AMAZON TAKES DOWN CONFEDERATE FLAG, CONTINUES TO SELL COMMUNIST MERCHANDISE

In a marketing move that will shock no one, Amazon removed the Confederate flag after a howling mob of both liberals and brown-nosing conservatives demanded the “symbol of hate” be stricken from its shelves.

But these comrades can rest easy, knowing that they’ll have plenty of opportunities to stock up on Communist merchandise after their latest purge.

Amazon sells a huge variety of shirts, posters, you-name-it featuring the hammer and sickle, Joseph Stalin’s mustache, all things Che Guevara, Vladimir Lenin and other colorful revolutionaries who fought to make the world a better place, man. Guevara’s bookGuerilla Warfare is on sale in four different formats. In one of the worst genocides in modern times, Stalin forcibly starved Ukrainian peasants in what’s known as the Holodomor, a “terror-famine” that left anywhere from 2.4 million to 7.5 million Ukrainian peasants dead in 1933.

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Statues can be fun!

Heart attack victim rescued off Ocean City coast

Tim Gola, a 58-year-old Newark man, was an hour a way from a potentially fatal heart attack June 19 when he was rescued off the Ocean City coast and medevaced to a Salisbury hospital where he underwent emergency heart surgery, his best friend says.

“We have to credit the fast thinking of the crew and Coast Guard for saving him,” said Bill Baker of Bill's Sports Shop in Lewes.

Baker said his best friend Tim Gola is recovering at home after doctors at Peninsula Regional Medical Center cleared a blocked artery and inserted a stent.

“He was within an hour of death, doctors told him,” Baker said.

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The Struggle to Tax the Cloud

As the economy shifts from one that relies on goods to one that relies on services, states are finding it hard to capture revenue from constantly evolving technologies like cloud computing.

Two years ago, Massachusetts took a bold step. The legislature passed a bill to tax the cloud. But they didn’t stop there. Lawmakers also levied taxes on other tech activities. While the cloud may be where the fastest growth is taking place, technology overall is an increasingly large part of a state’s economy. Massachusetts didn’t want to lose out on a chance to include it in its revenue base. Legislative analysts projected that the taxes would bring in $160 million a year.

But just two months after passing the “tech tax,” as it had become known, Massachusetts repealed it. Opposition from the state’s business forces rained down pressure on lawmakers. The new law, they claimed, was putting them out of business. “It got very bruising,” says Andrew Bagley, research and public affairs director of the antitax Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

Meanwhile, the Department of Revenue struggled to provide guidance to business owners on whether the service they were providing was subject to the tax. Amy Pitter, director of the department at the time, admits the complexities and confusion surrounding the law were a burden. So the legislature voted to repeal it and then-Gov. Deval Patrick, who had proposed the law in the first place, signed its retraction.

Massachusetts is not alone in trying to expand its sales tax to include tech services. Like many states, the commonwealth was already taxing some parts of the technology sector. But unlike most states, Massachusetts tried to capture a larger and growing part of that sector’s economic activity. The law’s resounding failure illustrates the many difficulties states have faced in recent years when it comes to taxing technology and computer services.

Part of the problem harks back to a general issue that has been bedeviling sales-tax states for more than half a century: As the economy has shifted from one that primarily produced goods (which are taxable at point of sale) to one that provides services, states have struggled to find a way to add services to their sales tax base. The other challenge is more specific to the technology industry: Its products and services are so complex, changing so rapidly and constantly overlapping each other, that it is hard to get a handle on what it is that should be taxed. The recent emergence of cloud computing -- computer services that consumers and businesses use and pay for but don’t necessarily own -- adds an extra layer of difficulty.

What has resulted from the attempts by Massachusetts and other states to harness the high-tech service economy is a hodgepodge of approaches that lack consistency and are frustrating for both the states that write the bills and the businesses affected by those laws.

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Cardin Calls for Investigation, Action to Address Mortgage Industry Housing Discrimination in Minority Communities

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) along with a group of 13 senators have written a letter to federal housing, finance, and consumer protection regulators, calling for an investigation into potential violations of the Fair Housing Act by banks and lenders neglecting the maintenance of foreclosed homes in minority communities in favor of predominantly white communities. The letter asks the regulators to take appropriate actions to put a stop to any unequal treatment.

In their letter, the senators pointed to a report by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) which found that real estate owned (REO) properties in communities of color “were 2.2 times more likely to have significant amounts of trash and debris on the premises and 2.3 times more likely to have unsecured, broken, or damaged doors than properties in comparable predominantly white communities.”

“We strongly urge you—as regulators of the entities responsible for ensuring these properties are maintained, marketed, and sold to qualified buyers—to investigate this issue,” they wrote. “As we are sure you agree, stabilization for our country’s communities most impacted by the foreclosure crisis will require financial institutions to properly maintain and market REO homes regardless of the color of the skin or nation of origin of the other homeowners who live on the block.”

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The Shocking Kill Rate of American Police

BREAKING NEWS: Boston bomber apologizes to victims

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, during his sentencing hearing, tells victims that he is sorry for the lives he has taken and the suffering he caused.

Police Kept this Video of a Cop Shooting into a Car Full of Unarmed Teens a Secret, Until Now

Chicago, IL — A deeply troubling police dash cam video has been kept from the public by the city of Chicago which showed CPD officer Marco Proano, fire into a car occupied by six unarmed teenagers. Police did not want the public to see this video.

City lawyers successfully convinced a federal judge to put the video under the protective order, which prevented parties to the lawsuit from releasing it publicly. However, after watching the video, Retired Cook County Judge Andrew Berman was so disturbed that he leaked it to The Chicago Reporter. Neither Berman nor the Reporter are subject to the order.

“I’ve seen lots of gruesome, grisly crimes,” said. Berman. “But this is disturbing on a whole different level.”

In March, the teens won a federal lawsuit against the city and three police officers, using the video as the center of their case. The city has yet to pay out the $360,000.

