Weekly Notes By Senator Jim Mathias

Dear friends:

At the beginning of session, I sent out a survey to the residents of the Lower Shore to get your opinions on what is happening here in Annapolis. Over 550 people responded and we have spent time looking through and analyzing your answers to guide us through this budget season. Almost everyone who responded said they are for reducing spending, and a large majority of you are against raising taxes. I am working to make your vision a reality by continuing to reduce spending, and am prepared to vote against any proposed tax hikes.

Now is the time I need to hear from you. The House has proposed their first round of budget decisions (a good article summarizing some changes is here), and after it passes the House it will come to the Senate for our consideration. Your emails, letters and phone calls are invaluable to me as I work with my colleagues to reduce the size of state government and make sure we are seeking a maximum efficiency while protecting services important to you and our region. You can access the proposed FY2012 budget and related documents by clicking here.

I am grateful for your responses to the survey and your continued input on the issues that matter most. Together with your guidance, I will spend the upcoming week looking through the state budget to find cost efficiencies, and any opportunity to cut the budget.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions or concerns, please contact me anytime. You can reach my Annapolis office at 800 492 7122 x-3645 or 410-841-3645; email me at james.mathias@senate.state.md.us

Always working for you,

Thanks,

Jim

Cynthia Polk On Salisbury Elections

A few months ago, Greg Bassett, Daily Times general manager and executive editor, wrote a piece about how he heard a local businessman bragging about landlords planning to take over the elections this year so they could control the City Council. Salisbury politics is badly known for dirty politics -- and here we go again.

When I ran two years ago, someone made false statements about how Jim Ireton, Debbie Campbell and I would raise rents outrageously.

Of course it wasn't true, but that may have been enough for me to lose by one vote.

Other comments and tactics used against Ireton were so awful, I can't even repeat them. The lies told about Tim Spies four years ago to cost him the election were just terrible.

The president of the Salisbury Area Property Owners Association, a landlords group, compared Mayor Ireton and Councilwomen Campbell and Terry Cohen to Nazis in a letter to a blog. The vice president of SAPOA compared a roomful of homeowners to Viet Cong, saying he would "let" council member talk to his tenants -- as if he owned them.

Misinformation about possible laws and where candidates stand on issues is sent to our most vulnerable people to scare them. Salisbury, just say "no" to all this hate and falseness.

Our city is suffering because of it. Judge candidates by their demonstrated dedication to you, knowledge of the issues, ideas and ability to do the job.

And be sure to vote.

Cynthia Polk
Salisbury

LOOK FOR THE DAILY TIMES TO RAISE ITS PRICE -- ONCE AGAIN!

March 25, 2011

Gannett CEO’s pay package rises 80 percent to $7.9M
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Business Writer

The owner of The Daily Times and USA Today increased its CEO’s pay package by 80 percent to $7.9 million last year amid cutbacks in the struggling newspaper industry. Gannett Co. says the raise was meant to reward Craig Dubow for boosting the publisher’s earnings and reducing debt as revenue fell for the fourth consecutive year.

The Associated Press valued Dubow’s compensation for both 2010 and 2009 based on its analysis of regulatory documents.

The largest parts of Dubow’s 2010 pay consisted of stock incentives with a total value of $5 million.

Dubow also received a $1.75 million cash bonus to supplement his $981,000 salary and perks totaling $159,000.

Besides USA Today, Gannett owns more than 80 other daily newspapers.

Same-Sex Marriages Give Polygamy A Legal Boost

The outlook for polygamy hasn’t been this good since Abraham took Keturah as his third wife.

Plural marriage remains illegal, but it’s undergoing an image upgrade as a result of television shows like HBO’s “Big Love” and TLC’s “Sister Wives.” More significantly, it’s getting a legal boost from a strange bedfellow: the success of same-sex marriage.

Gay-rights advocates cringe whenever the connection is made between same-sex and plural marriage, but more than a few legal analysts say the recent gains posted by gay marriage in the courts and state legislatures cannot help but bolster the case for legalized polygamy.

