County Keeps Municipality Funding Flat In New Budget; Resort’s Tax Differential Formula Denied For Now

SNOW HILL – Despite Ocean City’s campaign for funding to address tax differential, Worcester County officials voted 4-3 this week to fund the municipality at the same level it was funded last year.

During a budget work session Tuesday, the Worcester County Commissioners made a decision to keep funding to all of the municipalities flat in the coming fiscal year. Instead of the $5 million grant Ocean City was seeking, the resort will receive $3,084,956.

“I don’t think you should flat-fund anybody unless you’re going to flat fund everybody,” Commissioner Ted Elder said.

A committee of county staff proposed funding Ocean City with an additional $200,000 in FY 2016, which would have brought the total grant to $3,284,956.

“It was just put out here for conversation,” said Harold Higgins, the county’s chief administrative officer.

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Homeless Tier II Sex Offender Notification

Erik R. Dixon, 20 of Lewes, DE

5’05" tall, 120 lbs.
White male, brown hair, blue eyes

Lewes, DE – Erik R. Dixon is not wanted. This is a homeless sex offender public notification. Dixon is a Medium Risk Tier II sex offender who has registered as homeless in Lewes, DE. If you have information that he is occupying a residence please contact 302-672-5306. Information may also be provided via the internet at www.delaware.crimestoppersweb.com or by sending an anonymous tip by text to 274637 (CRIMES) using the keyword "DSP." (CRIMES) using the keyword "DSP."

The Left's Twisted Concern for Premature Black (Voter) Deaths

“Blacks die sooner than whites. How many votes has this cost Democrats?” So headlined The Washington Post over the weekend. It’s not so much that black lives matter, you see, as black votes matter to Democrat politicians.

Writing in the Post, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor Dean Robinson takes a look at the research of Javier Rodriguez, Arline Geronimus, John Bound and Danny Dorling, four university professors who attempt to calculate how different election outcomes might have been if the voting-age blacks who died between 1970 and 2004 had lived and voted (Democrat).

According to Robinson, “Rodriguez and colleagues estimate that excess deaths among blacks totaled 2.7 million between 1970 and 2004, that 1.74 million would have been of voting age, and that 1 million would have voted in the 2004 election. Combining excess mortality with the consequences of felon disenfranchisement, they find that about 1 in 7 blacks (15 percent) did not have the opportunity to vote in 2004 for one of these two reasons.”

While the study authors conclude the 2004 presidential election would not have turned out different, they assert the “[o]utcomes of 7 senate and 11 gubernatorial races could have been reversed.”

Then Robinson lays out the familiar narrative about racial inequality. “Research has shown that blacks are not dying in excess because of differences in genetic endowment or health behavior,” he says. “Instead, health disparities reflect racial and class inequality and an accumulation of stressors, including segregation, discrimination, exposure to pollution and unequal access to health-care resources, to name a few.”

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Mayor Calls on Neighborhood Activists to Attend Important Work Session, Monday, May 18, 2015

Publishers Notes: Jim trying to use the citizens to turn on each other to bully the City Council. Let's see if Jim has any friends show up.

Salisbury – Mayor James Ireton, Jr. today announced that he will forward for Council consideration three initiatives aimed at strengthening the City’s ability to combat blight and preserve neighborhood integrity. The City Council will be presented with the proposals this coming Monday, May 18th, at what the Mayor believes will be the most important Council work session in years for Salisbury neighborhoods.

The Mayor has requested that Council consider an ordinance for amortization of houses which had previously been granted exemption as “4-3” and “4-4” dwellings under the City’s “4 to 2” law; a budget amendment establishing a fund for purchasing derelict properties at tax sale; and a discussion of a proposed Community Development Initiative for combatting blight in Salisbury.

Amortization of Legal Non-Conforming Uses

Feds to return $107G they seized from NC business owner, attorneys say

Lyndon McLellan fought the law -- and apparently, he won.