According to The Chicago Reporter,

The city’s Independent Police Review Authority, known as IPRA, has not completed its investigation of the incident 18 months later. FBI officials would neither confirm nor deny a Chicago Sun-Times report that the agency is investigating the shooting.

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BREAKING NEWS: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal running for president

Bobby Jindal tweeted Wednesday that he will seek the White House in 2016, making him the 13th Republican to formally announce.

WHO unit finds 2,4-D herbicide 'possibly' causes cancer in humans

A widely used farm chemical that is a key ingredient in a new herbicide developed by Dow AgroSciences "possibly" causes cancer in humans, a World Health Organization research unit has determined.

The classification of the weed killer, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, known as 2,4-D, was made by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The IARC said it reviewed the latest scientific literature and decided to classify 2,4-D as "possibly carcinogenic to humans." That is a step below the more definitive "probably carcinogenic" category but two steps above the "probably not carcinogenic" category.

IARC's findings on 2,4-D have been awaited by environmental and consumer groups that are lobbying U.S. regulators to tightly restrict its use, as well as by farm groups and others that defend 2,4-D as an important agent in food production that does not need more restrictions.

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A Viewer Writes: State Government Corruption

So, you're a supervisor at a state funded agency tasked with hiring a subordinate for a position in your department.You advertise the position for 30 days as required, accept applications, review resume's, conduct interviews with a hiring committee and select the best candidate for the job. Right? Joe Taxpayer would think so.
UNLESS, you're a supervisor with a plan to hire the secret lover you met at a work conference in your hometown halfway across the country!

Step one, you review the resume's and toss the 9 best candidates leaving them completely disenfranchised.

Step two, conduct hiring committee interviews with the three worst candidates and your secret lover thus insuring your secret lover is hired unanimously by the committee and no one is the wiser.

Step three, a few weeks later you tell your director (the one you just bamboozled) you are dating your subordinate and have him removed from your department, then ask your husband for a divorce, marry your not so secret lover and work together happily ever after in complete contempt for all ethical or professional standards with the approval of the director.

Yes folks! Right here on the Eastern shore.

Some fish are real slick

EMERGENCY ALERT: GLOBAL ELITE ARE NOW EVACUATING THE US

The biggest conspiracy theorist out there, Alex Jones of Infowars, issued an emergency alerttoday claiming that he has had 2 calls by “extremely prominent, wealthy people” asking him why he isn’t leaving the United States before October.

Jones claims that these 2 individuals also state that high-ranking military officials and other insiders have already fled the country.

Take a look at the video on the following page and decide for yourself.

Many economists and people of influence are telling us that the world’s economy is on the verge of implosion. Certainly all the QE and 0 or negative interest rates can’t keep us afloat forever. As Ron Paul pointed out recently, the market will one day raise interest rates and at that point implosion is inevitable.

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Community Organizer to Black Youth: Avoid Forgiveness, Do Not ‘Police Your Rage’

In the wake of the gruesome massacre of nine black churchgoers by an angry racist white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina, comes an article that encourages black youth to be angry, racist, uninformed, unforgiving, intentionally opaque, and to explicitly exclude and ignore “white folks” in a direct call for unrest and anarchy.

The most shocking part is that the call for uncivilized radical action comes not from some obscure underground revolutionary manifesto, but from an author with a conventional liberal resume, including a writing gig at the Huffington Post and a previous executive position with an ostensibly positive program working with black youth.

The article is called 8 Things Black Folk Don’t Have to Do in Light of the AME Massacre and it’s published on the website Black Youth Project. The suggestions of what “black folk” don’t have to do include forgive, “police our rage,” “be peaceful,” or “explain ourselves to anyone — especially white folk.”

The article also suggests youth avoid staying informed about news developments, with the author describing major media as a tool of the white man: “Personally, I have not hate-watched any news coverage because I do not feel compelled to pad the pockets of white supremacist propaganda.”

The battle cry for unbridled racist exclusion, uninformed anger, and actions, including the refusal to “give up space,” shows how the radical agenda has become an acceptable part of public discourse in the Obama era.

A closer look at the author and her work also shows the disturbing connections between community organizing groups that paint themselves one way publicly, but seem to foster and promote a far different agenda when examined.

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BREAKING NEWS: White House releases new guidelines for hostage negotiations

Obama administration releases new guidelines for hostage negotiations, setting up new specialized units while also offering an assurance that families who pay ransom for loved ones will not be prosecuted.

GOP Civil War: Intense Crackdown On Conservatives

WASHINGTON – A civil war is raging within the Republican Party pitting House leaders against conservatives.

And “fed up” conservatives have now decided to fight back in public.

A congressional aide tells WND a group of House conservatives will discuss this week how to proceed, but a few of them have already decided to speak up publicly.

One tactic conservatives might employ would be voting with Democrats on procedural motions to derail legislation favored by leadership.

The behind-the-scenes battle broke into open view on Friday when Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., was stripped of his chairmanship of a subcommittee for doing just that: voting against a House rule, in an unsuccessful attempt to slow down the rush to give President Obama virtually unchecked power to negotiate massive trade deals.

Radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham didn’t mince words in blasting the tactics of House Republican leaders:

“This is what the mafia does. I’m sorry, but this is a political mafia on Capitol Hill.”

“I don’t see this as a Republican Party who represents people like me. And if they distance themselves from people like me, then I don’t see how [they're] going to win the presidency.”

Meadows posted a scathing statement on Facebook:

“No one should be punished for voting their conscience and representing their constituents. I didn’t run for Congress to be a Yes vote for House Republican leadership. I came here to represent the people of Western North Carolina. My voting card may have my picture on it, but it belongs to the people of Western North Carolina and I will continue to listen to their voices regardless of the consequences. God bless.”

The congressman is getting support from top conservatives.

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Only Difference Between Dylann Roof and Bill Ayers Is Legitimacy Among the Left

Q: What’s the difference between Bill Ayers and Dylann Roof?

A: Dylann Roof isn’t a friend and colleague of an American president who enjoyed a cushy life in academia before retiring to life as the kind of author who’s invited on-the-air by the mainstream media to hawk his books.

