Why Albero Should Be Salisbury's Next Mayor

Salisbury has been in the economic 'doldrums' for most of the recent past.  Many can argue that this condition can be attributed to crime, poverty, hostile business environment and so on.  But the bottom line is this - do you think you are better off today than you were 4 years ago?

As an independent journalist that publishes many articles for SBYnews - I will admit that there might be a slight bias toward Albero for Mayor.  But when one closely examines the record of the current administration, one can only deduce that Joe Albero is the right man for this job.  From my own personal experience in my daily interaction with him -  his grasp of concepts and facts relative to our local economy is on target.  He is keenly aware of all of the following:

• Salisbury & Wicomico County has experienced labor force losses in 7 of the last 11 months for a net loss of 1716 jobs - (unbiased reporting by the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• 17.7% of all Salisbury/Wicomico residents are considered to be living in Poverty.  This is up from last years 16.6% - (reported by the US Census Bureau, Small Areas Estimates Branch as reported from their latest data)

• Average State & local income tax collections are down as a result of a sagging local economy.  As of 2011 - the average State & local income tax was down to $2,220 per Maryland/Wicomico return verses $2,240 per 2010 income tax return.

• The number of local business closings are at an all time record high.  As of to date - we have documented more than 88 renowned businesses that have decided to leave our area.  Yet the government entities keep expanding.  SBYnews has re-published this index many times for its readers.

• He has a clear vision and is focused.  Like many well trained athletes - he is disciplined. 

I'll tell you something else about this gentlemen - he has personally paid a tremendous price for taking a stand against abuses inflicted upon us by our own government.  Whether it be the Salisbury Waste Water Treatment plant and/or other illegal waste water discharges - his vision for a clean environment is second to no one.  And one more thing - I can guarantee you that if Joe Albero is elected as Mayor - he will not waste time in assembling an economic development team to help address some the economic conditions that have afflicted our community.  In fact - if I know this man -(which I believe I do) - he already has a development team in mind even prior to this election.

I say give this man the 'gavel' and let him go to work.  The time is ripe for Joe Albero to become Salisbury's next Mayor.  I encourage all - (rich, poor, black, white, male, female, or others, hispanic, asian, etc.) - to get out and vote for him.

Signed Beezer
(Freelance Journalist for SBYnews)

GUN CONFISCATION BILL PROPOSED IN CALIFORNIA: ‘WE CAN SAVE LIVES’

Law abiding gun owners in California have to feel uneasy after Democrats rolled out a massive gun control package on Thursday, which includes strict ammunition regulations and even a bill that allows potential confiscation of the state’s 166,000 legally registered semi-automatic rifles.

Under the sweeping gun control bills introduced by state Senate Democrats, all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines would be banned, all guns would be registered and gun owners would need a special permit just to buy ammunition.

The proposals appear to be even more draconian than New York’s recent gun control legislation, considered to be the toughest in the nation.
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The Hidden Death Of The Ownership Society

Charles Hugh Smith and I are on the exact same page. He just sent me his latest article for your enjoyment.

The Hidden Death of the Ownership Society (February 6, 2013)

The foundation of the neofeudal economy is this: the right of ownership still exists in name, but the actual ownership of political and financial power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

The core of American liberty is widespread private ownership of property.The Founding Fathers were quite clear on the necessity of protecting private ownership from encroachment by a covertly created monarchical Empire or a financial Aristocracy.

Private ownership protected liberty and the distribution of wealth by enabling widespread ownership of “the means of production” (land, tools, intellectual property, enterprises) and home ownership.

Thus the correlation between prosperity, widespread ownership of small businesses and homes and a relatively modest disparity of private wealth. When ownership of property becomes concentrated into a rentier class (i.e. a financial Aristocracy) that is protected by a Monocrat Central State, income disparity shoots up and prosperity is concentrated in the hands of the political and financial Elites.

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Some Redskins Season-Ticket Holders Get 40 Percent Price Increase

“General Admission ticket prices have increased for the first time in seven seasons, with most seats going up no more than 10 percent,” the Redskins noted in last week’s press release.

The implication, of course, was that some seats would go up by more than 10 percent, as some plan holders have been discovering.

“My tickets (which have been in my family for almost 50 years) went up over 40% this season!” one plan holder wrote to me. “I have never seen such a price hike – and I am a season ticket holder of the Wizards and Nats, too.”
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The Group That Will Decide Whether The United States Gets An Assault Weapon Ban

As Congress considers steps to prevent gun violence, the controversial assault weapons ban faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, amid growing speculation that the bill will not have enough support to get through the Democratic-held chamber.
Based on past records, we can predict that just a handful of Senators will decide whether the new ban lives or dies.

Forty Republican Senators recieved an "A" rating from the NRA, and 36 Democrats have recieved an F rating from the NRA.

This leaves just 24 Senators who have deviated from their party's strongest position on gun control — enough to swing a vote in either direction. This group includes any Republican who didn’t get at least an A rating from the NRA, and any Democrat who didn’t get an F rating.

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Thanks, FDA: A Trip to the Grocery Store May Soon Cost More

Thanks to the FDA’s menu labeling provision in ObamaCare, which targets restaurant chains and grocery stores, consumers may soon have to pay a little more at the checkout counter.

The proposed regulation would require store owners to label prepared, unpackaged foods found in salad bars and food bars, soups and bakery items. Erik Lieberman, regulatory counsel at the Food Marketing Institute, said testing foods for nutritional data will require either expensive software or even more costly off-site laboratory assessments.

