Subpar: Anti-Obama Street Art Covers Santa Monica

An unknown artist is covering the streets of Santa Monica, Calif., with posters declaring President Obama to be “subpar.”

The artwork, which features images of Obama golfing with the message, can be found on trashcans, in Porta-potties, and on street benches, according to a taco blog in Los Angeles.

The appearance of the posters coincided with the PGA Tour, which was played at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, just outside of Santa Monica, over the weekend.

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Who Burned Columbia, S.C.?

THE “FAMOUSLY HOT” CITY’S MOST INFAMOUS MYSTERY …

On this day in 1865, Union forces under the command of major general William Tecumseh Sherman captured the city of Columbia, S.C. – and burned a sizable portion of it to the ground.

Or did they?

In his 1999 book Lies Across America, author James W. Loewen disputes this version of history – the one that’s still plastered on monuments all over the Southern city. Citing research by historians Marion Lucas and James Rhoads, Loewen concludes that the main fire which destroyed roughly a third of the city was accidental – the result of wind rekindling cotton fires set previously by retreating Confederate troops.

In fact according to Loewen’s account, union troops actually helped to contain the conflagration.

Confederate loyalists bristle at such “revisionist history.”

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Spanking Bill In Kansas Sparks Controversy

A Kansas state lawmaker says a bill she's introduced that would give school teachers and caregivers expanded rights to spank children is not "intended to legalize child abuse."

Democratic state representative Gail Finney of Wichita put out a statement Tuesday after media stories about her legislation, which would expand on current Kansas law by allowing teachers and caregivers to spank children up to 10 times, possibly causing redness and bruising.

The legislation specifically would allow for spankings "up to ten forceful applications in succession of a bare, open-hand palm against the clothed buttocks of a child and any such reasonable physical force on the child as may be necessary to hold, restrain or control the child in the course of maintaining authority over the child, acknowledging that redness or bruising may occur on the tender skin of a child as a result."

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PAT CADDELL SAYS ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS 'WANT THE IRS TO GO AFTER' THE TEA PARTY

DHS Plan For National License-plate Tracking System Raises Privacy Concerns

A plan by the Department of Homeland security to establish a national license-plate recognition database that would collect information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers is raising concerns over privacy and how the data might be scrutinized.

The Washington Post reports that the agency recently issued a solicitation notice seeking bids for the database project, which would collect data from license-plate readers that rapidly scan the tags of passing vehicles, to help track down and arrest fugitive illegal immigrants.

A spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency told the newspaper that the database “could only be accessed in conjunction with ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals.”

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Ron Paul Asks Of The Fed: "When Will This Madness Stop?"

Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen testified before Congress for the first time since replacing Ben Bernanke at the beginning of the month. Her testimony confirmed what many of us suspected, that interventionist Keynesian policies at the Federal Reserve are well-entrenched and far from over. Mrs. Yellen practically bent over backwards to reassure Wall Street that the Fed would continue its accommodative monetary policy well into any new economic recovery. The same monetary policy that got us into this mess will remain in place until the next crisis hits.

Isn't it amazing that the same people who failed to see the real estate bubble developing, the same people who were so confident about economic recovery that they were talking about “green shoots” five years ago, the same people who have presided over the continued destruction of the dollar's purchasing power never suffer any repercussions for the failures they have caused? They treat the people of the United States as though we were pawns in a giant chess game, one in which they always win and we the people always lose. No matter how badly they fail, they always get a blank check to do more of the same.

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WCSO Press Release 2-19-14

Incident: WCSO Activity 18 February 2014

Location: Wicomico County

• On 18 Feb 2014 at 8:30 AM a deputy arrested Shaun Michael Barlow, 26 of Salisbury, on a District Court Bench Warrant. The warrant was issued after Barlow violated the terms of his probation following a theft conviction. Barlow was detained on a bond of $25,000.00

Barlow, Shaun

• On 18 Feb 2014 at 2:17 PM a deputy arrested Theodore James Ballard Jr., 26 of Salisbury, on a Circuit Court Bench Warrant. The warrant was issued after Ballard failed to appear for a Driving Suspended case. Ballard was detained without bond.