The federal government and most states define marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. If marriage is redefined to include two people of the same sex, the argument goes, then it can be redefined to include more than two people.

Critics reject the polygamy comparison, arguing that marriage’s definition as a union of two people remains inviolable. They also dismiss the specter of legalized polygamy as a scare tactic used by the traditional-marriage camp to chill public support for same-sex marriage.

Here is more

Crisis In Libya Too Urgent To Wait For Congress, White House Says

The U.S. intervention into the Libyan civil war is constitutional even without congressional authorization, the White House spokesman said Friday.

Further, had President Barack Obama waited for Congress to return from recess, more Libyans would have been murdered by the regime of Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

“It is well within, as he described and others described, well within the president’s constitutional authority to take this military action,” Carney said. “The list of precedents is quite long. But he believes that consultation with Congress is important and wants to hear their thoughts about the mission, about the situation in Libya and about our overall policy there.”

As a candidate for president, Obama told The Boston Globe in an article published Dec. 20, 2007 the president must seek authorization by Congress before taking military action.

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama told the newspaper.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress.

More here

Obama's Fiscal Policies Doom Retirement For Millions

President Barack Obama's misguided federal policies have stunted economic growth and endangered the American dream of a comfortable retirement, financial commentator and best-selling author Robert Wiedemer tells Newsmax.

"The government absolutely shares culpability in this," Wiedemer says. "Government policies are responsible for a great many of our financial problems -- the state of Americans' retirements included."

Wiedemer says such attitudes are a natural extension of the bad example Washington sets with its spending habits.

"The idea with retirement is that you are supposed to save part of what you make," he says. "So, what is the government doing? They are saying, 'We don't care how much we make, we're going to spend a ton more than that and we're not going to save anything.'

That sets up the mentality that you don't have to worry about this anymore."

Obama's federal policies have fueled high unemployment and are claiming new victims, financial experts say: A record number of Americans now say they doubt they'll be able to afford a comfortable retirement.

A new survey indicates that fear is heightened among a growing swath of U.S. workers who have little savings and no long-term financial game plan. Rather than adjusting the way they save for their golden years, most are simply lowering their expectations with plans to continue working well beyond normal retirement age, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey.

The report, released last week, shows 27 percent of American workers are not confident they'll have enough money to retire and live well. That's up 5 percent from last year, and marks the highest level of unease ever measured in the 21 years of the survey by EBRI, a Washington-based nonprofit research firm focused on health, savings, and retirement issues.

Read more

Edward Cox: Obama’s Indecision, Inexperience Doom Foreign Policy

President Barack Obama is so hopelessly inexperienced in foreign policy that he is careening from position to position on the Mideast chaos, just like Jimmy Carter did when he led the United States into disaster in Iran, New York State Republican Committee Chairman Edward Cox tells Newsmax.TV.

Obama’s scattered approach is unlike that of President Richard Nixon, who believed the United States should take a strong leadership role in the world, based on a thought-out strategy — and executing that plan even amidst opposition, said Cox, who is a Nixon son-in law.

Nixon demonstrated that belief when he normalized relations with communist China, Cox said.

“Mr. Obama doesn’t have that experience and so, like Jimmy Carter, he is going from one thing to the other,” Cox said.

Libyan strongman Moammar Ghadhafi “has to leave — no, we don’t mean he should leave; yes, he does have to leave,” Cox said. “The United States has to be consistent, has to lead, and Mr. Obama does not understand that, and he is looking a lot more like Jimmy Carter. And we know the disaster that happened when he handled the Iranian situation — and we are still suffering from that because the ayatollahs now control Iran because Jimmy Carter, President Carter was indecisive.”

Read more

The New York Times And Itamar

The murders of the Fogel family, including three children stabbed to death in their beds, obviously posed a dilemma for the New York Times. 