Other than that, both of these people share much in common.

Bill Ayers is an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

Dylann Roof is an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

Bill Ayers despises America.

Dylann Roof despises America.

Bill Ayers’s terror group The Weather Underground targeted and murdered innocent people.

Dylann Roof targeted and murdered innocent people.

Bill Ayers used murder and violence and terror as a weapon for political change.

Dylann Roof used murder and violence and terror as a weapon for political change.

Bill Ayers wanted a race war.

Dylann Roof wants a race war.

—

From here the paths of the two men split in wildly different directions.

The right to use your property isn’t a privilege the government can force you to pay for

The Supreme Court today issued its decision in the Horne raisin seizure case. This case involves a 70+ year old program in which the government annually confiscates as much as half the raisin crop of California, for the express purpose of making them more expensive. This sort of insanity was considered cutting-edge economic theory in FDR’s day.

Anyway, raisin producers challenged this program on the argument that since the government is taking away their raisins, they’re at least entitled to just compensation. The government answered, no: selling your raisins in interstate commerce is a “privilege,” and the government can charge you a “toll” for that privilege. The exchange on this point during the oral argument was shocking.

“The government has not taken the raisins,” argued Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler. “This program operates only when the producer, the grower, has voluntarily submitted—committed the raisins to the stream of commerce.”

Justice Scalia balked. “The government can—can prevent you from putting something into the stream of commerce? Can charge you for putting something into the stream?”

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Rt 50 westbound by Pittsville

Marijuana decriminalized in Delaware

DOVER — Speaker of the House Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf voted in favor of a bill decriminalizing marijuana in Delaware, but, he said, the passage of House Bill 39 doesn’t mean the drug is now legal in the state.

“We’re still saying it’s wrong,” said Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, adding that getting caught with a small amount of marijuana is now on par with a major traffic offense.

HB39 decriminalizes possession of a small amount of marijuana for Delaware adults. The bill was signed into law June 18 by Gov. Jack Markell after having passed through the Senate down party lines earlier in the day.

Introduced in January by Rep. Helene Keeley, D-Wilmington South, the bill removes criminal penalties and potential jail time and replaces them with a civil fine similar to a traffic ticket.

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Hillary Clinton Not Talking About ’92 Clinton-Gore Confederate Campaign Button

It’s unclear if the Clinton-Gore Confederate flag campaign button that has been prominent on social mediawas an official part of their 1992 presidential campaign.

And Hillary Clinton isn’t clarifying, nor is her team responding to questions about her husband honoring the flag as Arkansas governor in 1987.

TheBlaze left phone and email messages with the Clinton campaign Monday inquiring whether the button, and other similar designs sold on eBay, was part of the official campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

TheBlaze also asked if the former Arkansas first lady opposed now or opposed then an act signed by her husband honoring the Confederate flag. The Clinton campaign did not respond to either question.

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The latest: Verizon outage blocking calls to 911, landlines

Emergency officials say a storm-related service outage in parts of Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware is preventing Verizon cell phone calls to 911 and other landlines.

Officials say Wednesday morning's outage is also affecting cell phone calls to non-Verizon cell phone numbers.

Customers say they're hearing busy signals.

A Verizon spokesman confirmed the outage and says the company is working to restore service.

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Cummings: Officers need clarity on arrest powers

BALTIMORE —A Maryland congressman said Baltimore police officers need clarity regarding arrest powers.

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-District 7, met with the Baltimore police union president Tuesday, discussing questions the congressman said officers need answered, specifically, when to make and not make arrests.

Baltimore City police officers remain on the job amid tensions that arose following the in-custody death of Freddie Gray, community unrest and very public battles between law enforcement and city leaders.

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Video: Police Officers Kill 80-year-old Man In His Bedroom And Try To Cover Up

It has been two years now since an 80-year-old man from Los Angeles (LA)-California was shot brutally and killed by police who raided his home based on incorrect information that the senior citizen was housing a methamphetamine lab in his residence.

Mallory was a retired engineer living with his wife in Littlerock-a rural area on the outskirts of LA. It is said one early morning, LA Sherriff deputies arrived in his house for the special raid that ended the live of the innocent man who was resting on his bed. The LA County Sheriff’s Department arrived in the house with a search warrant and said they allegedly smelled of the ingredients used to make methamphetamine.

When the officers arrived, Mallory was comfortably sleeping on his bed. But His wife-Tonya Pate and stepson-Adrian Lamos were awaked and made themselves visible to the officers.

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NYPost: Clinton Cash Author Demolishes Hillary’s Self-Defense

Grave incompetence or brazen dishonesty?

Those are the only two conclusions one can reasonably come to after reviewing Hillary Clinton’s stunning Sunday interview on local New Hampshire TV.

When WMUR local TV host Josh McElveen asked Hillary Clinton why her State Department gave a green light to the transfer of 20 percent of all US uranium to the Russian government, Clinton claimed she had no involvement in her own State Department’s decision to approve the sale of Uranium One to Russia.

“I was not personally involved because that wasn’t something the secretary of state did,” said Clinton.

The transfer of 20 percent of US uranium — the stuff used to build nuclear weapons — to Vladimir Putin did not rise to the level of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s time and attention?

Beyond being an admission of extreme executive negligence on an issue of utmost national security, Hillary’s statement strains credulity to the breaking point for at least three other reasons.

First, nine investors who profited from the uranium deal collectively donated $145 million to Hillary’s family foundation, including Clinton Foundation mega donor and Canadian mining billionaire Frank Giustra, who pledged $100 million.

Since 2005, Giustra and Bill Clinton have frequently globetrotted together, and there’s even a Clinton Foundation initiative named the Clinton-Giustra initiative.

But Hillary expects Americans to believe she had no knowledge that a man who made a nine-figure donation to her foundation was deeply involved in the deal? Nor eight other mining executives, all of whom also donated to her foundation?

