Then-senator Barack Obama, November 12, 2007:
After seven years of an Administration that has stretched our military to the breaking point, ignored deplorable conditions at some VA hospitals, and neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes, America’s veterans deserve a President who will fight for them not just when it’s easy or convenient, but every hour of every day for the next four years.
By 2012, Obama continued to compare the performance of the VA during his administration favorably to his predecessor, declaring,
For the first time ever, we’ve made military families and veterans a top priority not just at DOD, not just at the VA, but across the government.
Now we know the report of at least 40 U.S. veterans dying while waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system is only the tip of the iceberg.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
Friday, May 23, 2014
Salisbury To Host Memorial Day Ceremony, Run
SALISBURY — Area residents are invited to honor those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice while serving the country at the 12th Annual Memorial Day Ceremony to be held on Monday, May 26 at 10 a.m. in Salisbury. The ceremony will take place at
The Wicomico War Veterans’ Memorial will host the ceremony in front of the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center. All are welcome and encouraged to attend this free event, which is organized by members of the Wicomico War Veterans’ Memorial Committee. In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will be moved inside to the Civic Center’s Midway Room.
As part of the ceremony, there will be a lowering of the colors by the Wicomico County JROTC, ringing of the Red Knights Memorial Bell, branch prayers and a volley of arms by the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department.
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The Wicomico War Veterans’ Memorial will host the ceremony in front of the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center. All are welcome and encouraged to attend this free event, which is organized by members of the Wicomico War Veterans’ Memorial Committee. In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will be moved inside to the Civic Center’s Midway Room.
As part of the ceremony, there will be a lowering of the colors by the Wicomico County JROTC, ringing of the Red Knights Memorial Bell, branch prayers and a volley of arms by the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department.
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Justice Is Dead In Amerika
Cecily McMillan is an Occupy protester who was seized from behind by a goon thug cop–a goon thug with a long record of abuse of authority–by her boobs. One was badly bruised. Cecily McMillan’s elbow reflexively and instinctively came up, and Cecily was arrested for assaulting a goon thug. The goon thug was not arrested for sexually assaulting a young woman.
False arrests of this sort are common in the US. Indeed, they are more common than justified arrests. The police and the courts are completely corrupted institutions that reek of injustice and evil.
Cecily was locked up in Rikers Island without bail by the judge who sees his role as protecting the abuse of police and prosecutorial power. The judge would not allow evidence in behalf of Cecily to be presented to the jury.
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False arrests of this sort are common in the US. Indeed, they are more common than justified arrests. The police and the courts are completely corrupted institutions that reek of injustice and evil.
Cecily was locked up in Rikers Island without bail by the judge who sees his role as protecting the abuse of police and prosecutorial power. The judge would not allow evidence in behalf of Cecily to be presented to the jury.
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Md. Courts To Recruit Lawyers For Bail Hearings
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Maryland's district courts are hoping to find attorneys willing to represent poor defendants at bail review hearings.
The court system announced Thursday that a new program will pay $50 an hour to attorneys who offer their time and legal expertise to represent defendants who can't afford them. They'll also be reimbursed for mileage and tolls. It's expected to launch on July 1.
The program is the first of its kind in the nation and is meant to comply with a Court of Appeals ruling that Marylanders have a right to legal counsel at all bail hearings.
John Morrissey, the incoming chief judge of the District Court, says the program will appeal to veteran attorneys who want to work an occasional shift or young attorneys who are launching a criminal practice.
Source
The court system announced Thursday that a new program will pay $50 an hour to attorneys who offer their time and legal expertise to represent defendants who can't afford them. They'll also be reimbursed for mileage and tolls. It's expected to launch on July 1.
The program is the first of its kind in the nation and is meant to comply with a Court of Appeals ruling that Marylanders have a right to legal counsel at all bail hearings.
John Morrissey, the incoming chief judge of the District Court, says the program will appeal to veteran attorneys who want to work an occasional shift or young attorneys who are launching a criminal practice.
Source
James Rickards: 'Ugly' Financial Crisis to Jolt US Within 5 Years
A financial catastrophe worse than that of 2008 will hit us within five years, says James Rickards, best-selling author and senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners.
"The meltdown in 2008 was not a meltdown. It was sort of a half-meltdown," he told Dennis Kneale of Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.
While Lehman Brothers was the only major financial institution to completely collapse, others were close to it, said Rickards, author of "The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System."
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"The meltdown in 2008 was not a meltdown. It was sort of a half-meltdown," he told Dennis Kneale of Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.
While Lehman Brothers was the only major financial institution to completely collapse, others were close to it, said Rickards, author of "The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System."
