Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Thursday, August 09, 2018

Crock Pot Cooking -- great site

Summer is moving by very quickly and it won't be long till the cool weather is back.

Here is a great site I discovered many years ago that has been revived... a VERY handy site for crockpot fans!

Crock Pot Cooking

Artificial intelligence programs take computer hacking to another level

The nightmare scenario for computer security - artificial intelligence programs that can learn how to evade even the best defenses - may already have arrived.

That warning from security researchers is driven home by a team from IBM Corp. who have used the artificial intelligence technique known as machine learning to build hacking programs that could slip past top-tier defensive measures. The group will unveil details of its experiment at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

State-of-the-art defenses generally rely on examining what the attack software is doing, rather than the more commonplace technique of analyzing software code for danger signs. But the new genre of AI-driven programs can be trained to stay dormant until they reach a very specific target, making them exceptionally hard to stop.

No one has yet boasted of catching any malicious software that clearly relied on machine learning or other variants of artificial intelligence, but that may just be because the attack programs are too good to be caught.

More here

Among Democrats, the Clinton name is starting to stink

You'd think this would be catbird-seat time for Bill Clinton.

His ideological style of Democrats – the moderates – are winning primaries and special elections these days in Congress. And unlike President Obama, Clinton and his presidency are remembered for prosperity, including all the jobs that were created. Theoretically, that's something Democrats should be able to point to with pride, given all the embarrassment the Obama record presents in stark contrast to President Trump.

Somehow, that's not happening.

Democrats are moving away from Bill Clinton like a bad smell. In New Hampshire, which up until now has been one of Clinton's strongest states, a name inextricably linked to some of Clinton's strongest political successes, as the Boston Globe notes, grassroots Democrats have yanked Clinton's name from the masthead of a big Democratic Party fundraiser, changing the whole thing to the hoary name of Eleanor Roosevelt.

More

New Leader Today In White Marlin Tournament, 83 pounds

8/9/18Under Dog
Virginia Beach, VA
Gregory Giron
Virginia Beach, VA

More updates HERE.
83$2,600,000.00

Big Labor Kills Missouri Right-To-Work Law

Missouri Democrats and unions celebrated Tuesday night after voters rejected and nullified the state’s right-to-work law passed by the legislature last year.

Roughly two-thirds of Missourians voted to repeal right-to-work protections that prevented employers and unions from forcing individuals to join a union or pay agency fees as a condition of employment. The vote was a setback for Republicans in the solidly red state, The Washington Post reports.

“At a time when working families are struggling because wages are stagnant and health care and education costs are soaring, nobody should be forced to pay union dues,” a spokeswoman for GOP senate candidate Josh Hawley’s campaign told WaPo in an email.

The state referendum, known as Proposition A, gave state residents the chance to overturn the legislation passed by the state legislature in February 2017. Under Missouri law, legislation can be subjected to a referendum if 100,000 residents sign a petition supporting the challenge. Unions pulled together 310,000 signatures, temporarily blocking the law from taking effect until after the vote, CNN reports.

More

5 charged in multimillion dollar counterfeiting scheme following ICE HSI investigation

NEW YORK — Five Queens residents were charged Tuesday pursuant to an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York’s Border Enforcement Task Force (BEST). This investigation, worked by HSI special agents and taskforce members from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) resulted in the arrest of five individuals conspiring to traffic in more than $70 million worth of counterfeit Nike Air Jordans. Miyuki Suen, Jian Min Huang, Songhua Qu, Kin Lui Chen, and Fangrang Qu are charged with importing hundreds-of-thousands of athletic shoes from China into the United States. Once those shoes arrived, the defendants and other co-conspirators affixed counterfeit Nike-trademarked logos to those shoes in New York, and sold the now-counterfeit Air Jordans in the United States.

“These five individuals are alleged to have been a part of a large scale counterfeiting scheme, importing nearly a half million pairs of knock-off Nike sneakers,” said Angel M. Melendez, special agent in charge for HSI New York. “These counterfeiting networks can be both detrimental to our economy and threaten our national security, and HSI will continue to take every measure in investigating and dismantling these organizations.”

“The five defendants in this case allegedly counterfeited over $70 million in fake Nike shoes and sold them to buyers on the U.S. market. I commend our law enforcement partners for helping to bring today’s charges, which send a clear message to would-be counterfeiters: ‘Just don’t do it,’” said Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,

As alleged in the complaint, from at least in or about January 2016 up to and including in or about July 2018, Suen, Huang, Songhua Qu, Kin Lui Chen, and Fangrang Qu, imported at least 42 shipping containers holding an estimated more than 380,000 pairs of sneakers from China. These sneakers were manufactured to resemble Nike Air Jordans. Once these shoes arrived, Suen, Huang, Songhua Qu, Chen, and Fangrang Qu, added trademarked logos to the shoes, rendering them counterfeit. Suen, Huang, Songhua Qu, Kin Lui Chen, and Fangrang Qu then stored the counterfeit Nike Air Jordans in multiple storage units and warehouses in New York City and elsewhere.

More

Berlin Little League Smokes Pennsylvania

The Berlin Little League team just won their game 6 to 0. Congratulations Berlin!!!

The Trump Rule’s Congressional Reform Act of 2018

1 – NO TENURE / NO PENSION. A Congressman/Woman, collects a salary while in office and receives No Pay when they’re Out Of Office. No More Perks Go With Them.

2 – Congressman/Woman (Past, Present & Future) participate in Social Security. All Funds in the Congressional Retirement Fund Move To The Social Security System Immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security System and Congress participates with the American People. It may not be used for any other purposes.

3 – Congress must purchase their own Retirement Plan, just as all Americans do.

4 – Congress will No Longer Vote Themselves a Pay Increase.
Congressional Pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5 – Congress loses their current Healthcare System and participates
in the same Healthcare System as the American People.

6 – Congress must equally abide by all the Laws they impose on the
American People.

7 – All contracts with Past and Present Congressman/Woman are Void.


The American People did not make this Contract with Congressmen/Women. Congress made all these Contracts For Themselves. Serving in Congress is an Honor, Not a Career. The Founding Fathers envisioned Citizen Legislators should serve their Terms, then go home and go back to work and not get all kinds of Freebies!

NO WONDER THEY’RE FIGHTING EVERYTHING HE TRIES!

August 10th Delmar VFW Grilled Pork Chop Dinner

The public is invited to join the Delmar VFW Auxiliary for a Grilled Pork Chop Dinner from 6 - 8 p.m. on Friday, August 10, at the VFW Post, 200 West State Street, Delmar, MD.