There's much more here

Obama’s Coming Epidemic of Drugs

The current administration has neglected drug control at home and abroad

When he assumed office in 2009, President Obama inherited a drug policy success of unprecedented dimensions. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and misused opiate prescriptions were all under control or declining. The drug threat, especially for youth, was substantially smaller. That tide of achievement is now reversing.

At the end of the Bush years, youth use of marijuana had declined 25 percent, aided by an effective national media campaign. Youth use of cocaine and heroin had also declined, while psychedelics had plummeted even further, as Ecstasy and LSD collapsed. These achievements, measured by surveys, were corroborated by nationwide workforce drug testing, where rates of positives were in decline.

Nationally, prescription opiate misuse peaked in 2006, and the Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005 resulted in steep declines in not only meth use but in the number of toxic labs that produced it.

Internationally, the major source of U.S. heroin and cocaine had been brought under control. Heroin produced in Colombia had dropped so low that U.S. government observations had difficulty finding it.

Significantly, Colombian cocaine production, trafficked through Mexico and funding insurgents and criminal cartels, declined in an unprecedented achievement by nearly 75 percent through partnership programs of eradication, alternative development, and the provision of government security.

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More Evidence: More Spending Does Not Improve Education

Mr. Szafir is the education policy director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Mr. Lueken is its education research director.

Have we hit a wall where more spending on traditional public schools will not lead to improved student learning? Applying commonly-accepted statistical tools to our home state of Wisconsin, we found that this may be the case. Like the United States, Wisconsin has spent more on public schools but has not gotten more for this investment.

In the U.S., since 1966, per-student spending in constant dollars on public education has increased by 300%. In 2011, the U.S. spent $11,841 for every student enrolled in traditional primary and secondary public schools. This amount is 5th highest among all countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and $2,973 per pupil higher than the OECD average. At such an amount, it’s very difficult to question our commitment to funding public education.

Yet, despite these expenditures, we have failed to create a world-class education system. Among OECD countries, the U.S. ranks 27th in math, 17th in reading, and 20th in science. Less than one-third of all U.S. students are proficient in math and reading. We also struggle to educate poor children. More than half of the OECD countries had higher portions of resilient children, poor children who manage to perform in the top quartile of students in OECD countries, than the U.S.

This trend of high spending for, at best, lackluster student performance reverberates across the country, and the Badger State is no exception. In Wisconsin, about 88% of all students are enrolled in the “one-size-fits-all” traditional public school system, which has educated children the same way for decades. Wisconsin spends $1,219 per child more than the U.S. average, ranking 16th out of 50 states in expenditures for public elementary and secondary education.

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FBI Files Document Communism in Valerie Jarrett’s Family

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the dad, maternal grandpa and father-in-law of President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government.

Jarrett’s dad, pathologist and geneticist Dr. James Bowman, had extensive ties to Communist associations and individuals, his lengthy FBI file shows. In 1950 Bowman was in communication with a paid Soviet agent named Alfred Stern, who fled to Prague after getting charged with espionage. Bowman was also a member of a Communist-sympathizing group called the Association of Internes and Medical Students. After his discharge from the Army Medical Corps in 1955, Bowman moved to Iran to work, the FBI records show.

According to Bowman’s government file the Association of Internes and Medical Students is an organization that “has long been a faithful follower of the Communist Party line” and engages in un-American activities. Bowman was born in Washington D.C. and had deep ties to Chicago, where he often collaborated with fellow Communists. JW also obtained documents on Bowman from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) showing that the FBI was brought into investigate him for his membership in a group that “follows the communist party line.” The Jarrett family Communist ties also include a business partnership between Jarrett’s maternal grandpa, Robert Rochon Taylor, and Stern, the Soviet agent associated with her dad.
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Judicial Watch Lawsuit to End Gerrymandering

Judicial Watch announced it will host a press conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday, June 24 to announce a new federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of congressional districts in Maryland. The lawsuit, to be filed on Wednesday, will propose a straightforward method to allow courts to prevent politicians of any party from drawing legislative districts that dilute the power of voters and arbitrarily divide communities.

Plaintiffs representing each Maryland congressional district are participating in the new lawsuit, including Maryland Delegate Neil C. Parrott, Maryland Delegate Matt Morgan, and former Maryland legislator and gubernatorial candidate Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, and Robert Popper, director of Judicial Watch's Election Integrity Project are participating in the press conference.

Watch it LIVE: www.judicialwatch.org/live

Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Time: 1:30 p.m. ET

Location: Zenger Room

National Press Club

529 14th Street NW

Washington, DC 20045

Pruden: Letting No Tragedy Go To Waste

The funeral processions to the graveyards in Charleston will be crowded unless the families can keep out the interlopers, exploiters and other cheap opportunists. The easy riders have hitched up their hobbyhorses for the big parade.

Some of the long riders want to shoot down the Confederate flag. Others have oiled their long rifles for the promised cavalry charge against the National Rifle Association. Even the Arabs, who have never distinguished themselves on a battlefield, want to join the mob to avenge murder of Christians at Charleston.

The soldiers of CAIR, the loudest Muslim lobbying organization, joins the crusade to tear down the Confederate flag wherever they find it, as “a fitting memorial to those slain in one of America’s deadliest acts of racist violence.” CAIR needs help with American history. Massacre at the World Trade Center, where more than 3,000 Americans were slain for the sin of being Christians, Jews and unbelievers, set the standard for massacre. Punks and crazies eager to get their names in the Guinness Book of Records will be shooting at 9/ll for decades to come.

Gov. Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, surrendered to the mob late Monday, joining the demand to send the Confederate flag to “the dustbin of history,” as one leader of the mob put it. The governor called the rally, where several state officials, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, gathered in a ceremony to join the mob, “a moment of unity.” The Republican National Committee, always eager to cower in the face of controversy, praised the governor. Chairman Reince Priebus assured everyone that he has been praying for South Carolina but forgot the “thoughts” that politicians, not known for dropping to their knees except before donors, usually attach to their “prayers” when they invoke cliches on occasions of tragedy.