Fixated as it is on a story line in which Israel, and especially Israeli settlers, bear central responsibility for ongoing tensions with the Arabs, the Times covered the killings with the strained circumlocutions, omissions and colored language typical for the paper's editors and reporters when addressing peril to Jews and the Jewish state.

The first major account of the carnage by reporter Isabel Kershner appeared on March 13 -- on page 16 with no photo. A day later, updates on the story appeared closer to the front of the paper, on page 4, as the focus turned to Israel's announcement of renewed construction in several settlements. Two photos ran that day of the Fogel funerals. A telling caption read: "About 20,000 attended the funerals for the Fogels, whose deaths outraged settlers."

Did the Times think only "settlers" were outraged over slitting the throats of children in their beds? Israel's leading columnist, Nahum Barnea, who's not a settler, had written:

 "The murder in Itamar is so shocking, so horrible, that it makes the debate over settlements irrelevant. Against the murderer, who pulls out a knife and butchers in cold blood three children in their sleep, the difference between Tel Aviv and Itamar is erased."

The Fogel horror had to be reported, of course. But what to call the killings and how much to communicate about their instigation rooted in relentless dehumanizing of Jews throughout Palestinian culture -- in media, mosques, schools and political discourse -- were the question.

Alterations in wording of the Times account on its Web site over the first hours after the event suggest editorial interventions to mute even minimal references to the Israeli Prime Minister's strong language denouncing Palestinian demonizing of Israel and to the appalling terrorist attack.

A version posted at 23:02 GMT included Benjamin Netanyahu's statement: "A society that permits such wild incitement is one that eventually brings about the murder of children."

That charge, expressing the core of Israel's belief about the consequences of the pervasive, bigoted assault on Jews by Palestinian leaders and their social, religious and political institutions, was excised. What remained was language that reverted to the paper's characteristic distancing from the realities of anti-Jewish incitement. The final text read:

 "Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pointed a finger at the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, blaming it for what he described as incitement in the schools, the mosques and the news media it controls."

Omitted is the strong connective tie between anti-Jewish propaganda and killing children and inserted is the reference to the Palestinian Authority as "Western-backed." The message shifts; a finger-wagging leader of Israel, seemingly out of step with the West, is "blaming" the PA leadership - not for demonstrably instilling Jew-hatred, which is a moral outrage - but only for what the Israeli leader "described as incitement."

On March 15, the Times was seemingly compelled to touch fleetingly on the issue, as Israeli leaders pressed their denunciations of the Palestinian Authority's incitement to violence and muted condemnations of the murders. Once again, though, the information was minimal and colorless, subsumed in a story strenuously emphasizing and repeating that PA leaders condemned the Fogel atrocity.

Moreover, the reporter hastened to interject what is likely a partial underpinning of the Times agenda in whitewashing Palestinian incitement:

 "The new focus on incitement against Israel, together with Israeli dissatisfaction over the Palestinian response to the brutal attack, seemed to pose a question about the Israeli government's readiness to deal with Mr. Abbas as a serious peace partner - even though Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad are widely considered moderates who have repeatedly said they would never resort to violence."

That is, if Israel insists on drawing attention to the demonization of its people by its peace partner, what might this portend for their "readiness to deal with Mr. Abbas," who is, after all, "moderate" and "would never resort to violence"?

More here

I, Public Employee

In light of the demonstrations by teachers and union supporters in Wisconsin, public employees and their compensation have become hot topics in America.  Depending on where one sits, public employees can be anything from dedicated servants of the common good to recently-activated members of Soviet sleeper cells, dispatched into the streets to bring down the Republic.

As always, between the hyperbolic extremes we find a more nuanced truth.  Have I gotten your attention with the preceding paragraph? 

My name is Matt, and I'm a public employee.  I work for a city on the Central Coast of California.  I'm also an independent conservative, NRA member, Army National Guardsman, and veteran of Afghanistan.  I've been observing the debate over public employees, and I've decided to add my thoughts.