The menu will include a large savory grilled pork chop that has been marinated for over 24 hours, a tossed salad with choice of dressings, a baked potato with butter and/or sour cream, choice of succotash or broccoli with melted cheese, a dinner roll, and iced tea. Desserts will also be available.

The cost is $12 per person. A 50/50 raffle will also be held. Call 410-896-3722 after 6 p.m. for carry outs. Proceeds will benefit the many local charities and organizations supported by the Delmar VFW Auxiliary.

ICE removes rape suspect wanted in Mexico ****And the Liberals want to get rid of ICE?****

PHILADELPHIA — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) removed Monday a fugitive citizen of Mexico, who was wanted by authorities in his home country for rape and robbery.

“The apprehension of foreign fugitives in the United States continues to be a high priority for ICE,” said Simona L. Flores, field office director of ERO Philadelphia. “The United States will not be a safe haven to those seeking sanctuary for crimes committed in their home country.”

Francisco Javier Diaz-Lua, 28, entered the United States on an unknown date and place without inspection or parole by an immigration officer.

On June 23, 2016, the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) arrested Mr. Diaz-Lua and issued him a notice and order of expedited removal and removed him to Mexico on the following day.

On an unknown date, he re-entered the United States without being admitted or paroled.

On May 30, 2018, ERO Philadelphia’s York sub-office arrested Mr. Diaz-Lua without incident and issued him a notice of intent/decision to reinstate prior order of removal.

More

OCPD: Do you know this person?


Do you know this person? Officers are asking for assistance in identifying this suspect. He was seen exposing himself to minors in an indoor pool at a hotel in the area of 21st Street yesterday, August 7, at approximately 1 p.m. He is described as a male in his 40's with a muscular build and a tattoo on his back covering his right shoulder. He was seen wearing dark blue swim trunks and black sneakers with white soles. If you have any information, please email PFC Gutowski atagutowski@oceancitymd.gov or call our Crime Tip Hotline number at 410-520-5136. You can also leave an anonymous tip at oceancitymd.gov/police.

WikiLeaks legal team ‘considering’ offer for Julian Assange to testify before Senate Intelligence Committee

WikiLeaks said Wednesday its legal team is “considering” whether to allow founder Julian Assange to testify before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, posting a letter it says is from committee leadership.

The letter, dated Aug. 1, says the committee is requesting Assange make himself “available for a closed interview with bipartisan Committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location.” The letter is signed by Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va.

A spokeswoman for Burr declined to comment about the authenticity of the letter.

More

Driver Gets 17-Year Sentence For Theft, 16-Mile Route 113 Chase

SNOW HILL — A Salisbury man who led allied law enforcement agencies on a high-speed chase in the wrong direction on Route 113 was found guilty this week and sentenced to over 17 years in jail.

Last October, Garland Moss, 50, of Salisbury, reportedly stole a flat-screen television from the Wal-Mart in Pocomoke, causing Pocomoke Police to give chase as the suspect fled the scene in a vehicle. Pocomoke Police pursued Moss’s vehicle as it headed north on Route 113 toward Berlin.

Pocomoke Police dropped their chase efforts when Moss traveled out of the municipality’s jurisdiction and the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office took up the pursuit. Moss’s vehicle headed north on Route 113 in the southbound lanes for several miles with speeds reaching in excess of 100 mph with Worcester County Sheriff’s deputies in pursuit.

Worcester County Sheriff’s deputies were able to disable Moss’s vehicle by blowing out its tires, but Moss continued to travel north in the southbound lanes. By then, the chase had covered 16 miles from where it began in Pocomoke before Moss’s vehicle burst into flames. Sheriff’s deputies were able to extricate Moss from the burning vehicle when it came to rest on the shoulder of Route 113 in the area of the Worcester County Technical High School.

More

California's Holy Fire suspect arrested, allegedly warned 'this place will burn'

A man arrested in connection with a Southern California wildfire that has burned 12 cabins and led to some evacuations reportedly had warned in an email: “This place will burn.”

Officials at the Cleveland National Forest said 51-year-old Forrest Gordon Clark was booked Wednesday on suspicion of two counts of felony arson, and one count each of felony threat to terrorize and misdemeanor resisting arrest.

He was arrested in connection with the so-called Holy Fire, which has burned more than 6 square miles in the Santa Ana Mountains.

Clark, according to The Orange County Register, owns a cabin in the area of the fires, and he sent the email to Volunteer Fire Chief Mike Milligan warning: “this place will burn.”

More

DECADES OF MISMANAGEMENT TURNED US FORESTS INTO ‘SLOW-MOTION TIME BOMBS’

Wildfire experts say poor management, not global warming, is the major reason behind worsening wildfires.
Forester Bob Zybach warned decades ago that environmental regulations and less logging would make fires worse.
The Trump administration is doing more active management of lands, but is it enough?

Bob Zybach feels like a broken record. Decades ago he warned government officials allowing Oregon’s forests to grow unchecked by proper management would result in catastrophic wildfires.

While some want to blame global warming for the uptick in catastrophic wildfires, Zybach said a change in forest management policies is the main reason Americans are seeing a return to more intense fires, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and California where millions of acres of protected forests stand.

“We knew exactly what would happen if we just walked away,” Zybach, an experienced forester with a PhD in environmental science, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

More

Media Omits New Mexico Compound Leader

Media outlets are leaving out a key detail about the New Mexico compound leaders who were reportedly training young children to commit school shootings.

Eleven children were recently rescued from the “filthy” compound, which police say appears to be run by Siraj Wahhaj and Lucas Morten. Wahhaj, the son of a prominent imam, was accused in court documents released Wednesday of training the children on the compound to commit school shootings.

Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said Tuesday that he believes Wahhaj and Morten are “extremist[s] of the Muslim belief.” Wahhaj’s father is a controversial cleric with ties to Muslim rights groups and was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case.

Fox News noted the extremist nature of the compound leaders in an article published Wednesday, but other news outlets have not been as forthcoming about the group’s Muslim ties.

More

Washington Post Uses Soros-Funded Group to Attack Voter Fraud Exposé

What passes for “journalism” today? Washington Post reporter Eli Rosenberg contacted my organization, the Government Accountability Institute, at midnight to comment on an incendiary piece challenging our groundbreaking work on voter fraud. For some strange reason, we were unavailable at that time.