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Media Matters Admits Defending Hillary

Nonprofit bold in face of IRS tax-exempt rules
The founder of the 501(c)3 Media Matters for America, David Brock, made a bold admission in a recent op-ed about the group’s association with Sidney Blumenthal, sliding in a claim that seems to fly in the face of IRS rules regarding nonprofits and writing: Yes, we defended former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from political fury, he said.

The IRS rule regarding 501(c)3 organizations is clear, as the Daily Caller reported: “Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)3 organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.”

But Brock pretty much admitted in a piece posted on the Media Matters blog that his group has done just that.

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A 17-year-old's Invention Instantly Stops Bleeding

Imagine this: You're gushing blood. Nothing seems to make it stop. Then you apply a gel to your wound, and the bleeding stops within seconds. You're healed in minutes.

This is the premise of VetiGel, an algae-based polymer created by Joe Landolina — a 22 year-old who invented the product when he was just 17.

Landolina is now the cofounder and CEO of Suneris, a biotech company that manufactures the gel. Suneris announced last week that it would begin to ship VetiGel to veterinarians later this summer. Humans won't be far behind.

When injected into a wound site, the gel can form a clot within 12 seconds and permanently heal the wound within minutes, Landolina says.

"The fastest piece of equipment we have measures every 12 seconds," Landolina tells Business Insider. "So we know that it happens in less than 12 seconds."

The science that makes this all possible is surprisingly basic.

Each batch of gel begins as algae, which is made up of tiny individual polymers. If you break those polymers down into even tinier pieces, "kind of like Lego blocks," Landolina says, you can put them into the gel and inject that gel into a wound site.

Once it hits the damaged tissue, whether it's open skin or a biopsied soft organ — livers, kidneys, spleens — the gel instantly forms a mesh-like structure.

"What that means, on the one hand, is that the gel will make a very strong adhesive that holds the wound together," Landolina says. "But on the other hand, that mesh acts as a scaffold to help the body produce fibrin at the wound's surface."

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Gas Prices In Cambridge Last Night

I couldn't believe it either.

Peacekeeper 2 0 Indiegogo

Hurlock – Update on the Mayoral Mess; More on the Way

Last week we reported Kathleen Clough’s expose of Mayor Joyce Spratt’s conduct in office here http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-viewer-writes-hurlock-folks-in.html . After the mayor, who had recruited Ms. Clough with a long term contract to serve as Hurlock’s Clerk/Treasurer, fired her from that post, Ms. Clough sued the mayor and council for wrongful termination. Her suit was dismissed by the circuit court in Cambridge, but that ruling and the case is now pending on appeal in Maryland’s highest court. This from the website of the Court of Appeals:

Kathleen Clough v. Mayor & Council of Hurlock - Case No. 15, September Term, 2015

Issue – Labor & Employment – Does a town charter provision providing that key employees serve at the pleasure of the mayor prohibit the mayor from exercising his or her pleasure by offering a contract of employment to a key employee for a term of years in order to attract a qualified professional to serve in a rural area?

Two Urgent Action Items to Stop Corporate Power Grabs and Protect Your Health

Chernobyl, Fukushima, Pennsylvania, etc. By Ray Wallace

Here are some Chernobyl facts that have not received enough widespread news coverage: Over one million (1,000,000) people have already died from Chernobyl’s fallout....

     How many more will die? Approximately seven million (7,000,000) people in the Chernobyl vicinity were hit with one of the most potent exposures to radiation in the history of the Atomic Age.

     The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is known as “Death Valley.” It has been increased from 30 to 70 square kilometres. No humans will ever be able to live in the zone again. It is a permanent “dead zone.”...

     Following the [Fukushima] meltdown, the Japanese government did not inform people of the ambient levels of radiation that blew back onto the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.

     As the disaster happened, enormous levels of radiation hit Tokyo. The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000 becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq” (source: Radiation Defense Project)....

     After the Fukushima blow up, ambient levels of radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal, but according to Dr. [Helen] Caldicott, the U.S. media does not cover the “ongoing Fukushima mess.” So, who would really know?

     Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by saying: “In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four hundred tons of highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the U.S. Because the radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the fish, and not testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation every day.”

     Furthermore, according to Dr. Caldicott: “Rainwater washes over the nuclear cores into the Pacific. There is no way they can get to those cores, men die, robots get fried. Fukushima will never be solved. Meanwhile, people are still living in highly radioactive areas.”...

     A UN (UNSCEAR) report on April 2, 2014 on health impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any radiation-induced effects would be too small to identify. People were well protected and received “low or very low” radiation doses. UNSCEAR gave an all-clear report....

     Fukushima is a veritable destruction machine that consumes everything in its path, and beyond, and its path is likely to grow. For certain, it is not going away....

     Maybe, just maybe, Greater Tokyo’s 38 million residents will eventually be evacuated. Who knows for sure?

     -- From “What’s Really Going on at Fukushima?” by Robert Hunziker, at this June 15, 2015 Counterpunch site:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/15/whats-really-going-on-at-fukushima/

__________

Along the Susquehanna River in southern Pennsylvania, the

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station has the same design as

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant:

‘No danger’ from decades of Pa. nuclear leaks?” is at this June 20, 2015 Salisbury News site:

http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2015/06/no-danger-from-decades-of-pa-nuclear.html

“More taxpayer billions for another nuclear power plant on the Susquehanna River?” is at this June 10, 2015 EFMR Monitoring Group site:

http://efmr.blogspot.com/2015/06/more-taxpayer-billions-for-another.html

So True

Strong Women in Business – Networking Luncheon

When: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:00 – 1:15 pm 

Where: Dorchester Chamber of Commerce 528 Poplar Street, Cambridge, MD 21613 

Registration: Pre-registration is required. To pre-register or for more information regarding this course or other general inquiries, please contact Lisa, Administrative Manager of MCE Women’s Business Center by telephone: 410-546-1900 or via email: ltwilley@marylandcapital.org. Sign up Online at www.marylandcapital.org 

Lunch Fee: $9 if you want your lunch provided or you may bring your own at no cost. Course Description: Kelley Allen, of Soul Candy Media, will speak about navigating Facebook. A crash course on Advertising, Social Selling, Building Community, and Playing by the Rules.