Ballard, Theodore

• On 18 Feb 2014 at 3:35 PM a deputy arrested Garrick Levin Wharton, 22 of Salisbury, on a Circuit Court Bench Warrant. The warrant was issued after Wharton failed to appear for a CDS Possession case. Wharton was detained without bond.

Wharton, Garrick

• On 18 Feb 2014 at 4:25 PM a deputy arrested Bernard M. Kellam, 53 of Salisbury, on a Circuit Court Bench Warrant. The warrant was issued after Kellam violated the terms of a no contact order in an Assault 2nd Degree case. Kellam was detained without bond.

Kellam, Bernard

• On 18 Feb 2014 at 9:24 PM a deputy arrested Krystal Nicole Dennis, 25 of Delmar, MD, on a District Court Bench Warrant. The warrant was issued after Dennis failed to appear for a violation of probation hearing following a theft conviction. Dennis was released after posting a bond of $57.50.

Dennis, Krystal

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Releasing Authority: Lt. Tim Robinson        Date: 19 February 2014

6-Year-Old Gets Letter From IRS, Issues A Response

Due to a mix-up of some sort, a 6-year-old boy received a letter from the IRS requesting that he file a particular set of documents.

Realizing that it must be a mistake, his mother attempted to contact the IRS and sort the situation out. Unfortunately, because the original request was addressed to her son, and not her, the mom was unable to do anything.

Shortly after, the 6-year-old received this follow-up:

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University Of Maryland Data Breach Affects 300,000, School Says

COLLEGE PARK, MD. – The president of the University of Maryland says there has been a breach of a database that contains personal information about more than 300,000 faculty, staff, students, and others.

Wallace Loh said in a statement posted Wednesday on the university's website that the database contained records of those who have been issued a university ID since 1998.

Loh said the database has information from the College Park and Shady Grove campuses. The records include names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and university identification numbers.
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Republicans Probe 3 States With Failing Obamacare Exchanges

Republican lawmakers are launching investigations into the failures of three of the nation's state-run Obamacare exchanges, a move which is putting Democrats on the defensive as both parties gear up for an important election year.

The healthcare websites in Oregon, Maryland, and Massachusetts are all coming under scrutiny both for their functional failures and for staggering costs that have left taxpayers footing the bill, The Hill reports.

On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of the $304 million in federal grants Oregon received to fund its exchange, which has yet to enroll one person online.

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HOW MUCH IS A STAY-AT-HOME MOM WORTH THESE DAYS?

What would a stay-at-home mom earn today if she received a salary for all she does during the day?

Salary.com recently calculated that, in 2013, a stay-at-home mom in the United States was worth about $114,000 per year. While that six-figure salary may sound good, in order to earn it, Mom put in a 94-hour work week.

If a full-time job is 40 hours per week, this outcome means that Mom’s base salary is $37,549. With 54 hours of overtime, worth $76,037, Mom’s total salary is thus $113,586.

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Disguising Evil

Evil acts are given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions, such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution, caring for the less fortunate, and the will of the majority. Let’s have a thought experiment to consider just how much Americans sanction evil.

Imagine there are several elderly widows in your neighborhood. They have neither the strength to mow their lawns, clean their windows and perform other household tasks nor the financial means to hire someone to help them. Here’s a question that I’m almost afraid to ask: Would you support a government mandate that forces you or one of your neighbors to mow these elderly widows’ lawns, clean their windows and perform other household tasks? Moreover, if the person so ordered failed to obey the government mandate, would you approve of some sort of sanction, such as fines, property confiscation or imprisonment? I’m hoping, and I believe, that most of my fellow Americans would condemn such a mandate. They’d agree that it would be a form of slavery — namely, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

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Guy Pulls Out Sign on Gophers Kiss Cam

BRIAN KEITH HENSLEY CONVICTED BY JURY OF 1st DEGREE ATTEMPTED MURDER AND OTHER RELATED CHARGES

On February 19, 2014, Brian Keith Hensley, age 43, of Wicomico County, Maryland, was convicted by a Wicomico County Jury of Attempted First Degree Murder, Attempted Second Degree Murder, First Degree Assault, Reckless Endangerment, Armed Robbery, CDS Possession (Cocaine & Marijuana), and CDS Paraphernalia. An investigation conducted by the Salisbury Police Department and the Maryland State Police Homicide Unit revealed that on May 16, 2013, Hensley attacked an 18-year-old victim with a vodka bottle while he was asleep in a house on Ohio Avenue. Hensley fractured the skull of his victim during this attack. He also robbed the victim of his wallet, CDS and cell phones. Hensley now faces a maximum sentence in excess of Life in prison.