Government employees range from federal employees to state-level workers and on down to county and city employees.  I'm an employee of a city of 43,000 between L.A. and San Francisco.  I've worked there seven years now in the Public Works department.  I applied for the job for stability, and to participate in a pension program.  I'm part of a bargaining unit, which could be called a union, although it is strictly local, has no national affiliation and cannot call a strike.  I have no choice about joining although I can pay slightly less and not vote on pending contracts.  What I cannot do is to opt out and negotiate my own contract; I checked.  The city doesn't want to negotiate scores of individual contracts, they want to get people with similar job classifications in a unit and deal with them en masse.  So, like it or not, I have to join, and if I'm going to pay I feel I should actually vote.

What about pay?   Do I make twice the average income for my area?   No, I do not.  According to a study by the National Association of Homebuilders, the median income for my county is $72,500.  I make less than that, even factoring in my National Guard drill pay as a sergeant (E5).   The median home price in this county in the second quarter of 2010 was $359,000.   The only way I was able to buy a home in was by using my VA loan, and only the crash brought prices down enough to enable me to get my family out of an apartment and into a house.

My specific job is in Parks Maintenance.  I'm one of the people you see with the ill-fitting green trousers and the shirt with the dorky name tag.   I earn my pay by keeping the parks of my city clean and safe for the citizens who pay for them and use them.  Currently I manage a sports field facility with over ten acres of turf.  When I used to work downtown, I dealt with the homeless.   Picture anything that comes out of a human body and I've cleaned it up.   Try cleaning up after the guy with no legs who soiled himself and then spent the night sleeping in the wood chips of the children's playground area.  Feces, urine, blood, sputum, vomit, used condoms, broken glass, dog bites, abusive homeless screaming and threatening me; I've dealt with it all.  And when I have a young mother thank me for the cleanliness and safety of the playground, it's actually worth it. 

Read on..

Eric's Barber Shop Jammed Packed All Day

Today my Grandson and I went to Eric's Barber Shop on the Downtown Plaza and waited for more than an hour before we could get our haircut. People kept returning during that hour we were there as they had been in earlier today and were returning because the line was so long. It didn't matter what time you walked through his door, there were at least 10 to 15 people ahead of you. Eric closes at 3 PM on Saturdays but we already know he was there well past 4 PM.

Advertising on Salisbury News pays off in a very big way. I know, I know, it sounds like we're trying to solicit advertisers, but we're not. We appreciate every single business that advertises with us and we love paying those advertising dollars forward for those in need.

The Downtown Plaza is NOT a bad place to start a business. Advertise in the right place and people will come. Just ask Pani Pizza or Eric (the Barber) Ludwig! We have an advertiser here that swears they ran ads for years with the Daily Times and never had a customer walk through their door stating they came to that business because of an ad they saw in the DT's. However, they get customers walking in every day saying they saw their ad on Salisbury News.

Our ads are $100.00 a month and include a link back to your Website. alberobutzo@wmconnect.com

Big Day Tomorrow

If you're looking for some great Sunday morning reading, be sure to come by Salisbury News as we will have some really informative local reading for you to enjoy.

Yesterday, (Friday) turned out to be a record setting Friday for Salisbury News. We have never seen so much traffic for a Friday since we started Salisbury News. We thank you for visiting and commenting.

If you have a property you'd like to sell, here's some great news. Within a very short period of time, (a few days) serious qualified people have already visited and walked through the building we put up for sale on the Downtown Plaza. Each one of them called and said they had seen it on Salisbury News.

While many Realtors stated there was just too much on the market, I believe it's a matter of people seeing what's available and Salisbury News delivers that traffic. We can put up residential and commercial properties and get you results.

If you're interested in listing your property here, contact me at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com. Save tens of thousands of dollars by doing so.