The North Carolina business owner for months has been battling the federal government after IRS agents last fall seized $107,000 from him, under a controversial practice known as civil forfeiture. But his attorneys at the Institute for Justice announced Thursday that the IRS and Department of Justice have moved to dismiss the case and give him back his money.

“What’s wrong is wrong, and what the government did here was wrong,” McLellan said in a statement Thursday. “I just hope that by standing up for what’s right, it means it won’t happen to other people.”

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Democrats Immediately Exploit Train Wreck

Regarding the Philadelphia train crash, the blood of the seven dead was not dry on the tracks before Democrats attempted to convert this tragedy into political capital. Congress was deliberating Amtrak funding and, in keeping with Rahm Emmanuel’s maxim to “never let a good crisis go to waste,” Democrats immediately asserted that the crash was related to an “infrastructure failure.”

Obama’s White House mouthpiece Josh Earnest got in on the act, saying, “The president has been a leading advocate … for investing in our infrastructure.” He added, “Unfortunately, we have seen a concerted effort by Republicans for partisan reasons to step in front of those kinds of advancements.”

According to investigators, the train was traveling over 106 mph, or twice the posted track speed.

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ABC ‘Newsman’ Gave $50K To Hillary

ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their non-profit organization, the On Media blog has learned.

In both 2013 and 2014, Stephanopoulos made a $25,000 donation to the 501 nonprofit founded by former president Bill Clinton, the Foundation's records show. Stephanopoulos never disclosed this information to viewers, even when interviewing author Peter Schweizer last month about his book "Clinton Cash," which alleges that donations to the Foundation may have influenced some of Hillary Clinton's actions as Secretary of State.

In a statement to the On Media blog on Thursday, Stephanopoulos apologized and said that he should have disclosed the donations to ABC News and its viewers.

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FISCAL LIBERALS POLITICIZING THE AMTRAK TRAGEDY

“IF ONLY ANOTHER $1.31 BILLION HAD BEEN APPROPRIATED …”

At least seven people are dead in Pennsylvania – and dozens more injured – after an Amtrak passenger train carrying 238 passengers and five crew members derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.

Let’s stop for a moment before going any further and acknowledge that, shall we?

Before all the bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage, though, fiscal liberals in the U.S. Congress were already blaming the tragedy on government underfunding of the chronically cash-strapped train system.

They also used the crash as an excuse to try and add $1.31 billion to the $1.14 billion Amtrak is getting in a transportation appropriations bill – and then bitched, moaned and played partisan politics when the effort was defeated.

“It is deeply troubling that my Republican colleagues defeated an amendment to fully fund Amtrak just hours after his tragic rail crash,” liberal U.S. representative Nita Lowey of New York said.

Really?

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Worcester County eyeing 8-cent tax hike to close ‘16 budget gap

Although nothing has been finalized, some clues began to emerge Tuesday as to how the Worcester County Commissioners intend to close the $22 million gap between revenues and expenditures.

As the commissioners began to evaluate the proposed FY16 budget line by line during their first work session devoted exclusively to that the issue, a clearer picture of their intent began to form.

Chiefly, it appears the county is working with a proposed 8-cent increase in the property tax rate, which will take it from the current rate of 77 cents per $100 of assessed value to 85 cents per $100. On a home assessed at $200,000 the tax hike will mean an extra $160 in taxes, bringing the total to $1,700 from $1,540.

Even with the increase, Worcester is still well behind Somerset and Wicomico’s 2015 respective rates of 91.5 cents and 95.2 cents per $100. The increase will edge Worcester ahead of Queen Anne’s county rates for 2015 of 84.7 cents, which translates to $6 on a $200,000 home.

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Black Bike Week: Is A Crackdown Coming?

GRAND STRAND IMPOSES “DE FACTO MARTIAL LAW”

Against the wishes of S.C. governor Nikki Haley, the annual Atlantic Beach Bikefest is set to begin on May 22 … and officials on the Grand Strand are bracing for the worst. In addition to imposing what one critic referred to as “de facto martial law,” officials have also set up a 23-mile “traffic loop” in an effort to prevent “parking lot parties.”