He then promptly published the story at 5:45 a.m., noting that “GAI declined to comment on Tuesday morning.” His actions eliminate even the most charitable interpretations of anything resembling journalistic fairness.

His article is a hit piece posing as a news article. He’s clearly doing the bidding of left-wing activists who are concerned by our data-driven research that demonstrates real evidence of the threat of voter fraud.

More

Maryland Fishing Report



Photo of Little girl with white perch
Poppy Lewis is all smiles with her white perch that she caught all by herself. Photo by Keith Lockwood
It is often said that summertime is for kids, and truer words could not be spoken this month.
August will be gone in a flash so don’t delay getting any youngsters you know out or near the water to enjoy some fun fishing.
Two fish that are always ready to accommodate our young anglers are bluegill sunfish and white perch. Kids need plenty of action to keep them interested and these two species can provide that if you take the steps to ensure success.
It is pretty hard to beat worms and a bobber for bluegills at a local pond or fishing under a dock with grass shrimp and a simple one-hook bottom rig for white perch.

And for you photographers out there, the Maryland Natural Resource photo contest wraps up this month. Enter your best shots showcasing Maryland’s great fishing and outdoors by midnight Aug. 31. 
Winners will be featured in the 2019 wall calendar; additional prizes include cash and park passes. Enter today!

Forecast Summary: Aug. 8-14
This upcoming week in Chesapeake Bay will be defined by warm waters and poor water clarity resulting from the high river flows. The bright spot is the recent oxygen conditions, with the bay experiencing some of the best on record. Since most of the water column has been recharged with oxygen, expect striped bass to move deeper toward cooler waters during daylight hours.
As of July 27, the coolest waters from surface to bottom are from the Susquehanna Flats down to Still Pond. The temperature break appears to be near the Gunpowder Neck area, with cooler areas north of this point and warmer waters south. The current water temperatures are 83 degrees at Annapolis, 84 degrees at Gooses Reef and 84 degrees at Point Lookout. Remember, rockfish will avoid waters above 84 degrees!
From the Bay Bridge north, most areas have adequate oxygen from surface to bottom. For anglers, continue to seek the best combination of clear, cool, oxygenated waters. This means fishing deep or early in the morning. There will be above average tidal currents all week as a result of the upcoming new moon Aug. 12
For the full weekly fishing conditions summary and more detailed and up-to-date fishing conditions in your area of the bay, be sure to check out Click Before You Cast

Upper Chesapeake Bay
A good portion of the floating debris that was so prominent last week has slowly worked its way down the bay by wind and tide. It has choked coves and harbors, littered shorelines and washed up into marsh areas. A very high tide may cause it to drift elsewhere. All boaters are on high alert as they keep a diligent watch for floating debris.
The Conowingo Dam flows are still high but nothing like last week. Locals reports found good fishing in the mouths of the creeks feeding into the lower Susquehanna River and catching a mix of striped bass and smallmouth bass. Most of the floating debris has moved out of the region and locals are just dealing with stained water conditions.
Photo of Striped bass and white perch with a spinnerbait that caught both
These two cousins fell for the same small spinnerbait. Photo by Keith Lockwood
Water temperatures are climbing back up again into the low 80s due to warm daytime air temperatures and bright sunlight. Some striped bass have moved off the shoal areas near Tolchester and holding near 20-foot edges at Swan, Love and Podickory points and some of the knolls and shoals east of Baltimore Harbor.Chumming is still very popular but live lining spot is accounting for larger fish and fewer throwbacks. The spot can be found near the Bay Bridge in about 15 feet of water and the southwest side is a very great place to gather up some live spot on bloodworm baits.
There has been plenty of action around the Bay Bridge piers and live lining spot, small eels or jigging have been the preferred methods. The striped bass tend to be holding in 25 feet of water. White perch are also holding close to the piers in 15 feet of water or less and can be caught on bloodworms or grass shrimp on a bottom rig or small jig head.
Fishing for white perch in the tidal rivers has been exceptional lately. Large white perch are plentiful this year in most areas and offer some fun and fruitful fishing opportunities. Casting small spinners and spinnerbaits along shallow shoreline structure or fishing deeper with bottom rigs baited with bloodworms or grass shrimp is the ticket. Channel catfish are also very abundant in the upper portions of the bay and its tidal rivers, and cut bait tends to be the best bait option. There is also a shallow water fishery for striped bass in the early morning hours along the shorelines of the bay and tidal rivers. Topwater lures and crankbaits tend to be favorite choices for casting.
Middle Bay
Striped bass tend to be spread out over a wide area this week. They are holding as deep as possible during the day looking for the coolest water that still has enough dissolved oxygen so they can breathe. Surface water temperatures have climbed back into the low 80s and the salinity values are still low due to runoff. Floating debris will continue to be a problem in the middle bay region this week so be careful out there.
Photo of Woman holding white perch she caught
Angelina Watts holds a nice white perch caught on light tackle. Photo by Rich Watts
Scattered schools of striped bass can be found along main channel edges, but it will take some poking around with depth finders to find them. Most any edge has the potential to hold some striped bass in about 20 to 25 feet of water. They are holding as deep as they can as long as there is sufficient dissolved oxygen at those depths. Some locations worth checking out include the Brickhouse Bar off Kent Island, Thomas Point, Tilghman Point in Eastern Bay, the False Channel and the Diamonds, as well as the shipping channel edge near Parkers Creek.
Chumming is of course popular but with the availability of live spot, live lining can be a much better way to catch a larger size striped bass and eliminate a lot of throwbacks. Spot can be found on the inside of Hacketts Bar and just east of Black Walnut Point in the Choptank River. The lower sections of other tidal rivers in the region may also produce spot, look for hard bottom areas in about 15 feet of water. Pieces of bloodworms, #4 or #6 hooks and just enough sinker is all you need to catch them. A large trash can or live tank will ensure keeping them lively on the trip to your fishing destination.
White perch fishing has been stellar in the region’s tidal rivers and creeks. They can be found in relatively shallow water along shoreline structure in the early morning or late evening hours. Light tackle and small spinnerbaits or spinners is a great way to catch them. Those holding deeper near dock piers can be caught on grass shrimp on a simple one hook bottom rig. The abundance of large white perch this year presents some wonderful fishing opportunities for small boat and shoreline anglers, both young and old.
The shallow water striped bass fishery is alive and well, but it means getting out on the water before dawn for the best fishing. The action tends to close down once the sun clears the horizon. Topwater lures are a favorite when fishing over grassy areas and jerkbaits can be used in slightly deeper waters near shoreline structure.
Lower Bay
Striped bass fishing for those chumming or live lining spot at the rock piles north of Point Lookout, the mouth of the Potomac River and the steep channel edge near St. Georges Island, has been good this week. Bluefish in the three-quarter-pound size range are now a major player.
Trolling can be a good option in the lower bay region for a mix of bluefish and striped bass. Gold spoons or red and green hoses tend to be the most popular choices. The steep channel edge in the Potomac from Swan Point to Colton Point has been a good place to troll as well as the mouth of the Patuxent River up to the Broomes Island area. In the general area above the Target Ship there is a catch-and-release fishery for large red drum. Most are being caught on large spoons behind inline weights. Spanish mackerel tend to be holding south in Virginia waters, but a few are being caught in the Pocomoke Sound area by trolling small spoons.
Photo of Woman holding blue crab
Photo by John McMullen
There is much talk about whether cobia will ever show up in the Target Ship area – although there may be a stray fish here and there, anglers will have to go south to catch them. Most of the action tends to be below Windmill Point in Virginia and southeast to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Most are chumming and either drifting fresh cut baits to the back of the chum slick or allowing live eels to hold there. A fair portion of the cobia being caught do not measure up to the minimum size of 40 inches.
Fishing for a mix of croaker, spot and white perch has been very good in the lower Patuxent River, Cornfield Harbor as well as the Tangier and Pocomoke sounds. Shore-bound anglers have been enjoying extremely good fishing for spot in the evenings at the fishing pier under the Route 4 Bridge over the Patuxent River. The spot are mostly being caught on bloodworms and the perch and croakers on peeler crab or bloodworms.
Recreational crabbing continues to improve as the summer months move on. The best catches are occurring in the lower bay region, with the eastern side of the bay being a standout. Middle bay crabbers are managing to catch a half to full bushel per outing and catches up to a half bushel in the upper bay. If using chicken necks, fresh is very important and there is no doubt that razor clams are catching the best. Most crabs tend to be in 12 feet of water or less.