Wicomico County Education Budget Venting

Hi Joe,   I just wanted to drop a note to let you know about something that is going on with the County's Kindergarten registration process. Both my wife and I work and will not be able to get off work on the day that we can register our 5 year old for Kindergarten. When we called WBOE to see if they had any extended hours for parents that have to work, they said no because it isn't in our budget.  However, if you visit the County's website, you will see that the budget is going to hire Haitian Creole and Spanish Interpreters to be there every day.  So as for the people paying for the interpreter services with their tax dollars, there are no accommodations, other than the option to schedule a separate appointment, which means you would still have to leave your job to do take care of it either way. For the people who are living off or our tax dollars, we can accommodate them with interpreters.  Are we the only ones here that are sick of this hidden government form of welfare?  Please feel free to post for comments.

State Police Investigating Fatal Crash

Location: 

• Stockley Road (CR 280) East of Cool Springs Road (CR 290) W/O Lewes, Delaware

 

DATE and TIME:  

• Saturday March 26, 2011 2:00 a.m.

 

Operator/Victim/Vehicle:

• Frank Sapienza-27 Georgetown, De
• 1992 Volkswagen Jetta

 

Resume:

Lewes-Early Saturday morning Delaware State Police and emergency medical crews responded to a serious motor vehicle crash on Stockley Road W/O Lewes.  The single vehicle crash happened around 2 a.m. March 26, 2011.

 

A State Police investigation revealed that a 1992 Volkswagen Jetta was traveling westbound on Stockley Road E/O Cool Springs Road Lewes Delaware and was driven by Frank Sapienza-27 of Georgetown.  Sapienza was rounding a sharp bend in the roadway when he lost control of his Volkswagen Jetta.   

 

Sapienza’s vehicle exited the south edge of the roadway striking several mailboxes, then upon re-entering Stockley Road continued off the north edge of the roadway striking a utility pole.  Sapienza after striking the utility pole was thrown from his vehicle. 

 

Sapienza was taken to Beebe Hospital where he died from injuries sustained in the crash. 

 

Delaware State Police are continuing their investigation and request anyone with information concerning this crash to contact the Collision Reconstruction Unit at 302-644-5020 ext. 118

 

Alcohol involvement is unknown

Daily Times Charging Online Readers

Joe,

Have you noticed that the Daily Times is charging to read articles?  I discovered it today.  I saw your post about the Sinepuxent Receipts cookbook.  I went to his link to read more and saw there had been an article in the DT.

So I did a search on their site for Sinepuxent Receipts which took me to the page.  You have your choice of reading a preview for Free, the whole article without pictures for $3.95, or the whole article as it appeared in the paper for $124.95!  Do they really think people will pay to read old news?

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/delmarvanow/results.html?st=basic&QryTxt=Sinepuxent Receipts

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/delmarvanow/offers.html?url=%2Fdelmarvanow%2Faccess%2F2265088081.html%3FFMT%3DFT%26FMTS%3DABS%3AFT%26date%3DFeb%2B10%252C%2B2011%26author%3DBrice%2BStump%26pub%3DDaily%2BTimes%26edition%3D%26startpage%3Dn%252Fa%26desc%3DThe%2B%252480%252C000%2Bcookbook

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/delmarvanow/item.html?pp_date=20110210&author=Brice+Stump&doc_title=The+%2480%2C000+cookbook&edition=&pub_page=n%2Fa&pptl=results

Senate GOP Demand Balanced Budget Amendment For Raising Debt Ceiling

The Senate Republicans are preparing to tell President Obama that they want a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) to the Constitution passed in Congress in exchange for raising the statuary debt ceiling above $14.2 trillion.

“My hope is that we would force a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment as a condition to voting on the debt ceiling,” Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) told HUMAN EVENTS.  “By next week, or shortly thereafter, we will have all 47 Republicans unified behind the effort, and then begin to reach out to our Democratic colleagues.”

A BBA would force the federal government to balance the federal spending to incoming revenue each year and cap spending at 18% of the gross domestic product (GDP).  For the current Fiscal Year (FY 2011), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that government spending will be $1.4 trillion more than revenue and account for almost 25% of the GDP.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) is planning to roll out the details of the new version of the BBA in the next two weeks.  McConnell’s plan is to to build public support and pressure on the Democrats to vote for it before the debt ceiling is hit, which is estimated to happen between mid-April and the end of May.