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Salisbury Council Plans To Offer Pre-Meeting Prayer
SALISBURY — With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prayer before government meetings is Constitutional earlier this month, the Salisbury City Council has agreed to return to a prayer policy of inviting various denominations to give a blessing at the beginning of meetings.
The council has tried the policy before without much success after dropping the Lord’s Prayer as the sole benediction back in 2011. Meetings have opened with a moment of silence since that time.
Council President Jake Day brought the matter up Monday, directly referencing the Supreme Court decision. The court ruled 5-4 that prayer before government meetings was Constitutional as long as members of the audience were not coerced to participate and an attempt was made to include diverse faiths.
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The council has tried the policy before without much success after dropping the Lord’s Prayer as the sole benediction back in 2011. Meetings have opened with a moment of silence since that time.
Council President Jake Day brought the matter up Monday, directly referencing the Supreme Court decision. The court ruled 5-4 that prayer before government meetings was Constitutional as long as members of the audience were not coerced to participate and an attempt was made to include diverse faiths.
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Md. Police To Get Training About Disabled People
SYKESVILLE, Md. (AP) -- Maryland will be the first state to teach all law enforcement officers about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in training sessions led partly by disabled people, the chairman of a commission developing the program said.
Timothy Shriver, who also chairs the national Special Olympics, said lessons taught by those whom the program aims to serve will have more impact "because they don't just teach it with words, they don't just teach it with exercises, they teach it with relationships."
Panel members met Thursday in Sykesville to begin shaping the training regimen. They plan to produce a curriculum for use in police academies and in-service training for all 17,000 veteran officers starting in 2015.
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Timothy Shriver, who also chairs the national Special Olympics, said lessons taught by those whom the program aims to serve will have more impact "because they don't just teach it with words, they don't just teach it with exercises, they teach it with relationships."
Panel members met Thursday in Sykesville to begin shaping the training regimen. They plan to produce a curriculum for use in police academies and in-service training for all 17,000 veteran officers starting in 2015.
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Smoking Bans Increase On Rehoboth, Bethany Beaches
In the City of Rehoboth Beach, an existing ban on smoking tobacco products in parks has now been expanded to include the boardwalk, the bandstand area, and much of the beach.
"We do have designated areas where people are allowed to light up on the farthest reaches from the water," says City Commissioner Stan Mills.
Signs and ashtrays make these spots highly visible, Mills says.
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The Feds Are Lawless
What if the federal government is shameless? What if it personifies the adage of do as I say and not as I do? What if it does the very things it prosecutes others for doing? What if it has written laws and enacted procedures so that it can spy and kill, while it charges others with doing just that?
What if the feds recently indicted five low-level Chinese military officers for spying on American corporations? What if the feds accused these officers of using their computers in Beijing to hack into computers in Denver that are not owned by the federal government but by well-known and wealthy American corporations? What if these corporations are rich enough to install digital protections and procedures to insulate themselves from hackers? What if when Google and Apple and Facebook were hacked, they protected themselves from their hackers at no expense to the taxpayers?
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What if the feds recently indicted five low-level Chinese military officers for spying on American corporations? What if the feds accused these officers of using their computers in Beijing to hack into computers in Denver that are not owned by the federal government but by well-known and wealthy American corporations? What if these corporations are rich enough to install digital protections and procedures to insulate themselves from hackers? What if when Google and Apple and Facebook were hacked, they protected themselves from their hackers at no expense to the taxpayers?
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'Vets Want Much More': CNN Reporter Shocked by Obama’s Disconnect on VA Scandal
Wednesday after President Barack Obama made his statement on the VA scandal, CNN reporter Drew Griffin, who first broke the waiting list cover-up in the Phoenix faculty said he was "caught of guard" with the president's "disconnect."
Griffin argued more investigations are not needed and said, "This problem is real. It exists and it really doesn’t have to be studied as to what’s going on. The government has done it’s job studying these issues. and to say you are now going to wait for more studies" he added "We are five years into his presidency and the problem seems to be certainly not better, perhaps even worst."
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Griffin argued more investigations are not needed and said, "This problem is real. It exists and it really doesn’t have to be studied as to what’s going on. The government has done it’s job studying these issues. and to say you are now going to wait for more studies" he added "We are five years into his presidency and the problem seems to be certainly not better, perhaps even worst."
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Take on Being a Circuit Court Judge
I think these may be instructive as to what types of cases a Circuit Court Judge should have experience with. Jury trials, serious criminal, complex/major civil, and family law matters are concerns for every citizen.
http://www.mdcourts.gov/circuit/dorchester/index.html
http://www.mdcourts.gov/circuit/somerset/index.html
The Cloud in the Machine
Or, you can never have the same traffic-jam twice.