Freshwater Fishing
Vacation season at Deep Creek Lake is in full swing and dodging boats and jet skis will be necessary while trying to find a peaceful place to fish. Slipping back into coves during the early morning hours is a good tactic to fish shoreline structure and grass for largemouth bass. Chain pickerel are often about to provide entertainment as well. Drifting live minnows along deep grass and rocky edges is a good way to target a mix of walleye, smallmouth bass and yellow perch that are holding deep. Trout can be found by slow-trolling nightcrawlers or minnows along the dam face in deep water.
Photo of Man holding brown trout in stream
John Mullican and his fishing buddy Steve Peperak recently took advantage of ideal stream conditions catching and releasing many beautiful wild brown trout; with little insect activity, they chose to fish small, weighted nymphs. Photo by John Mullican
The upper Potomac is still unruly due to flooding and stained waters, but smaller stream and creeks in the western region are in good shape with healthy water flows that spur on trout activity.
Largemouth bass fishing continues with a typical summer mode of behavior of night feeding in the shallows and lounging around in the cool shade during the daytime that sounds like a great way to spend the hot summer months. One has to be up early to find bass in the shallower areas, where topwater lures can be the most exciting way to fish for them.Buzzbaits, frogs and poppers are great lures to use in the shallow grassy areas. These topwater baits will also attract the attention of northern snakeheads in many of the tidal rivers and creeks. The tidal creeks of the Potomac River are where they got their start years ago but the tidal areas of the lower Eastern Shore are quickly catching up in regards to expanding populations.
As the sun rises in the sky and the sun beats down upon the waters, largemouth bass retreat to deeper and cooler waters where they can find shade under overhead grass mats, sunken wood, old docks or fallen treetops. This is time to break out the weedless soft plastics, stick worms and drop them right in front of lounging bass. The pickups tend to be rather subtle, so it pays to back off a second or two when you feel that twitch before striking.
Crappie can be found deep near structure this time of the year. In tidal rivers this often means marina docks, fallen treetops and bridge piers. Crappie populations in lakes and reservoirs tend to be found near dam faces, deep sunken wood and in some impoundments managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, old Christmas trees are weighted and sunk in the deeper areas. It will take a depth finder to find them and crappie can often be seen clustered around the recycled trees. Small jigs or minnows under a slip bobber are a classic way to target them.
Atlantic Ocean and Coastal Bays
Photo of 881 pound blue marlin caught in Ocean City
Just about everyone went fishing in the tournament’s opening days, and one crew brought in a 881-pound blue marlin. Photo by Angel Willey

The big event this week is the White Marlin Open, which has grown to unbelievable dimensions in regards to the winnings. This year’s purse has reached an estimated $5.45 million with 382 boats competing from ports as far north as Barnegat Inlet in New Jersey to Rudee Inlet in Virginia. Boats may fish anywhere as long as they are within 100 miles of Ocean City Inlet. Boats get to fish three out of five days the tournament is open.
For those wishing to pursue a little less competitive fishing experience, there is plenty of fun fishing to be had. Kingfish are being caught in the surf on pieces of bloodworms along with small bluefish and flounder on cut bait.
Photo of Woman holding a large flounder
Carrisa Arillo holds up a beautiful doormat. Photo by Rich Watts
At the inlet, sheepshead are being caught at the South Jetty on sand fleas, flounder on strip baits of squid as well as minnows and white Gulp mullet baits. At night striped bass and bluefish can be caught by drifting live spot, small eels or cut bait in the inlet and Route 50 Bridge area.
Flounder fishing has been very good in the channels leading toward the inlet and back bay areas. Water clarity has been good which is always important to targeting this ambush predator; they need to be able to see baits from a distance.
Outside the inlet there is a lot of exciting fishing action that does not involve the tournament. A mix of king mackerel, large Spanish mackerel, Atlantic bonito, small dolphin and bluefish are being found at some of the offshore shoal areas. Trolling with spoons, cedar plugs and small plastic skirted lures has been an effective way to catch them.
Large flounder are being found at the wreck and reef sites along with some sea bass. The best sea bass catches this week are coming from some of the deeper sites. Those headed out near the shelf are catching tilefish, sea bass and a few large tautog.
More than 300 boats were out at the canyons early this week and although fish were caught it was rather limited. Bluefin and a few yellowfin tuna are being caught by chunking and jigging with butterfly jigs at Massey’s Canyon, Poorman’s and even the Jackspot. Several large dolphin were brought in and there were reports of blue marlin.