“We will have a genuine rollout so the American people can know what we’re doing and they can call, and e-mail, and fax, and demand their senators and congressmen support it and create a true grassroots effort,” said Cornyn of the leadership strategy.

So far, the Republicans have at least 33 members supporting the new BBA.  Cornyn said that he and others are making calls this week to line up the others to support it.  He expects to have all 47 Republicans in support by next week, and then will start outreach to the Senate Democrats.

“This is something that should have a bipartisan appeal, but we need to get unified behind it first before reaching out,” said Cornyn.

According to Article V of the Constitution, an amendment must get a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate and be ratified by three-quarters of the states.  So in the Democrat-majority Senate, the amendment would need all 47 Republicans votes plus 20 Democrats for passage.

The last time that the Senate voted on a Balanced Budget Amendment was in 1997.  The amendment, sponsored by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) failed by only one vote.

More

National Border Patrol Council: Napolitano Giving False Sense Of Security

The law enforcement-based union that represents all 17,500 non-supervisory U.S. Border Patrol agents says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comments this week reassuring Americans that the U.S. border is safe and open for business are “wrong and give citizens a false sense of security.”

“It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico,” the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and killed while our Border Patrol agents fight a war at home that no one will allow them to win.

“Not one more Border Patrol agent should fall or citizen be victimized because our government fails to act,” the NBPC said. “Mexico is hemorrhaging violence and we are being hit with the splatter.”

Ms. Napolitano told border-area mayors and business leaders in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday that the U.S.-Mexico border is safer than ever, adding that perceptions that the border area is at its most dangerous right now are false.

“If the border was better now than it ever has been, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry would not have been brutally murdered by heavily-armed Mexican criminals operating over 13 miles inside the United States,” the NBPC said.

“In some countries, that is construed as an act of war, but here we get words not deeds.

More here

ACLU vs. Religious Liberty

Irony is defined as “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.” The term doublespeak means “evasive, ambiguous language that is intended to deceive or confuse.”
There is perhaps no greater example of ironic doublespeak than the inclusion of the phrase “civil liberties” within the inapt designation: “American Civil Liberties Union.”

Indeed, few leftist organizations in existence today can compete with the ACLU in terms of demonstrated hostility toward what the Declaration of Independence describes as “certain unalienable rights” with which Americans are “endowed by their Creator.”

Consider the doublespeak inherent throughout the “progressive” Goliath’s flowery self-representation:

The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

Now contrast that depiction with ACLU founder Roger Baldwin’s candid vision:

I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself . . . I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.

Ironic, isn’t it? So much for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” By combining straightforward segments from each ACLU rendering we arrive with an accurate portrayal. One that cuts through the doublespeak:

The ACLU is . . . working daily in courts, legislatures and communities. Communism is the goal.

In 1931, just eleven years after the ACLU’s inception, the U.S. Congress convened a Special House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities. On the ACLU it reported:

The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the communist movement in the United States, and fully 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of communists who have come into conflict with the law. It claims to stand for free speech, free press and free assembly, but it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is an attempt to protect the communists.

To be sure, the “main function of the ACLU” is entirely counter-constitutional.
A shared objective between both Communism generally and the ACLU specifically is the suppression of religious liberty; principally, the free exercise of Christianity.

Karl Marx, high priest of the ACLU’s beloved cult of Communism, once said: “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”

Even the ACLU’s own promotional materials overtly advocate religious discrimination:
“The message of the Establishment Clause is that religious activities must be treated differently from other activities to ensure against governmental support for religion.”
Utter hokum.

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause — a mere 10 words — says nothing of the sort. Its message is abundantly clear, requiring severe distortion to stuff it within the ACLU’s Marxist parameters.

It merely states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”

That’s it.

