonds.

Subsequent to the December 13th meeting, the Daily Times published an editorial in support of the project; in so doing it erroneously gave readers the impression that the state will pay 96% of the BMS project cost, sdding that it should be an easy decision for the county to pay its small share. Using Mr. Foret’s figures, it is clear that the cost to county taxpayers will be much more than 4%; it will be more than half of the total cost. Whatever percentage it may be, the school will cost Wicomico County $42.8 million.

We agree with the newspaper that building a school is an investment in the future of our community. The County Council still has the concern and it should be everyone’s concern, that if we borrow the money to build BMS, the principal and interest payments won’t add so much to our annual budget to make the county less able to fund the schools operating budget and the budgets of other essential county services. Many county residents argue that these are already unacceptably under funded.

On Tuesday, December 20, 2011 the County Council held a public work session on the BMS project, at which Mr. Foret and Mr. Bruce Ford, Comptroller for the Board; Dr. Frederickson, Superintendent; other Board staff and members of the Board of Education; County Executive, Pollitt and his staff, including Finance Director, Andrew Mackel; met with the County Council. The purpose of that meeting was to determine if, when, and how the county could afford to pay for its share of the project, whether the county would have to borrow all of the money, could the cash flow needs of the project be such that the county could spread the borrowing over several years and will the state money be available when it is needed to meet project cash flow needs.

The County Council asked Mr. Mackel about the county’s current bonded indebtedness and how much will be paid off over the next few years. He said there will soon be relief from bond issues that will be paid off. The Council asked Mr. Mackel about revenue projections and what tax rate he would anticipate the county would need to fund the BMS project. Mr. Mackel responded that he thought the current tax rate would not support funding the BMs project, as well as level funding for other operating expenses, but that the Constant Yield Tax Rate, or the tax rate allowed by the Revenue Cap would both support level funding for current expenses, the BMS project and funding for some other smaller capital projects, or some other budget increases. The Constant Yield Tax Rate and the Revenue Cap Allowed Tax Rate would represent about a 5.4 and 7 cent property tax increase next year respectively.

We asked what other capital projects will be coming in the years when borrowing for BMS would be needed and afterward. Mr. Foret responded that there are school capital needs of an additional $40 million, or so, in the queue for the years after the Bennett Middle School.

On January 25th the Maryland Board of Public Works will decide whether to fund the state’s share of the next round of BMS funding. Approval will depend on whether the county commits to fund the project next year. County Executive, Rick Pollitt committed to ask Dr. David Lever, Director of the IAC which recommends state funding for schools, to intercede on behalf of the county for a grace period before the BPW meeting to allow the county to make a decision.

While all the answers are not in yet, the County Council expects to have answers to the remaining questions for its next meeting on January 3, 2012. The difficult decision for the County Council will be whether to commit to an increase in the property tax rate of 5 to 7 cents now for next year, so the BMS project may proceed, without knowing what else will be required in next year’s operating budget and without knowing whether revenue for next year may decline more than expected. Committing to increase taxes months ahead of the next year’s budget being prepared is without precedent in this county and carries considerable risk.

Wicomico County Council


Joe Holloway
Council President