Is Sex Work????

A U.S. Air Force Colonel was about to start the morning briefing to his staff.

While waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing, the colonel decided to pose a question to all assembled.

He explained that his wife had been a bit frisky the night before and he failed
to get his usual amount of sound sleep.

He posed the question of just how much of sex was "work"
and how much of it was "pleasure?"

A Major chimed in with 75%-25% in favor of work.

A Captain said it was 50%-50%.

A Lieutenant responded with 25%-75% in favor of pleasure,
depending upon his state of inebriation at the time.

There being no consensus, the colonel turned to the Private First Class
who was in charge of making the coffee and asked for his opinion?

Without any hesitation, the young Private First Class responded,
"Sir, it has to be 100% pleasure.

The colonel was surprised and as you might guess, asked why?

"Well, sir, if there was any work involved, the officers would
have me doing it for them."

The room fell silent.

God Bless the enlisted man.

Women!

NY Civil Rights Leader: Obama Used N-Word for Shock Value

Barack Obama's use of the n-word during an interview about race was done for shock value by a president with a "ghetto mentality," says Michael Meyers, president of the New York Civil Rights Coalition.

"He has a ghetto mentality. He wants headlines, he wants to shock people," Meyers said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"And at some point, he'll be urging us to ban the word because he already used it, so everybody else can't use it because, 'whoa, only I can use it, I'm Barack Obama.'"

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CREWS WORKING OVERNIGHT AS STORMS LEAVE WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES

SALISBURY, Md. – Delmarva Power crews are out assessing damage and making repairs after severe storms moved through the region and left more than 63,000 customers in Delaware and Maryland without power Tuesday evening. Crews will work through the night as they begin restoring service to customers who lost power as severe thunderstorms brought high winds, lightning and intense rain.

In addition to internal crews, Delmarva Power has contractors available to help restore power as quickly and as safely as possible.

Safety is our No. 1 priority. We urge our customers to stay clear of working crews and any wires hanging loose from poles or lying on the ground. Customers should always assume that downed wires are energized and avoid them. If you see a downed wire, call 1-800-898-8045.

Customers can report and track outages online at www.delmarva.com or through our mobile app, available for download at www.delmarva.com/mobileapp. They can also report outages by calling 800-898-8045. Natural gas emergencies should be reported to 302-454-0317.

Find additional information about Delmarva Power by visiting www.delmarva.com, on 
Facebook at www.facebook.com/delmarvapower and on 
Twitter at www.twitter.com/delmarvaconnect. 
Our mobile app is available at www.delmarva.com/mobileapp.

Cornell West: Blacks Afraid to Take on White Supremacy

Black people, including President Barack Obama, are afraid to take on the issue of white supremacy, professor Cornell West said on Monday.

West, appearing on "CNN Newsroom," was reacting to Obama's use of the N-word on a Marc Maron podcast.

Obama said that though race relations have come a long way since the civil rights era, society is not yet cured of racism, "And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say [N-word] in public."

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BREAKING NEWS: OCEAN CITY FIREFIGHTERS RESCUE FOUR TRAPPED ON ROLLER COASTER

Ocean City Fire EMS units on scene during the height of the thunder storm at Jolly Roger Amusement Park. Four people trapped on the roller coaster due to a mechanical issue. Personnel responded with a tower ladder, all subjects removed safely.

#HOGANSTRONG

"As I climb this hill, I remain comforted by my abiding faith that the Lord continues to bless me and will be by my side with every step - granting me strength to defeat this disease, and the wisdom and the judgment to be the public steward that I was called to be.

With my faith, family, and friends, I know that I won't beat this disease, but I will be a better and stronger person, and governor, on the other side of it." - Governor Larry Hogan

Secret World War II Chemical Experiments Tested Troops By Race

As a young U.S. Army soldier during World War II, Rollins Edwards knew better than to refuse an assignment.

When officers led him and a dozen others into a wooden gas chamber and locked the door, he didn't complain. None of them did. Then, a mixture of mustard gas and a similar agent called lewisite was piped inside.

"It felt like you were on fire," recalls Edwards, now 93 years old. "Guys started screaming and hollering and trying to break out. And then some of the guys fainted. And finally they opened the door and let us out, and the guys were just, they were in bad shape."

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SPD Calls For Service Week Ending 6-21-15

Pete Rose Bet On Baseball Games As A Player, ESPN Reports

Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, bet on Cincinnati Reds games in 1986, during his last season as an active player, ESPN's Outside the Lines reports.

After years of denial, Rose admitted in his 2004 autobiography that he bet on games, but only while he was manager. And as recently as April, he told a radio show he "never bet as a player: That's a fact." But ESPN has obtained documents that show the betting began as Rose "racked up the last hits of a record-smashing career in 1986." Here's more:

"The documents are copies of pages from a notebook seized from the home of former Rose associate Michael Bertolini during a raid by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in October 1989, nearly two months after Rose was declared permanently ineligible by Major League Baseball. Their authenticity has been verified by two people who took part in the raid, which was part of a mail fraud investigation and unrelated to gambling. For 26 years, the notebook has remained under court-ordered seal and is currently stored in the National Archives' New York office, where officials have declined requests to release it publicly."

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Power Outage Maps In This Area

http://www.delmarva.com/pages/connectwithus/outages/outagemaps.aspx

 http://choptank.maps.sienatech.com/

UPDATE: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING

BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WAKEFIELD VA
823 PM EDT TUE JUN 23 2015

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WAKEFIELD HAS ISSUED A

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...
  SOMERSET COUNTY IN SOUTHEASTERN MARYLAND...
  WORCESTER COUNTY IN SOUTHEASTERN MARYLAND...
  SOUTHEASTERN WICOMICO COUNTY IN SOUTHEASTERN MARYLAND...

