J.P. Morgan Says About 76 Million Households Affected By Cyber Breach

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said contact information for about 76 million households and about 7 million small businesses was compromised in a cybersecurity attack detected this summer.

The largest U.S. bank by assets said financial information wasn't compromised in the attack and that customer money is "safe" since there was no breach of any login information such as passwords, dates of birth, social security numbers or account numbers.

But the banks said contact information of the customers' -- names, email addresses, phone numbers and addresses—were captured by hackers, who remain unknown and under investigation by the bank and law enforcement.

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How New Jersey's Creeping Wage Hikes Are Crippling Mom-And-Pop Restaurants

Another day, another unintended consequence of the socialist state's eagerness to "make things better" for everyone, blowing up in its face.

For today's anecdote we go to New Jersey where legislation introduced by Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, D-Paterson which passed in the Assembly’s Labor Committee on a party-line vote last March, calls for an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers. It would increase the federal minimum of $2.13 per hour to $3.39 by the end of this year and $5.93 by 2016.

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Civil Asset Forfeiture Victim Fought — and Won — When the Government Tried to Take His Property

Imagine owning your home outright after finally paying off the bank. You’re nearing retirement, and you’re making plans to travel and visit the grandkids. Then one day, you get a letter from the government with an unexpected declaration: We now own your house.

Russ Caswell, a 72-year-old business owner from Massachusetts, got one of those letters. Except the government seized his entire business — a motel worth nearly $2 million — without so much as a warning.

“When this first started, I got this notice in the mail and I thought it was some sort of mistake or something, with no warning, no nothing … basically, after you got through all the legal mumbo jumbo, it said, ‘We’re taking your property,’ and I was dumbfounded,” Caswell told TheBlaze

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BBQ event for Mayor Carl Anderton!

Eastern Shore Republican Victory Headquarters 1801 N. Salisbury Blvd. Salisbury, MD 21801 5pm - 8pm

Join us on October 4th for our Fall Harvest Party with Mayor Anderton!  We are also very excited to be joined by our featured speaker, Delegate Jeannie Haddaway. We will have traditional "football food" including pork BBQ, wings, brats, burgers, dogs, meatballs, etc. We will also have a variety of desserts to choose from!  The game will be on the TV, cornhole boards, and a live football game with Mayor Anderton outside! **Participants in our 10/4 Super Saturday in Wicomico County will get a $10 discount off their tickets!** Individual: $25  Couple: $40 Are you ready to join our winning team? We have various sponsorship levels available: $100 - Fan $250 - Field Goal $500 - Touchdown $1,000 - Super Bowl Champions   Click here to purchase tickets online. To mail in your payment, please make checks payable to Friends of Carl Anderton Jr. and send to P.O. Box 1314, Salisbury, MD 21802. We are also looking for people to join our host committee with either financial donations or food donations. For more information, contact our host committee chair, Jackie Wellfonder:jackie@wellfondergroup.com or 410.603.7079.

Bush Says Some U.S. Forces Should Have Stayed in Iraq

Brian Kilmeade sat down with former President George W. Bush in Texas at a golf tournament for Wounded Warriors.

Kilmeade asked the former president for his take on some of the tough decisions facing President Obama.

As he has in the past, Bush refused to "second guess" President Obama's decisions, but noted that he was in favor of leaving behind a residual force of about 10,000-15,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

"The president has to make the choices he thinks are important. I'm not going to second guess our president. I understand how tough the job is. To have a former president bloviating and second-guessing is, I don't think, good for the presidency or the country."

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Did Jesse Matthew possibly murdered TWO other Virginia women?

Authorities are investigating whether Jesse Matthew was involved in up to 10 crimes against women in Virginia, after the 31-year-old was arrested under suspicion of kidnapping still-missing college student Hannah Graham.

Matthew was arrested in Texas last week after fleeing Virginia when police tried to question him in the disappearance of the 19-year-old University of Virginia student. The UVA nurses's assistant was the last person seen with Graham the night she went missing from downtown Charlottesville.

Now investigators are looking into Matthew's movements over the last 12 years, focusing in on the more than six months he attended Christopher Newport University when two other young women disappeared without a trace.

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Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan Completes Baltimore Media Tour to Promote Fall Travel

To help spread the message of an endless summer, Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan completed a media tour of Baltimore on Tuesday, September 16, generating more than $17,000 in advertising dollar equivalency. The Mayor made seven appearances on Baltimore television and radio stations to promote fall travel and to remind people that now is the best time to use their vacation days before they go to waste.

Mayor Meehan visited five of Baltimore’s top media outlets, including: WBFF-TV Fox 45, WIYY-FM 98Rock, WJZ- TV CBS 13, WBAL-TV NBC 11, and WBAL-AM 1090.