“There is nothing that attracts human nature more powerfully than the sport of tempting the unknown with a fishing line.” – Henry Van Dyke

Photo of Keith Lockwood with fishABOUT THE AUTHOR Keith Lockwood has been writing the Fishing Report since 2003 and has had a long career as a fisheries research biologist since 1973. Over the course of his career he has studied estuarine fishery populations, ocean species, and over a decade long study of bioaccumulation of chemicals in aquatic species in New Jersey. Upon moving to Oxford on the eastern shore of Maryland; research endeavors focused on a variety of catch-and-release studies as well as other fisheries related research at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory. Education and outreach to the fishing public has always been an important component to the mission of these studies. Keith is an avid outdoorsman enjoying hunting, fishing, bird dogs, family and life on the eastern shore of Maryland.​​​

UDPATE: Submerged Barrel Found, Lost, Then Found Again; Recovered Bone Transported Tuesday To Medical Examiner’s Office

WEST OCEAN CITY — There are more questions than answers this week after a mysterious discovery of a what is now being called a barrel containing possible human remains in shallow water in West Ocean City on Tuesday.

Around 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, a couple from Ellicott City was walking on the beach and in the water off Homer Gudelsky Park, or better known locally as Stinky Beach, a narrow, sandy sliver of beach at the end of Old Bridge Road in West Ocean City, The couple came across a submerged object appearing to be a suitcase or chest. According to the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office, the couple reached into the object, now being identified as a barrel, and pulled out items such as parts of a woman’s shoe, pottery and what appeared to be a bone.

The Worcester County Sheriff’s Office deputy who responded to the initial call also believed the object was a bone and called for the Worcester County Bureau of Investigation to respond to the scene. WCBI detectives arrived and concurred the object removed from barrel appeared to be a bone. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was called and sent an investigator to the scene and the investigator also concurred.

More

Man arrested at compound was training kids to be school shooters: prosecutors

The son of a controversial Brooklyn imam who wasarrested for abusing kids at an armed compound in New Mexico last week was training the youngsters to commit school shootings, new court documents allege.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was running weapons training at the dilapidated desert camp near the Colorado border where 11 starving children were found living in filthy conditions, prosecutors wrote in documents filed Wednesday.

Wahhaj is the son of the Brooklyn imam of the same name, who heads the Masjid At-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant — and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The younger Wahhaj was arrested last week when sheriffs came looking for his missing 3-year-old son, Abdul-Ghani, but instead found the other children barefoot and dressed in dirty rags.

More

Illegal Raped a Child After Release From Sanctuary City

The Department of Justice is prosecuting a previously deported illegal alien from Honduras for illegal re-entry while he is in prison for raping a small child after release by the city of Philadelphia.

Illegal alien Juan Ramon Vasquez was previously deported in May 2009 and resurfaced on the radar of U.S. authorities in May 2014 after an arrest in Philadelphia. ICE agents were unable to detain Vasquez and re-deport him, however, because he was released by the city, which has a sanctuary policy for illegal aliens.

Vasquez raped the child after his release.

More

A Viewer Writes: Salisbury Roundabout Update

Good afternoon Joe!! Glad to see you're having a great summer at Trader Lee's and currently an awesome week at the White Marlin Open. My question is with ALL the current train wrecks with mayor Day and the inevitable chaos coming next month has he quietly walked away from the roundabout proposal at Mill and Riverside?

1 US Dollar Will Buy You 925,000 Gallons Gasoline in Socialist Venezuela

One U.S. dollar will buy you nearly 925,000 gallons of gasoline in Venezuela, which may sound like a dream come true, but the harsh reality is that the country is facing possibly the worst economic crisis in modern history, The Drive reported.

For five years Venezuela has been locked in a brutal recession, with hyperinflation of the Venezuelan bolivar approaching 1 million percent.

Foreign exchange reserves have fallen by about $2.5 billion in the past few months while the government has defaulted on most of the outstanding bonds, which are estimated to amount to $60 billion, Business Insider noted.

The situation is dire.

Venezuelans are starving amid food shortages, Reuters reported, and now the government of President Nicolás Maduro is losing support after his alleged attempted assassination over the weekend.

More

Baltimore board approves covering gender-confirming surgery for city employees

BALTIMORE — The Baltimore City Board of Estimates has approved a request to provide gender-confirming surgery for city employees.

City officials said extending the benefit reaffirms the city's commitment to equal employment opportunity for all employees as the city aims to create diverse and inclusive workplace

"This is a victory for trans people and gender non-conforming people, a sign that everybody in the city matters," said Merrick Moses, president of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore board. "Because I am a transgender man, this has caused me great distress. I am glad for the opportunity to get what I need and be whole and well."

The Board of Estimates voted Wednesday to approve the request to provide gender-confirming surgery to Baltimore City employees through the city's self-insured health plans.

The vote comes after Moses, a victim's advocate in the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office, went to the city after finding out his gender-reassignment surgery would cost $90,000 and none of it would be covered by his employer, Baltimore City.

"It will allow me to reschedule my surgery date, get my pre-ops together and get the surgery that's medically necessary for me," Moses said.

More

New York became the first big U.S. city to cap Uber and other ride-hail vehicles. The crackdown may prompt other cities to follow suit.

The New York City Council voted to halt licenses for ride-hail vehicles for a year while it studies the booming industry. The legislation also allows the city to set a minimum pay rate for drivers.

15 Times Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old

A number's popularity does not prove its accuracy.

Yesterday, I reported that the oft-cited, debate-driving statistic that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day was the product of a 9-year-old's guesstimations. Despite those shaky factual foundations, the 500 million figure has quickly spread, virus-like, across the media landscape and even into our shops and schools.

Visitors to the D.C. tea house Teaism—just a short walk from Reason's D.C. office—will be confronted with the questionable fact on a small poster adorning the restaurant's single-use straw dispenser, replete with a picture of a cute sea turtle. Meanwhile, impressionable children at the Mount Vernon Community School in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, are coming home with "Straw Wars" handouts citing the same dubious figure.

It's easy to understand how the school could have been led astray, given how ubiquitous this claim is in the media. Please see below for a list of just a few of the news outlets that have cited this "fact"—or otherwise quoted people saying it without any critical pushback—in their reporting:

More

Ingraham: ‘This Isn’t About Alex Jones — It’s About Freedom and Access to Information’

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle” during her show’s monologue, host Laura Ingraham questioned the motives of tech companies, including Facebook and Apple, banning Alex Jones and Infowars from its platforms.