Politics is not always about somebody getting his way and somebody else failing to get his way. Consider the case of the Veterans Affairs hospitals: Nobody wanted this outcome. That outcome, recall, is a great many dead veterans, the result of medical and managerial malpractice. Democrats did not want the hospitals that care for our veterans to be catastrophically mismanaged while administrators set about systematically destroying the evidence of their incompetence, and Republicans did not want that, either. Independents are firmly opposed to negligently killing veterans. It doesn’t poll well. Everybody is so opposed to that outcome that we created a cabinet-level secretariat to prevent it and installed as its boss Eric Shinseki, a highly regarded former Army general. We spent very large sums of money, billions of dollars, to prevent this outcome, almost trebling VA spending from 2000 to 2013 even as the total number of veterans declined by several million.
Nobody wanted these veterans dead, but dead they are. How is it possible that the government of the United States of America — arguably the most powerful organization of any sort in the history of the human race, in possession of a navy, a nuclear arsenal, and a vast police apparatus — cannot ensure that its own employees and contractors do not negligently kill its other employees and former employees? Never mind providing veterans with world-class medical care — the federal government cannot even prevent bureaucratic homicide. All of the political will is behind having a decent VA, and there is nothing to be gained politically from having a horrific one. How can it be that, with everybody free to vote as he pleases and to propose such policies as please him, we end up with what nobody wants?
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Politics is not always about somebody getting his way and somebody else failing to get his way. Consider the case of the Veterans Affairs hospitals: Nobody wanted this outcome. That outcome, recall, is a great many dead veterans, the result of medical and managerial malpractice. Democrats did not want the hospitals that care for our veterans to be catastrophically mismanaged while administrators set about systematically destroying the evidence of their incompetence, and Republicans did not want that, either. Independents are firmly opposed to negligently killing veterans. It doesn’t poll well. Everybody is so opposed to that outcome that we created a cabinet-level secretariat to prevent it and installed as its boss Eric Shinseki, a highly regarded former Army general. We spent very large sums of money, billions of dollars, to prevent this outcome, almost trebling VA spending from 2000 to 2013 even as the total number of veterans declined by several million.
Nobody wanted these veterans dead, but dead they are. How is it possible that the government of the United States of America — arguably the most powerful organization of any sort in the history of the human race, in possession of a navy, a nuclear arsenal, and a vast police apparatus — cannot ensure that its own employees and contractors do not negligently kill its other employees and former employees? Never mind providing veterans with world-class medical care — the federal government cannot even prevent bureaucratic homicide. All of the political will is behind having a decent VA, and there is nothing to be gained politically from having a horrific one. How can it be that, with everybody free to vote as he pleases and to propose such policies as please him, we end up with what nobody wants?
More
Underestimate the Internet at Your Peril
$1 Million Bounty to Be Offered for 'Smoking Gun' in IRS Targeting Scandal ... A nonprofit group hopes to award a $1 million bounty to anyone who can provide "smoking gun" evidence to implicate IRS leadership or members of the Obama administration who purposefully targeted conservative and tea party-affiliated groups, TheBlaze has learned. Gregg Phillips, the managing director for The Voters Trust, a political nonprofit 501 (c)(4) which was established to identify and mobilize Americans, told TheBlaze on Wednesday "that this is the people's bounty to seek the truth." Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the nonprofit group True the Vote, will be officially announcing the bounty Wednesday night on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show, "The Kelly File" at 9 p.m. ET. To qualify for the bounty, the person needs to provide "relevant evidence including emails, eye-witness accounts, or testimony of political targeting of Americans by the IRS or the Obama administration that has not previously been reported," according to an official press release from the group obtained by TheBlaze. – TheBlaze
Dominant Social Theme: The Tea Party is a flash in the pan and the current system is strong enough, honorable enough and decent enough to withstand the attacks now being leveled at it.
Free-Market Analysis: Despite regular efforts to downplay the political change taking place around the US, events like this one – in the excerpt above – show that the sociopolitical fabric itself is being attacked by citizens who for one reason or another have had enough.
Troopers Step Up Patrols for Memorial Day Weekend Travel Safety
Dover - The Delaware State Police will be out in full force patrolling the roadways this weekend to ensure that everyone is driving with due care and offering assistance to motorists in need. The Delaware State Police Mounted Patrol Unit will also be assisting the Dewey Beach Police Department with proactive patrols, and the Delaware State Police Maritime Unit’s “Marine One” will be operating on Delaware’s waterways to ensure boater safety and security.