* UNTIL 915 PM EDT

* AT 821 PM EDT...DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A LINE OF SEVERE
  THUNDERSTORMS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS IN EXCESS OF 60
  MPH. THESE STORMS WERE LOCATED ALONG A LINE EXTENDING FROM NEAR
  NORTH WILDWOOD TO NEAR MILLVILLE TO NEAR GUMBORO TO 9 MILES
  SOUTHWEST OF VIENNA...AND MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 35 MPH.

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE NEAR...
  OCEAN PINES AROUND 835 PM EDT.
  BERLIN...NEWARK AND CAPE ISLE OF WIGHT AROUND 845 PM EDT.
  PRINCESS ANNE AND UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE AROUND 850
  PM EDT.
  WESTOVER AROUND 855 PM EDT.
  POCOMOKE CITY AND WEST POCOMOKE AROUND 9 PM EDT.

OTHER LOCATIONS IMPACTED BY THESE SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS INCLUDE
SHELLTOWN...UPPER FAIRMOUNT...CHESAPEAKE HEIGHTS...MOUNT WESLEY...
REHOBETH...BYRDTOWN...BISHOP...ORIOLE...LAKEWOOD AND WHALEYVILLE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...CONTACT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...OR
YOUR NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY WHO WILL RELAY YOUR REPORT TO THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN WAKEFIELD.

IN ADDITION TO HEAVY RAINFALL AND DAMAGING WINDS...CONTINUOUS CLOUD TO
GROUND LIGHTNING IS OCCURRING WITH THIS STORM. MOVE INDOORS
IMMEDIATELY. LIGHTNING IS ONE OF NATURES LEADING KILLERS. REMEMBER...
IF YOU CAN HEAR THUNDER...YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE STRUCK BY
LIGHTNING.

Maryland Internet Crimes Against Children Child Pornography Arrest

(Pikesville, MD) Members of the Maryland State Police, Computer Crimes Section, Maryland Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) arrest Washington County individual on child pornography related charges.

The suspect is identified as Cristian Alexander Magana, 19, from Washington County, Maryland. The Washington County Warrant Task Force arrested him without incident. Magana was charged with multiple counts of distributing and possessing child pornography.

Power Outages As The Storm Hits

 

As the storm hits trees are being reported down in the roadway and the power is going out in many places. Stay safe everyone!

Obama Now Claiming that 70,000 Americans Will Die Because of Global Warming

Obama just disgorged a new “report” on global warming in which he claims 70,000 Americans will die from global warming and the change in the climate will cost the US$34 billion in coping costs.

This absurd prediction was reported today by the AP…

Failure to act on climate change could cause an estimated 57,000 deaths in the United States from poor air quality by 2100, the Obama administration argued in a new report Monday that warns of dire effects of global warming.

The report underscores the costs of inaction on climate change as well as the benefits from taking action now. The administration estimates that 12,000 people in 49 U.S. cities could die from extreme temperatures in 2100.

…The report says actions to slow climate change could save about $3.1 billion in expected costs from sea-level rise and storm surge in 2100, while the power sector could save as much as $34 billion by 2050 in avoided costs for additional electricity for air conditioning and other uses.

An estimated $3 billion in avoided damages from poor water quality could be saved by 2100, the report said.

More

Severe Thunderstorm Warning

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
MDC019-045-240045-
/O.NEW.KAKQ.SV.W.0055.150623T2335Z-150624T0045Z/

BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WAKEFIELD VA
735 PM EDT TUE JUN 23 2015

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WAKEFIELD HAS ISSUED A

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...
  NORTHWESTERN WICOMICO COUNTY IN SOUTHEASTERN MARYLAND...
  DORCHESTER COUNTY IN SOUTHEASTERN MARYLAND...

* UNTIL 845 PM EDT

* AT 732 PM EDT...DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A LINE OF SEVERE
  THUNDERSTORMS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS IN EXCESS OF 60
  MPH. THESE STORMS WERE LOCATED ALONG A LINE EXTENDING FROM QUEEN
  ANNE TO 6 MILES WEST OF TILGHMAN ISLAND TO NEAR CHESAPEAKE BEACH TO
  6 MILES SOUTHWEST OF DUNKIRK...AND MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 30 MPH.

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE NEAR...
  UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AROUND 800
  PM EDT.
  CAMBRIDGE AROUND 805 PM EDT.
  SECRETARY AROUND 810 PM EDT.
  HURLOCK AROUND 820 PM EDT.
  VIENNA AROUND 825 PM EDT.
  HEBRON AROUND 835 PM EDT.
  DELMAR...SALISBURY...FRUITLAND...AND PARSONSBURG
  AROUND 840 PM EDT.

OTHER LOCATIONS IMPACTED BY THESE SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS INCLUDE
WOOLFORD...CHESAPEAKE HEIGHTS...TRINITY...WETIPQUIN...MADISON...
TAYLORS ISLAND...NANTICOKE...BUCKTOWN...CATCHPENNY AND EAST NEW
MARKET.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

TO REPORT SEVERE WEATHER...CONTACT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...OR
YOUR NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY WHO WILL RELAY YOUR REPORT TO THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN WAKEFIELD.

IN ADDITION TO DAMAGING WINDS...CONTINUOUS CLOUD TO
GROUND LIGHTNING IS OCCURRING WITH THIS STORM. MOVE INDOORS
IMMEDIATELY. LIGHTNING IS ONE OF NATURES LEADING KILLERS. REMEMBER...
IF YOU CAN HEAR THUNDER...YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE STRUCK BY
LIGHTNING.

Snake catches baby rabbit, Momma comes to save the day.

Snake catches baby rabbit, Momma comes to save the day.Disturb Reality

Posted by Disturb Reality on Friday, June 19, 2015

Self Driving Cars Could Be Programmed To Kill You In Order To Save Other Lives

For the past few years, Google’s self-driving cars have been traveling around the country to test how well they work and how safe they are. The cars have been in a total of 13 accidents, however, the self-driving vehicles were not responsible for any of the accidents that took place.