Ingraham argued the focus shouldn’t be on what was banned but the idea that the public’s freedom to make these choices on their own was being infringed upon.

Partial transcript as follows:

INGRAHAM: Remember what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the Senate hearing back in April?

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: There’s certain content that clearly, we do not allow. Hate speech, terrorist content, nudity, anything that makes people feel unsafe in the community. From that perspective, that’s what we generally try to refer to what we do as a platform for all ideas.

INGRAHAM: A platform for all ideas. Really? Over the past few months, Facebook and other tech giants have given us ample reasons to doubt that proclamation. The latest example started early yesterday morning when Apple pulled several podcasts associated with the controversial and incendiary Alex Jones. Facebook followed suit, unpublishing four of Jones’ pages, claiming that the videos on those pages violated that hate speech policy. Hours later YouTube decided it wasn’t going to miss out on all that censorship fun and YouTube suspended the Alex Jones channel with its 2.4 million subscribers.

More

Expert: 170 Registered Voters in Ohio’s 12th District Listed as Over 116 Years Old

Republican Troy Balderson clings to a narrow margin in last night’s special election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional district, underscoring the impact voter fraud can have in key elections around the country.

The separation of 1700 votes, or less than one percent, highlights the recent attempt by Democratic activists to fight efforts to prevent voter fraud from occurring.

For the past four years, George Soros has spent millions of dollars trying to weaken Ohio’s election security by funding efforts to both block its implementation of Voter ID and prevent the state from removing inaccurate registrations.

Soros pledged $5 million to fund Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias’s efforts to fight voter ID laws in Ohio and two other states ahead of the 2016 election.

In 2016, liberal activist groups Demos and the ACLU filed suit against the state of Ohio in an attempt to stop its efforts to remove inaccurate voter registrations from its rolls. Soros gave 1.25 million to Demos in 2016, on top of the more than $3 million he had given in previous years. And Soros has been even more generous with the ACLU, giving over $35 million for Trump related lawsuits.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ohio’s efforts in a 5-4 decision earlier this year.

But even with voter ID and cleansed voter rolls, there are still problems with Ohio elections.

More here

Biden Foundation Targets Parents Who Don’t Support Child’s Gender Transition

The Joe Biden Foundation has launched a campaign that seeks to protect gender-confused children from parents who do not affirm their desire to transition to a gender that is incompatible with their biological sex.

A press release from the former vice president’s foundation Tuesday states the new initiative, dubbed “As You Are,” claims it is parental rejection that leads to the high rates of severe mental illness among LGBTQ youth:

More here

November Midterms ‘Poised for a Tsunami of Voter Fraud’

The Government Accountability Institute’s (GAI) Eric Eggers, author of Fraud: How the Left Plans to Steal the Next Election, warned of a potential “tsunami of voter fraud” within November’s forthcoming midterm elections during a Tuesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.

Eggers pointed to narrow electoral margins of victory in Tuesday’s elections as evidence of vulnerability to the threat of voter fraud.

Eggers noted how voter fraud had been documented in numbers large enough to swing presidential elections. He pointed to the volume of “double-votes” GAI identified among Florida residents via a study of voter rolls from 2016’s presidential election.

Eggers said, “[The GAI] performed a nationwide first-of-its-kind study to look at actual votes that were cast in the 2016 election. We combined all the publicly available voter rolls that we could get, and we hired a data consultant and contracted with a commercial database … and what we found was stunning. We found that in the state of Florida, in 2016, there were 2,100 double-votes that were cast. That means 2,100 times, somebody that lives in Florida cast a ballot, and then cast a second ballot in a different state. … That’s nearly four times what the margin of victory was in the presidential election in 2000.”

Eggers added, “These are the kinds of stakes that can absolutely swing an election.”

More here

Out of the shadows: FBI corruption probe about to put Bruce Ohr in the hot seat

The weaponization of the FBI's counterintelligence operations on behalf of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy is the greatest political scandal in American history. The dramatic story is unfolding before our eyes, and the key point to remember is that declassification of key documents is controlling the pace of the story – and President Trump has the ability to declassify anything he sees fit to share with the American public.

This alone should be enough to strike terror in the heart of anyone implicated in this scheme. But when you consider that Donald Trump is the most successful reality television producer in the history of that medium, and therefore is a master of dramatic pacing, and that the midterm election in November is the prize at stake, then there is reason to believe that the American public is about to learn a lot of disturbing news about the Deep State before people go to the polls.

The public already has learned a lot of about James Comey, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, and the disturbing Peter Strzok.

But so far, Bruce Ohr, formerly the associate deputy attorney general (number four in the DOJ, reporting to Sally Yates before she was fired for insubordination), has remained in the shadows. That is about to change.

More here

GOP-funded Planned Parenthood launches anti-Kavanaugh campaign

Planned Parenthood, the left-wing baby-murdering organization currently subsidized by taxpayer dollars courtesy of the Republican majority in Congress, will launch a new campaign to oppose President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court Wednesday.

The Daily Beast’s Gideon Resnick reports that Planned Parenthood Action fund, the National Women’s Law Center, Center for American Progress, and other groups will launch a #DearSenators campaign featuring stories from women talking about their abortions and why they support Roe v. Wade and oppose Brett Kavanaugh. The fear is that Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation could overturn the landmark decision that legalized baby-killing nationwide.

The first ad in the new campaign features a woman discussing her illegal abortion in the era before Roe.

More

RGA Slams Abrams for Loaning $50,000 to Campaign While Owing $54,000 to IRS

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) launched a television ad on Tuesday lambasting Stacey Abrams, a tax attorney and Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, over a decision to loan her campaign $50,000 while owing over $54,000 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The ad, which comes only weeks after Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp obtained the Republican nomination for governor, attempts to paint Abrams as lacking the fiscal restraint and judgment required to serve as a state's chief executive.

"Stacey Abrams is a tax attorney, she made a million dollars over the past five years," the ad's narrator states. "But she didn’t even pay her own $54,000 tax bill. Instead, she loaned herself $50,000 to run for governor. Nice present. Guess every day is Christmas for Stacey Abrams."

In March, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Abrams owed more than $54,000 in back income taxes to the IRS and had over $170,000 combined in credit card and student loan debt. Financial disclosure forms filed with Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission show she owed the IRS $40,201 for income earned in 2015 and $13,851 for 2016.

More

Cotton Dismisses Harris' Call for More Kavanaugh Documents: 'You Already Said You're Voting No'

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) called out Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) on Twitter Wednesday as she called for the release of documents showing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's "full record," reminding her she's already said she'll vote no on his confirmation.