“September is the perfect time to remind Baltimoreans that summer is eternal in Ocean City. We have some of our best beach days in the fall and we were able to promote great events, golf and more,” said Mayor Meehan. “Our Vacation Day campaign is still resonating with people and the media was very receptive and complimentary of our message.”

In addition to encouraging guests to take advantage of Ocean City’s many events, Mayor Meehan promoted the town as an affordable and accessible vacation destination and encouraged visitors to connect with the town on social media.

All media tours are organized by the town’s agency, MGH, and coordinated by Donna Abbott, Tourism Director for the Town of Ocean City.

Gun-Friendly Small Businesses Popping Up Across America

While several gigantic chain stores have recently decided to ban guns, small businesses around the country are taking the opposite approach – and it is paying off.

Business is booming at places like Shiloh Brew & Chew in Maryville, Tennessee, which posted a“guns are welcome” sign earlier this year. At The Cajun Experience in Leesburg, Virginia, a promotion meant to attract armed customers resulted in an “overwhelming” response, owner Bryan Crosswhite says.

Crosswhite has even started a website — www.2amendment.org — listing pro-gun businesses around the country. More than 57,000 businesses have already signed on.

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Ohio Women Sue Over Receiving Sperm From Black Donor

CLEVELAND – An Ohio woman and her partner have sued a Chicago-area sperm bank after she became pregnant with sperm donated by a black man instead of a white man as she'd intended.

Jennifer Cramblett was five months pregnant and happy with her life in April 2012. She and her partner had married months earlier in New York, and within days of their nuptials she had become pregnant with donor sperm at a fertility clinic in Canton.

Cramblett, 36, and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, 29, were so elated that they called Midwest Sperm Bank LLC outside Chicago to reserve sperm from the same donor in the hope that Zinkon would someday also have a child.

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BREAKING NEWS: Appeals court lets Texas enforce tough new abortion restrictions

A federal appeals court allows Texas to immediately begin enforcing tough new abortion restrictions that will effectively close all but seven abortion facilities in America's second most-populous state.

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Tossing ‘Intelligence’ Under the Bus

When President Obama attributed the rise in Iraq of the Islamic State, or ISIS, to the failures of the U.S. intelligence community earlier this week, naming and blaming directly National Intelligence Director Gen. James Clapper, he was attempting to deflect criticism of his own incompetence. He was discussing the fact that ISIS, right under his own and the general’s noses, gained control of nearly half of the landmass of Iraq. This is the same Iraq that the United States supposedly liberated from the clutches of a dictator, strengthened as a regional military power and fortified as the Middle East’s newest democracy as a result of our invasion in 2003 and our subsequent 10-year occupation.

Many who supported the war then realize now that we were duped into it by a deceptive and shortsighted Bush administration that was looking to deflect blame for its intelligence failures of 9/11, for which, unlike the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, not a single human being in the federal government has been charged with anything. But that is a topic for another day.

ISIS captured Fallujah and Ramadi, two major cities in Iraq, eight months ago. Surely the president knew about that when it happened. He receives an intelligence briefing every day; more often than not, he prefers a written briefing rather than one where he and his briefers can zero in on problem areas in a face-to-face conversation. Yet since the February takeover of the Iraqi equivalent of Chicago and Los Angeles, the president has told the American people that ISIS is junior varsity and he had no plans to address it, and he seemed not to care about it until ISIS went over his head, so to speak, and beheaded two innocent young Americans and posted grisly videos of their horrific murders on the Internet.

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Obama Admin To Recognize Indian Tribe That Bans Interracial Marriage With African Americans

Black lawmakers are furious that the Obama administration is in the process of acknowledging a Native American tribe that still has laws prohibiting its members from marrying African Americans.

Eleven members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Attorney General Eric Holder, criticizing the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for planning on recognizing the Pamunkey tribe — a small tribe of about 200 members based in King William County, Va.

CBC lawmakers say the tribe has a long history of “discriminatory policies against African Americans.” Pamunkey law going back at least two centuries bans inter-marriage “with any person except those with white or Indian blood.” CBC also notes there “is no indication that the group has changed its regulations in regards to its prohibition of marriage between Pamunkey members and African Americans.”

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Anxious, Jealous Women Face Higher Alzheimer's Risk

Middle-aged women with a neurotic personality style and prolonged stress may have a heightened risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests.

Tracking 800 women over nearly four decades, Swedish scientists found that those who were most anxious, jealous and moody -- which they defined as neurotic -- and experienced long-standing stress had double the risk of developing Alzheimer's compared to women scoring lowest in these traits.