The loop – which wasn’t implemented for this week’s “white biker weekend” – is just one part of the response effort, though.

Grand Strand authorities plan on cracking down on the parties they claim led to last year’s violence via some broadly worded new ordinances.

“Impromptu parties, with or without alcohol, are illegal on both public and private property,” the city of Myrtle Beach, S.C. stated on its bikefest website.

Wait … what? That sounds a lot like overreach to us …

Additionally, “excessive noise, including noise created by loud music, revving engines and spinning tires” is also banned. Individuals who violate either of these ordinances – or the prohibition against consuming alcohol in a parking lot – could face up to thirty days in jail.

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O'Malley to Announce Presidential Plans on May 30

Martin O'Malley plans to announce his presidential intentions on May 30 in Baltimore, a move that could present another Democratic challenger to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The former Maryland governor will hold a conference call with top supporters on Thursday night to discuss his plans for the announcement in his adopted hometown, where he served as mayor, an O'Malley aide said Thursday. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning and was not authorized to speak publicly.

O'Malley, who completed his second term as governor earlier this year, has been considering a potential challenge to Clinton, the leading Democratic contender, and made repeated trips to the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He has cast himself as a champion of progressive causes during his time as governor and appealed to liberal voters within the party who are hesitant to support Clinton.

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In Stunning U-Turn, NBC Retracts Story That Obama Lied About bin Laden

It would appear someone at NBC News got a rather large tap on the shoulder. In what isa stunning reversal of their confirmation that President Obama lied and lying about the killing of bin Laden,NBC News has updated their original story - that "two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a 'walk in' asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding" - to this - "Sources say that while the asset provided information vital to the hunt for bin Laden, he was not the source of his whereabouts." As Slate concludes,while NBC’s story doesn’t use the word correction or retraction, that’s what this appears to be.

Since we discussed the details of the original NBC News 'confirmation' story here...

...the Obama administration has spent the last 24 hours working to discredit the story. Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the report from Hersh was “largely a fabrication” with “too many inaccuracies.”

The White House says the Hersh’s investigation is riddled with inaccuracies.

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Marines Practice Subduing Citizens Inside Internment Camp

‘Ping Pong Summer’ Returning Part Of Seed Money To OC, Worcester County

OCEAN CITY – The Town of Ocean City will receive a $30,000 return from its $100,000 investment in the “Ping Pong Summer” movie.

Tourism and Marketing Director Donna Abbott presented an update on the film “Ping Pong Summer” during Monday’s Tourism Commission meeting.

In June of 2012, Ocean City was first introduced to the story of “Ping Pong Summer” when Writer/Director Michael Tully and producers pitched the movie concept and sought the public’s help in financing it.

“Ping Pong Summer” is set in the summer of 1985 and centers on a ping pong and hip-hop obsessed teenage boy on a family vacation to Ocean City. Tully wrote the story and directed the film based on his own experiences on summer family vacations in the resort while growing up in Mt. Airy, Md.

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Thank God Its Friday 5-15-15

What will you be doing this weekend?

Protest Of Baltimore Police Actions Planned On Preakness Day

BALTIMORE (AP) — Some groups opposed to Baltimore police actions in the Freddie Gray case plan to rally in downtown Baltimore Saturday afternoon.

The demonstration is set for 3 p.m. in McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor. That’s about two hours before the scheduled start of the Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, 5 1/2 miles away.

Sharon Black of the Baltimore People’s Power Assembly says marchers from the rally are unlikely to reach Pimlico.

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MEMORIAL EFFORT UNDERWAY TO REMEMBER THOSE LOST IN THE CRASH OF TROOPER 2

(BALTIMORE, MD) – An effort by law enforcement, fire, and rescue personnel is underway to remember those killed aboard a Maryland State Police helicopter that crashed on one of the darkest nights of the state’s public safety history.

The Trooper 2 Memorial Fund has been initiated to establish a memorial to the crew and one of the patients on-board who died in the 2008 crash. The memorial will be placed at the entrance to the walking trail that leads to the crash location in Walker Mill Park in District Heights, Md. A second marker will be placed at the actual crash site.