Most of the accidents occurred when the cars were rear-ended by other drivers who were not paying attention. The cars have logged about 1,011,338 miles since 2009 without a driver, and then nearly another million with a driver.

The cars are maneuvered with complex algorithms, that calculate everything from weather conditions, to red lights, to evasive moves in accident situations.

In the tweaking of these algorithms, some very strange ethical questions have begun to arise. For example, is it ethical for a car to be programmed to kill you if it means saving the lives of many other people?

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Not AGAIN? Man starts shooting in a bar, but then…

In the aftermath of last week’s mass shooting, the subject of gun control inevitably emerges – most prominently from our own president (and Karl ROVE?). But of course the one subject never discussed is how guns actually prevent deaths of innocent people.

Case in point, this story from Youngstown, Ohio.

At around 2 am yesterday a customer was kicked out of La Raza Bar. The man shortly returned carrying a shotgun and fired two rounds inside the bar.

That’s when one of the bar employees, who had a valid concealed carry permit, pulled out his firearm and fatally shot the man.

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China Gets Pass from Obama on ‘Devastating’ OPM Hack

The Obama administration continues to play down one of the nation’s most damaging Chinese cyber espionage operations in order to maintain a dialogue with China and host a summit for its leader this fall.

Weeks after the discovery that millions of personal records on federal workers was stolen by Chinese hacker in an intelligence operation, the president and his advisers failed to condemned the state-sponsored security breach whose damage continues to worsen almost weekly.

The Obama administration, in a sign of its apparent unwillingness to take any steps against China for the hacking, will go ahead with the hosting this week of the latest Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington. The dialogue is known for producing little in the way of tangible results of regular meetings between senior U.S. and Chinese officials. The questionable diplomacy is said its supporters to advance U.S. interests. However, keeping secret the Chinese connection to the cyber attack is likely to encourage further attacks.

Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia, made no mention in a briefing for reporters whether the Chinese role in the OPM hack would be discussed at the dialogue, which begins Tuesday.

Instead, he said cyber security would be discussed in the Strategic Security Dialogue that he said, “really is germane to building a relationship of trust between the U.S. and China. It’s an important common concern.”

“We don’t always see eye to eye, but the fact is that global challenges require that we cooperate,” Russel said.

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WCSO Crime States May 2015

• Sector 1

Salisbury, Allen,
Deer Harbour, Fruitland,
Fox Chase

• Sector 2

Parsonsburg, Delmar

• Sector 3

Delmar, Log Cabin, Adkins Rd.

• Sector 4

Nanticoke, Waterview,
White Haven, Tyaskin

• Sector 5

Booth Street, Reservation

• Sector 6

Hebron, Mardela Springs,
Sharptown

• Sector 7

Pittsville, Willards,
Powellville

Unsure of your WCSO Sector? For an interactive crime map click here.

Federal Judge Asks IRS for Update on Lois Lerner's Emails

A District of Columbia federal judge has ordered the IRS to give him a status update on the release of Lois Lerner's emails, as well as those by other IRS officials.

U.S District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in a June 18 order that he wants a status of the recovery and release of the emails recovered by the IRS watchdog agency, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), sent to the court by June 29, Judicial Watch said in a statement. In addition, Sullivan set a hearing and a scheduling of a status conference for July 1.

"[F]ile a supplemental report, setting forth any new information regarding: (1) TIGTA’s recovery of emails from the backup tapes; (2) TIGTA’s production of emails to the IRS; (3) the IRS’s review of emails and production to the plaintiff; and (4) the status of the TIGTA investigation. This report shall be filed by no later than June 29, 2015," he wrote.

More here

It Has Been Reported Hebron Savings Bank has a new President

It has been reported that Hebron Savings Bank has named Donna Defino President.

SCOTUS Strikes Down Order for USDA Seizure of California Raisins

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a federal program designed to regulate raisin supply and prices is unconstitutional.

The court sided with Fresno, Ca., raisin farmer Marvin Horne who challenged the 1949 marketing order that allowed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to seize raisins from producers to ensure high prices. Justice John Roberts delivered the 8-1 decision of the court, joined by Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito in full, and in part by Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan.

“The reserve requirement imposed by the Raisin Committee is a clear physical taking,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “Actual raisins are transferred from the growers to the government. Title to the raisins passes to the Raisin Committee. The Committee disposes of those raisins as it wishes, to promote the purposes of the raisin marketing order.”

The decision struck a blow against one of the New Deal era’s most enduring principles—that the government can confiscate or destroy crops to preserve prices and reserves.

The Obama administration defended the USDA order as a “win-win proposition,” claiming that prices remain high for farmers allowing them to donate excess supply.

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Jesse Jackson Jr. Released From Halfway House In Baltimore

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. returned to his family's Washington, D.C., home on Monday after leaving a halfway house where he lived for several months since serving 2½ years in prison for spending $750,000 in campaign money on personal items.

Jackson, an Illinois Democrat, was released from the Volunteers of America halfway house in Baltimore in the morning and left in one of two black SUVs that were there for him. He traveled to his home in Washington, where family members say he's expected to stay.

Jackson must spend three years on supervised release under jurisdiction of the U.S. Probation Office and complete 500 hours of community service. He briefly spoke to The Associated Press outside the family's home when asked how he was doing.

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US General Denounces UN Report on Gaza War

U.S. Gen. Charles Wald, the leader of a task force of retired senior U.S. military officers who studied and reported on the 2014 Gaza War, issued a statement Monday denouncing the U.N. Human Rights Council’s report on that conflict.

He claims that the report is unbalanced and uneducated, referring to other, similar reports, which have been shown to be faulty in the past.

“The UNHRC report on the Gaza conflict is unbalanced and fails to accurately assess which parties violated the Law of Armed Conflict,” Wald said.

He continued, saying that the report represents faulty research, led by researchers who are not experts in military law, saying, “This report follows the same pattern of the UNHRC’s Goldstone Report, which assessed the previous Gaza conflict, but which was later repudiated by Mr. Goldstone himself, as well as being widely discredited by experts in laws applicable to war.

More here