Senate Democrats have called for every document Kavanaugh touched while serving as staff secretary to President George W. Bush, which Republicans have deemed a waste of time seeing as those concerned papers Kavanaugh himself didn't write. Republicans agreed documents from his tenure as White House legal counsel from 2001 to 2003 are relevant.

Harris complained on Twitter Monday that the only documents from Kavanaugh's record received by the Senate "have been pre-approved by George W. Bush and Steve Bannon's lawyer – a man who also used to work for Kavanaugh. It's unacceptable. We need to see his real, full record."

Cotton retorted Wednesday that Harris didn't need any more documents, seeing as she's already made up her mind.

More

South Carolina Teen Convicted of Supporting ISIS

A 19-year-old South Carolina resident pleaded guilty on Wednesday to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

Zakaryia Abdin, 19, of Ladson, purchased weapons and created a social media account attempting to join ISIS. He also sought a handler to get him overseas to Syria or Egypt to make contact with the terrorist organization,according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Abdin's attempt to provide material support to ISIS by traveling overseas put American lives at risk," said Assistant Attorney General Demers. "That is unacceptable, and I applaud the dedicated agents and prosecutors who stopped him and have achieved this successful outcome."

Abdin was arrested by the FBI at Charleston International Airport in March of last year when he attempted to board a plane to travel overseas to support ISIS.

The DOJ said Abdin began his efforts to join the terrorist organization in January 2017 when he created a social media account. He visited the FBI in Mount Pleasant to meet with a special agent from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, who advised him about the FBI's counterterrorism investigations and the illegality of providing support to foreign terrorist organizations.

More

Crazy new ride lets you catapult 500 feet within seconds

QUEENSLAND, New Zealand - Are you an adventure junkie but bungee jumping and roller coasters are not giving the same thrill?

What about something that catapults you 500-feet in a matter of seconds?

Nevis Catapult, a new attraction in New Zealand, does just that. If you try it out, it gives you a chance to be a human slingshot.

More/video (whoa, Nellie!!)

Article regarding the construction downtown published January 16, 2018

I know this is hard to read but Mayor Day said, "Construction in the next block between Baptist and Division streets is scheduled to wrap up in mid April. Work on sidewalks will begin at the end of February and landscaping and new benches will be installed by June". 

This statement was made in the Daily Times including the fact that the City hired a new contractor. 

Christian Student Group Sues University for Rejecting It as Official Club

After expelling several religion-based student groups from campus for “discrimination,” the University of Iowa is being sued for religious discrimination.

The University of Iowa chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA was one of the student clubs kicked off campus for not conforming to a university rule that clubs must eliminate a faith-based precondition to serve in leadership.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship consulted the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit legal group, and sued the university Monday for violating its First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit states that on June 1, the university “abruptly emailed InterVarsity’s student leaders and instructed them that they had until June 15 to change their leadership-selection practices or be de-registered.”

The group responded by “emphasizing the importance of having Christian leadership” for the Christian club, the lawsuit says, but the school rebuffed it.

More

CATO IS HIRING


IDF says war in Gaza approaching, communities near Strip could be evacuated

A senior army official warned Thursday morning that Israel was nearing a full-blown military confrontation in the Gaza Strip after hundreds of rockets were launched overnight by Palestinian terror groups, adding that the government could begin evacuating communities near the coastal enclave in preparation.

“We are rapidly nearing a confrontation,” the IDF senior officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Hamas is making serious mistakes, and we may have to make it clear after four years that this path doesn’t yield any results for it and isn’t worth it.”

Authorities said over 150 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israeli communities since Wednesday evening. The barrages by the Hamas terror group continued throughout the night and into Thursday.

In response to the attacks, the Israeli army said, it struck over 140 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight.

The military said a large number of additional forces were being deployed to the Gaza area. However, no additional reservist units have been called up as of Thursday morning, Conricus said.

According to the spokesman, the military was ready to evacuate communities in southern Israel if war breaks out.

“This is something that we are prepared to do, but this is not something that is in process or that we are eager to do,” Conricus said.

More

Maryland Lottery And Casinos Break Records This Fiscal Year

MARYLAND (WJZ) — Maryland Lottery and Gaming announced that traditional lottery ticket sales and the state’s six casinos combined to contribute $1.252 billion to Maryland’s economy.

The combined total of $1.252 billion in state contributions is a 12.1 percent increase from the previous record of $1.117 billion in the fiscal year 2017. However, this year marked the first time that all six casinos operated for the full fiscal year.

The Maryland Lottery made history with sales surpassing $2 billion for the first time. The sales fueled an all-time record of $1.247 billion in prizes paid to players, which is a 4.2 percent increase from the previous fiscal year.

New records were also established for retailer commissions and scratch-off ticket sales.

More

A Viewer Writes: Downtown Salisbury Maryland Construction

Do you have any news when Main Street in Salisbury Maryland is going to be done because it’s going on 3 years since started and it’s not finished yet.

Publishers Notes, Just look at the chart on our home page in the top right hand corner. Remember Folks, this has been up for several months according to Mayor Jake Day's official countdown. By the way, this is the second request I had in one day referencing this matter.

Welfare for immigrants is alien to our laws, history, and traditions

Immigration is an elective policy of a sovereign nation. It should benefit America and never create a public charge. That notion is one of the most foundational principles of our country. It dates back to colonial times and has been enforced by the states since the founding and then by the federal government when it fully reclaimed immigration in the 1880s. That immigrants shouldn’t be a public charge is still the law on the books, yet it’s rarely enforced. Now that the Trump administration is seeking to enforce the law, suddenly the Left is screaming about denying immigrants their rightful citizenship.

NBC published a report predicting that any week now, Stephen Miller will convince President Trump to sign off on a policy denying citizenship to those immigrants on welfare. In other words, he will be the first president in recent years to follow the letter and spirit of immigration statutes. The media is ready with a barrage of sob stories with no regard for the harm to American citizens.

The notion of immigrants coming here and obtaining public assistance would have been foreign to our Founders, even if they could have envisioned a welfare state for those already here. In 1813, Madison said emphatically to Morris Birkbeck, “… it is not either the provision of our laws or the practice of the Government to give any encouragement to emigrants, unless it be in cases where they may bring with them some special addition to our stock of arts or articles of culture.”