“As we take time this Memorial Day Weekend to celebrate the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, we must not forget the dangers that can arise from traveling on our roadways,” said Sergeant Paul G. Shavack, Director of Public Information for the Delaware State Police. “The Delaware State Police would like to wish everyone an enjoyable but SAFE Memorial Day weekend!”
Troopers intend to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on our highways during this “official” start of the summer season. Troopers will be focusing on distracted driving, motorists not wearing seat belts, unrestrained children in vehicles, and any aggressive driving behaviors such as speeding, following too close, and especially, driving under the influence.
By following these easy steps, a driver can enjoy a safe holiday weekend travel without jeopardizing their life or the lives of others who may be on the road:
Ensure all occupants of are properly restrained
Plan a safe way home before the festivities begin
Before drinking, please designate a sober driver and give that person your keys
If you’re impaired, use a taxi, call a sober friend or family member, or use public transportation so you are sure to get home safely
If you see a drunk or aggressive driver on the road, immediately contact 911 as soon as safely possible.
If you know someone who is about to drive while impaired, take their keys and help them make other arrangements to get to where they are going safely.
“As we take time this Memorial Day Weekend to celebrate the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, we must not forget the dangers that can arise from traveling on our roadways,” said Sergeant Paul G. Shavack, Director of Public Information for the Delaware State Police. “The Delaware State Police would like to wish everyone an enjoyable but SAFE Memorial Day weekend!”
Troopers intend to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on our highways during this “official” start of the summer season. Troopers will be focusing on distracted driving, motorists not wearing seat belts, unrestrained children in vehicles, and any aggressive driving behaviors such as speeding, following too close, and especially, driving under the influence.
By following these easy steps, a driver can enjoy a safe holiday weekend travel without jeopardizing their life or the lives of others who may be on the road:
Ensure all occupants of are properly restrained
Plan a safe way home before the festivities begin
Before drinking, please designate a sober driver and give that person your keys
If you’re impaired, use a taxi, call a sober friend or family member, or use public transportation so you are sure to get home safely
If you see a drunk or aggressive driver on the road, immediately contact 911 as soon as safely possible.
If you know someone who is about to drive while impaired, take their keys and help them make other arrangements to get to where they are going safely.
Virginia city official defends boosting worker’s pension by $400,000
Richmond’s top city official defended a decision to transfer one employee’s 800 hours of unused sick leave from her previous city job so she could receive $400,0000 more in pension compensation.
It’s “not a unique transaction,” Chief Administrative Officer Byron Marshall said, according to a recent city audit.
That only raises more unanswered questions about what other transactions happen in Richmond’s senior-level offices as the state drowns in nearly $2 billion of debt, according to the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report.
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It’s “not a unique transaction,” Chief Administrative Officer Byron Marshall said, according to a recent city audit.
That only raises more unanswered questions about what other transactions happen in Richmond’s senior-level offices as the state drowns in nearly $2 billion of debt, according to the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report.
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Budget Bill Signed By O’Malley Contained Unconstitutional Provisions, Gansler Says
That’s what Attorney General Doug Gansler told O’Malley in a letter the day before he signed the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2014, SB172. But the AG still said O’Malley could sign the bill.
The letter was first reported on Wednesday by the Conduit Street blog of the Maryland Association of Counties.
Other unconstitutional provisions in the catch-all BRFA (BUR-fa as it’s called) included a $50 reduction in the title fees for rental cars, a funding mandate for the Maryland Park Service, a mandate that speed camera fees be used to buy State Police vehicles and a hotel tax in Harford County.
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TROY CONNORS CONVICTED BY WICOMICO COUNTY JURY RECEIVES 5 YEAR SENTENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS FOR HEROIN POSSESSION
On February 7, 2013 the Maryland State Police responded to a Wicomico County residence for a reported heroin overdose. The defendant was first observed in the residence wearing a blue coat. A short time later Troy Connors took off his jacket and hung it on a coat rack moving away from the jacket. The trooper’s investigation led to the blue jacket Connors was observed wearing and inside the coat pocket were three syringes, cotton balls, and heroin.
Connors told the jury the coat was his but was unable to explain the presence of the drugs and needles in his jacket pocket.
The jury returned after 3 minutes in deliberation and found Mr. Connors guilty of possessing the heroin found in his coat. He was determined to be a subsequent offender under Maryland Law and was sentenced to five years in the Division of Corrections.
Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matthew A. Maciarello commended the Maryland State Police for their work in the investigation and prosecution of this case. Mr. Maciarello also thanked the citizens of Wicomico County who sat on the jury and Safe Streets Prosecutor, Richard J. Brueckner Jr., who prosecuted this case.
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