Lieberman said failure to get it right comes with stiff penalties: "If you get it wrong, it's a federal crime, and you could face jail time and thousands of dollars worth of fines."

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Congressmen Federal Pot Legislation

Two Democratic congressmen are tapping into what they call a “groundswell of public opinion” by introducing legislation to legalize Marijuana on the federal level, tax it and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco.
Colorado Rep. Jared Polis introduced the Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act on Tuesday.

The bill would remove marijuana from the schedule of controlled substances and prohibit the Drug Enforcement Administration from regulating it.

Pot would be regulated under the to-be-newly-named Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms.

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Texas Lawmaker's Bill Puts Penny Per Ounce Tax On Sweet Drinks

A San Antonio lawmaker has introduced a bill that would levy a penny per ounce tax on caloric sweet drinks sold in the state of Texas.

State Rep. Joe Farias filed HB 779 which would impose a $0.01 tax on each of ounce of sweetened beverages, sweetened beverage powder product and sweetened beverage syrup.

The penalty for not paying the tax on time is deemed a Class C misdemeanor and will equal 50 percent of the amount of the delinquent tax. For example, if a retailer sold 100 ounces of sweetened beverage and failed to pay the $1.00 tax, that retailer would owe to the comptroller a total of $1.50.
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The United States Of Debt Addiction

16 point 7 trillion dollars. That is our current national debt. 12 point 8 trillion dollars. That is the amount households carry in mortgage and consumer debt. We are now addicted to debt to lubricate the wheels of our financial system. There is nothing wrong with debt per se, but it is safe to say that too much debt relative to how much revenue is being produced is a sign of economic problems. At the core of our current financial mess is how we use debt as a parachute for any problem. We’ve been masking the shrinking of the middle class by allowing households to take on too much debt for a couple of decades. The results were not positive. Too this degree, we have now created a massive moral hazard economy where savings are punished into oblivion. There is very little incentive to put your money in a bank account yielding zero percent interest when real inflation is eating away at your money like a hungry wolf. So what do people do? Well many simply cannot save and therefore choose to go into debt to finance cars, housing, and education with very little down. Where does this debt addiction lead us?

A little bit of deleveraging

US households have deleveraged from the peak in the crisis. However, much of this deleveraging has been forced via the 5 million foreclosures that have occurred:

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Bill Of Rights

SO GOD MADE A BANKER

To be read in the voice of Paul Harvey.

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

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D.C. SYMPOSIUM TO DISCUSS REDSKINS NAME CHANGE

On Thursday, the National Museum of the Native American in Washington, D.C. is playing host to a conversation on “Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports.”

Given the recent war of words and calls for a Redskins name change, the topic is apropos.

Last month, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who feels the Redskins name is racist and patently offensive, sparked the latest row when he intimated Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III’s knee injury was linked to “bad karma” over the team’s name.

In a cliched montage, Milloy described RGIII as a “noble savage” who “goes on a ‘Redskins’ warpath only to leave a trail of tears when his wounded knee gets buried at FedEx Field.”
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Young Girl's Sheer Delight As She Boards First Ever Train

Rep. Sarbanes: Some Gun Makers Build Sales Models on Assumption 20% 'Will Get Sold Illegally’

Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) told Maryland county officials that some gun manufacturers build their sales models “on an assumption that at least 20 percent of the weapons will get sold illegally.”

While addressing the Montgomery County Council on Jan. 29, Sarbanes discussed his support of Vice President Joe Biden’s recent gun control recommendations saying, “I want to note that the resistance to it, the organized resistance to it, doesn’t just come from organizations like the NRA, which gets a lot of attention, but there’s a lot of moneyed interests behind it - the gun manufactures have a pretty strong lobby as well in Washington.”

Sarbanes continued, “There’s some information that suggests that some of these manufacturers build their sales models on an assumption that at least 20 percent of the weapons will get sold illegally. So the industry is even building on the assumption that this is happening out there and there are many reasons this is the time to respond.” 
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Sandy Benefit

SPD Press Release 2-8-13

Fire In Salisbury Off Eastern Shore Drive

Photos courtesy of Jordan Wharton

There is a major fire at a business between Rt. 13 and Eastern Shore Drive.

Utah Sheriff's Association Letter To Obama

Senators Try Again To Ban Smoking With Kids In Car

ANNAPOLIS — Sen. Jennie Forehand, D-Montgomery, is passionate about Marylanders not smoking. She remembers coming to the Senate in 1979 and hiding all of the ashtrays under the radiator.

“I was the laughingstock of everybody, but I made the point,” Forehand said.

Last year, she proposed a ban on smoking in cars with young children, which passed in the Senate, but died in a House committee.

This year, Sen. Bobby A. Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, is sponsoring legislation that would impose a fine of $50 on anyone caught smoking while driving or riding with children under 8.
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French Government Fears 'Social Implosions Or Explosions'

The daily drumbeat of layoff and plant-closure announcements in France has been riling up desperate workers who who have little hope of finding a job elsewhere, with unemployment at 10.5%.
But now the government is worried about a “radicalization” of these angry workers. A major quandary: on one hand, the Socialists promised during the election to side with the workers; but on the other hand, they must somehow figure out how to create an environment where the private sector can survive.

And the private sector is gasping for air. The Services Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 43.6 in January, from 45.2 in December (below 50 = contraction), the fastest rate of contraction since March 2009. Particularly worrisome was the steep decline in employment.

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