"No other study has shown that [one style of] midlife personality increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease over a period of nearly 40 years," said study author Lena Johansson, a researcher at University of Gothenburg.

Outside experts cautioned, however, that the study results don't prove that neuroticism triggers Alzheimer's, but they do suggest an association between the two.

The study is published online Oct. 1 in the journal Neurology.

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SPD Press Release 10-02-14 (Stabbing)

Md. Gubernatorial Candidates To Face Tough Economy

Maryland’s new governor may face some tough economic times with a budget deficit and now news of a possible property tax hike.

Political reporter Pat Warren has a response from both the Republican and Democratic campaigns.

It appears that Maryland’s troubled economy won’t be getting better any time soon.

At the peak of the 2014 campaign for governor comes news that the state not only has a budget deficit but Comptroller Peter Franchot says it cannot afford to pay its debt without deep cuts in an already strained budget or a state property tax hike.

“Maryland families are so badly hit by this recession that to ask them to pay this debt service—it’s just reaching into their pocket at exactly the wrong time. That leaves the general fund, but that’s a bad option too because we just wrote the revenues down by $405 million last week, so the new governor’s going to have a very difficult job,” Franchot said.

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It looks like a GOP wave; the question is how far it goes

Republicans seem to be pulling away in the race to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. At least this week.

In mid-September, several polls seemed to be going the other way. The well-informed Washington Post analyst Chris Cillizza wrote that for the first time in this election cycle odds favored the Democrats keeping their majority.

Two weeks later he was singing another tune. Analysts at the Post, the New York Times andFiveThirtyEight, in addition to psephologists Charlie Cook, Stuart Rothenberg and Larry Sabato, all agreed.

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Independent polls confirm the race within margin of error...

Today an independent poll was released by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategiesconfirming what we have been telling you for weeks, that we are in a position to win this race!

This poll shows that we are tracking in the same position as Governor Ehrlich was in 2002 when he pulled off a huge upset. The momentum is on our side and we have a clear path to victory!

Our positive message of tax cuts and job growth is what Marylanders care about most. We are focused on moving this state in a more prosperous direction and that is exactly what we are prepared to do in November.

Help us close the gap!

Our mission of restoring the economy and rolling back the O'Malley-Brown tax hikes is clear. We have the best staff and volunteer base operating in field offices across the state and are running positive statewide ads like "Jaymi." Marylanders are ready to work with us to bring prosperity back to our state! 
 

This further confirmation in the polls proves to the non-believers that we CAN and WILL win this race. We only have 34 days left until we get change Maryland for the better! Please make a contribution to the campaign today for $3, $30, $300 or more to fund the last 30 days!

Thank you for your support,



Larry Hogan

Reckless Federal Shopping Spree Could Squander $50 Billion

September 30th marked the end of the federal government’s fiscal year. It’s also the biggest one-day shopping spree of the year-- the day when federal agencies rush to spend the last of their money before October 1, before anything left over is returned to the Treasury.

Since agencies cannot carry over unspent funds, the idea is “use it or lose it.” If they don’t spend the money, Congress may not allocate as much the following year. The system typically creates panic for federal workers scrambling to spend millions of dollars before they run out of time. It also means a huge payday for contractors scoring big awards.

Last year, the government spent about $50 billion the week before October 1, according to NPR’s Shankar Vedantam. That total included apparent impulse buys like artwork worth $562,000 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and toner cartridges worth $144,000 for the Department of Agriculture, as noted last year by The Washington Post. It also included $178,000 worth of “Cubicle Furniture Rehab” for the U.S. Coast Guard. 
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Check Out These Great Photos Of The OCPD's Mounted Unit On The beach!

Ocean City Police Department

Check out these great photos of our Mounted Unit on the beach! Thank you to Monica Steinacker and Debbie Marvel for sharing! The first photo shows Ofc. Neshawn Jubilee riding Tucker and the other is Pfc. Al Custer and Boh, our newest horse.

 

 

Judge Blocks Obamacare Tax Rule for Non-Exchange States

An Oklahoma federal judge dealt a blow to President Barack Obama’s health-care law, invalidating IRS rules aimed at making policies affordable for consumers around the country.

U.S. District Judge Ronald White in Muskogee ruled today that subsidies, in the form of tax credits, apply only to consumers in the 14 states that have set up insurance marketplaces and not to individuals who buy insurance on the federal marketplace, as in Oklahoma. An Internal Revenue Service rule says needy customers in both the federal and state marketplaces are eligible for subsidies.

“The court is upholding the act as written,” White said, citing language in the law that limits subsidies to those in states with their own exchanges. He called the IRS regulations “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

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