More here

It's Not Just The One Percenters

Liberals always seem to have something to complain about when they see anything positive towards the other side. We want you to know that it isn't just the wealthy people sporting these Trump Flags. We also want you to know that this isn't just an Eastern Shore movement. These boats are here from all over the United States.

A movement has been started and I can personally tell you that I ordered 500 TRUMP flags yesterday to continue the movement Mark Odachowski started.

More to come... 

Chicago Democrat Pleads for Trump’s Help After Weekend Bloodbath

Chicago Democrats ought to put aside their partisan agenda and seek President Donald Trump’s help to decrease shootings, urges a state lawmaker who represents the city’s West Side.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is showing the wrong kind of leadership by continuing to declare the city a “Trump-Free Zone,” state Rep. La Shawn Ford said in media interviews over the past few days.

“The mayor, he must take away the thought that Chicago is a Trump-Free Zone, because taxpayers deserve to have the president come in and bring resources to the community,” Ford said Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.”

The city is now “worse than the days of Al Capone” and “the bloodiest city in America,” he told Laura Ingraham on the Monday night edition of her Fox News show, “The Ingraham Angle.”

Ford’s call to action came after 66 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, including 30 over three hours early Sunday, leaving 12 dead. Police reported no arrests.

More here

Can't Wait!


Israel pounds Hamas after 19 injured in rocket barrage

Over 150 projectiles fired towards southern Israel

The Israel Air Force retaliated by striking targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening after 19 people were treated for injuries resulting form rocket attacks from Gaza against southern Israel.

A rocket hit Eshkol Regional Council at 06:00 am Thursday, critically injuring a 30 year old woman and wounding another man from shrapnel.

Following the barrages throughout the night, the IAF struck over 100 terror targets including a plant used to manufacture components intended for the construction of tunnels as well as a tunnel for maritime terrorism along Israel’s coast.

Hamas issued a statement saying: “We are delivering on our promise."

More here

'Newly-discovered Votes' Tighten Ohio 12 Race to 1,564

The counting of 588 newly-discovered votes by Ohio election officials has made the margin in state's Congressional District 12 even tighter: 1,564 in favor of Republican Troy Balderson, with 8,483 more ballots to count, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Democrat Danny O'Connor gained 190 votes when the missing ballots were counted.

"The votes from a portion of one voting location had not been processed into the tabulation system," according to a Franklin County Board of Election statement on Wednesday. "The Griswold Center voting location had two master (personal electronic ballots), only one of which was read and processed into the tabulation system on election night."

Despite the fact that 5,048 absentee ballots still have be counted along with 3,435 provisional ballots, Balderson has declared victory in the race, along with President Donald Trump, who publicly backed him, the Enquirer said.

More

US Credit Card Debt Shrinks For Only Second Time Since 2013 As Student, Auto Loans Hit All Time High

One month after a near record surge in consumer credit driven by a spike in credit card debt, the US consumer went into mini hibernation to start the summer, when total consumer credit rose by just $10.2 billion, far below the $15 billion estimate, bringing the consumer credit - both revolving and non-revolving - total to $3.908 trillion.

And while non-revolving credit, i.e. student and auto loans, maintained its monthly ascent in line with the historical trend, growing by $10.4 trillion, the surprise was the unexpected shrinkage in revolving, or credit card debt, which declined by $185 million in June; this was only the second drop in US credit card debt since 2013, with March of 2018 the only other recent decline.

And while the shrinkage in credit card debt will prompt some questions about the resilience of the US consumer as the US economy entered the summer, the recent dramatic upward revision to personal savings notwithstanding, one place where there were no surprises, was in the total amount of student and auto loans: here we got the latest quarterly update for Q2 and, as expected, both numbers hit fresh all time highs, with a record $1.532 trillion in student loans outstanding, an increase of $8 billion in the quarter, auto debt also hit a new all time high of $1.131 trillion, an increase of $18 billion in the quarter.

More

5 Voter Fraud Facts That Could Determine the Midterm Elections

As Americans head to the polls to vote in primaries this month, there has been much discussion about the threats to the American election system, both domestically and from abroad.

While some groups falsely claim that voter fraud is as rare as a lightning strike, some people still think the 2016 elections were either hacked by the Russians or tainted by millions of illegal votes. But there does seem to be agreement that American elections are far from secure. I have seen no evidence that Russians actually changed any votes in 2016. But as a research director for the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), and the author of Fraud: How the Left Plans to Steal the Next Election, I found plenty of evidence of fraud inside our borders.

Here are the five things everyone should know as they head to the polls this month:

1. Nearly 3 million people are registered to vote in two different states.

Voter registration records have been neglected by many states for years, making them rife with flaws. In its opinion upholding Ohio’s efforts to clean up its voter rolls, the Supreme Court cited two Pew Center statistics from 2012 most Americans would find shocking:
24 million voter registrations in the U.S. are either “invalid or significantly inaccurate.”
2.75 million people are said to be registered in more than one State.

During the 2016 election cycle, 248 counties in 24 states had more registered voters than residents of legal voting age, according to research by the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

And those are just the registrations. What about the actual votes? GAI’s analysis of the 2016 election found records for 45,880 voters over the age of 115. And 15,000 votes were cast by voters whose records claimed their home address was a post office box, a UPS store, a post office, or some other public building

More

A Viewer Writes: Like Father, Like Son

Ricky Pollitt tweeted about his column in the paper about him supporting Ray Lewis' induction into the NFL Hall of Fame. Funny how Liberals are quick to defend athletes like Ray Lewis and his involvement in the murder and stabbing deaths of two individuals. He defends Ray Lewis but forgets to mention the blood all over the suit he wore that night. In the column Ricky goes on to say Ray Lewis should be recognized for what he did on the field an not off. He then goes on a rant of all the "great things" Ray Lewis is doing off the field as reason why he deserves the induction. He also includes a picture of Ray Lewis kneeling with other Ravens during the National Anthem.

Reboot Fever Is About to Ruin 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'

Just...no:
More from Page Six:

A TV reboot of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is in development at 20th Century Fox Television, Variety has confirmed.

Original series creator Joss Whedon is onboard to executive produce, with writer Monica Owusu-Breen attached to write the script. The rebooted series will see a black actress take over the title role, which was played in the series by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Gail Berman, Joe Earley, Fran Kazui and Kaz Kazui will also executive produce. No network is attached to the series, but it will no doubt stir up a bidding war among various networks and streaming services when it is taken to market.

The obvious first question that comes to mind here is "Does Joss Whedon really need the money that badly?"

The answer to that would seem to be "No":

More