Read more

More 'Fees', More Money For MD Employees And Teachers

The House of Delegates gave initial approval Wednesday for a $14.6 billion state spending plan that closes a yawning deficit without raising taxes but would have Marylanders paying tens of millions more in extra fees.

The plan would put a stronger emphasis on education than Gov. Martin O'Malley's initial proposal by restoring nearly $60 million the governor chopped from schools. And it is slightly more generous to localities in aid for road maintenance and other funding.

But the plan could mean higher bus and train fares, as well as increasing fees for titling cars, using vanity license plates, recording property and registering birth records. The plan, for the budget year that begins July 1, rolls back an O'Malley proposal to fine bad drivers.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Norman Conway said the spending plan — which could be approved by the House as early as Thursday before moving to the Senate — was "the most difficult" of his eight years leading the House budget committee. "We are proud that great progress has been made toward financial stability," he said.

But members of the House Republican caucus, which grew by six this year, disagreed. During the House debate, several noted that the House plan cuts only a net of $6.5 million from O'Malley's initial proposal.

"Another way of looking at it is four ten-thousandths of a percent," said Del. Andrew A. Serafini, a Washington County Republican.

House Republicans cried foul when Democrats said that the spending plan does not rely on new taxes. The Republicans recalled O'Malley's 2010 campaign attacks on his GOP opponent for attempting to distinguish between taxes and fees.

"If it comes out of my pocket, it is a tax," said Michael D. Smigiel, parroting an O'Malley campaign ad.

House Republicans used the budget bill to discuss deeper policy issues, offering amendments to cut state funding for abortions and stem cell research.

They also tried to ignite a debate on the controversial issue of allowing illegal immigrants to pay discounted rates at state colleges and universities, by offering an amendment prohibiting the practice.

But the Republican effort failed, which will likely encourage advocates on the immigrant issue. A bill allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition passed in the Senate, but some had been concerned that it might not clear the House.

Republicans also offered changes plucked from their alternative budget proposal, including a measure to cap state salaries at $1 below the governor's pay; to withdraw the planned $750 bonus to state workers; and to eliminate state funding for the horse racing industry. All of the amendments were rejected.

The House plan is more generous to state employees, rolling back one of the deeper cuts O'Malley proposed to retiree health benefits. Under the House plan, retirees would have a $1,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on paying for prescription drugs. (Couples would have a $1,500 cap.)

O'Malley had suggested a $4,500 cap for individuals and $9,100 for couples, angering retirees who said that the cost could eat up much of their monthly pension checks.

There is more here

Holder Ignores Demands For NAACP-Influence Data

A lawsuit has been filed against President Obama's Justice Department for refusing to release details about how agency officials decided to abandon a voter intimidation case that staff members had brought – and won – against members of the New Black Panther Party.

The lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, over a refusal by the federal agency to provide information about the decision.

At issue in the case is whether the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "improperly influenced" the Justice Department, the nation's highest law enforcement agency, "to drop a lawsuit against members of the Black Panthers who allegedly threatened and intimidated white voters outside a polling station during the 2008 election."

Because Kristen Clark, of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, reportedly met with Justice Department officials to discuss the case just before the agency announced plans to dismiss the action, questions arose about the influence that may have been exerted.

Judicial Watch in November 2010 filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records of communications between the agency's Civil Rights Division and the NAACP. Under federal requirements, Attorney General Eric Holder's agency was supposed to have responded by Dec. 3, 2010.

"However, to date, no documents have been produced," the Judicial Watch announcement said.

Read more

Taste of the Eastern Shore

Come and get a taste of the Eastern Shore today at Shore Appliance in Twilley Center.

Tom Clarke will be hosting a tasting of recipes from his cookbook, Sinepuxent Receipts.  The tasting will run from 3PM – 5PM.  All profits from the sale of Tom’s cookbook will go to replace the organ console at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

The cost of the event is $10.  Cookbooks, signed by the author, may also be purchased.  Cookbooks may also be purchased online at Sinepuxent.com