On September 27, 2008, Trooper 2 responded from its hangar at Andrews Air Force Base to Waldorf, to assist the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department with the medevac of two car crash victims. Because two victims were being transported, a second medical provider was needed and an emergency medical technician from the fire department joined the State Police helicopter crew for the flight to the trauma center.

Trooper 2 encountered poor weather while en route to the trauma center and attempted to land at Andrews, but crashed while on approach to the airport. Maryland State Police Pilot Stephen Bunker and flight paramedic Trooper First Class Mickey Lippy, Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department EMT Tonya Mallard, and patient Ashley Younger, were killed in the crash. The second patient, Jordan Wells, was critically injured, but survived.

Soon after the crash, a group of concerned supporters began efforts to establish a memorial to those who died. The committee includes University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell, who is also a former Superintendent of the Maryland State Police, Major (Ret) Mark Gibbons, former Commander of the Maryland State Police Aviation Command, Major Frank Lioi, current Commander of the Aviation Command, Maryland State Police Captain Bill Dofflemyer, who is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department, Mr. Lou Ramer, a member of the Board of Directors of the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department, and Mr. John Mullican, the memorial artist.

“It is important that we do this because the sacrifice of these public servants must not be forgotten,” Major Frank Lioi said. “This memorial will be an appropriate reminder to all who see it of the dedicated public servants who gave their lives in service to others, as well as the patient who died while in their care. We must honor their memory and their sacrifice, while reminding their families that they will always be remembered.”

The Trooper 2 Memorial Fund has been established through the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department to raise the $45,000 needed to build the memorial and marker. The funds need to be raised by July 1st in order to have the memorial and marker in place by September 27th. Donations are tax deductible. Donations may be sent to:
The Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department
Trooper 2 Memorial Fund
3245 Old Washington Rd.
Waldorf, MD 20602
Donations may also be made on line at: http://www.waldorfvfd.com.

The committee hopes to have the donations raised and the memorial erected in time for a memorial ceremony and dedication event. The ceremony is planned for September 27, 2015, the seventh anniversary of that tragic night.

Nepal rescuers find 3 bodies near crashed US Marine chopper

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepalese rescuers on Friday found three bodies near the wreckage of a U.S. Marine helicopter that disappeared earlier this week while on a relief mission in the earthquake-hit Himalayan nation, and officials said it was unlikely there were any survivors from the crash.

“The wreckage of the helicopter was found in pieces and there are no chances of any survivors,” Nepal’s Defense Secretary Iswori Poudyal said. He gave no details about the nationalities of the three victims, only saying their remains were charred.

The helicopter was carrying six Marines and two Nepalese army soldiers.

A separate team sent by the U.S. Marines also said they identified the wreckage as the missing helicopter, the UH-1 “Huey.”

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God Bless America

B.B. King, Legendary Blues Guitarist, Dies At 89

It seemed like he'd go on forever ... and B.B. King was working right up until the end. It's what he loved to do: playing music ... and fishing. Even late in life, living with diabetes, he spent about half the year on the road. King died Thursday night at home in Las Vegas. He was 89 years old.

He was born Riley B. King on a plantation in Itta Bena, Miss. He played on street corners before heading to Memphis, Tenn., where he stayed with his cousin, the great country bluesman Bukka White. His career took off thanks to radio — he got a spot on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio show, then landed his own slot on black-run WDIA in Memphis. He needed a handle. At first it was Beale Street Blues Boy. Then Blues Boy King. Finally B.B. King stuck.

You can't mention names without talking about his guitar, Lucille. It was actually more than one. The story goes that the first was a $30 acoustic he was playing at a dance in Arkansas when two men got in a fight, kicked over a stove and started a fire. When King was safe outside, he realized he'd left the guitar inside. He ran back into the burning dance hall to save it. After he learned the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to name his guitar for her to remind himself never to get into a fight over a woman. And since then, every one of his trademark Gibson ES-355s has been named Lucille.

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