Wicomico County State’s Attorney, Matthew A. Maciarello, commended the Salisbury City Police Department and the Maryland State Police Homicide Unit for their work in the investigation and prosecution of this case. Mr. Maciarello also thanked the citizens of Wicomico County who sat on the jury, and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Kristen Schultz and Deputy State’s Attorney Ella Disharoon, who prosecuted the case.

Can The Markets Crash?

This is the trillion-dollar question. From a common sense perspective, the simple answer is “absolutely!”

Since 1998, the markets have been in serial bubbles and busts, each one bigger than the last. A long-term chart of the S&P 500 shows us just how obvious this is (and yet the Fed argues it cannot see bubbles in advance?).

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Group Lays Groundwork On Saylor bill

ANNAPOLIS — As a father with a 25-year-old son on the autism spectrum, Jeff Moran said he has lost sleep worrying about his child encountering the type of situation that led to Ethan Saylor's death.

Standing with a crowd of disability rights advocates Tuesday outside the Maryland State House, Moran said he wonders what would happen if his son came into contact with police or first responders in the community.

"He may present as a typical young man, but the more that they may interact with him, he might become evasive," Moran said. "They could take actions against him."

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Government Adds 1,516 Pages To The Federal Register

Last week Mother Nature shut down Washington’s government offices for a day, but the extreme weather was no match for federal regulators.

Over that time period, 1,516 new pages and 56 additional final regulations were published in the Federal Register, according to the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Broken down, that is the equivalent of a new regulation added about every three hours.

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Team Effort Leads To ‘Happy Ending’ To Ocean City Locks Story

OCEAN CITY — Valentine’s Day weekend provided the perfect backdrop for a great love story with a happy ending this week involving a pair of locks attached to a pole on the Ocean City Boardwalk by a visiting couple several years ago that briefly went missing before being found again on Monday.

Back on Valentine’s Day in 2008, Lauren Burr and her boyfriend and future husband were visiting Ocean City. The young couple purchased a large, metal lock and carved their initials on it before hanging it on a post on the Boardwalk at Dorchester Street as a symbol of their growing love for each other. A year later, Burr’s boyfriend joined the Marines. The couple got married in March 2010 and Burr’s husband then went away for a year for training.

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The People As Enemies

Relationships are fragile things, none more so than the relationship between a citizen and his government. Unfortunately for the American people, the contract entered into more than 200 years ago has been reduced to little more than a marriage of convenience and fiscal duty, marked by distrust, lying, infidelity, hostility, disillusion, paranoia and domestic abuse on the part of the government officials entrusted with ensuring the citizenry’s safety and happiness.

Don’t believe me? Start paying attention to how you and your fellow citizens are treated by government officials—the ones whose salaries you are paying–and then focus in on how the government is spending your hard-earned tax dollars. Pay particular attention to the heavily armed officers in tactical gear, the surveillance cameras, the drones, the roving VIPR squads, the cops who shoot first and ask questions later, the military drills in small towns, the military equipment being funneled to small-town police departments, and the massive ammunition purchases by domestic agencies such as the Postal Service, the Department of Education, the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

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House Panel Considering Speed Camera Changes, Repeal

A House committee in Annapolis today, is considering more than a dozen bills dealing with speed cameras.

One of the bills is the result of the work of a task force that spent a year studying the issue.

Baltimore County Delegate James Malone, who chaired the task force, says the bill represents a compromise.

"If you like speed cameras, you'll love this bill. If you hate speed cameras, you'll love this bill," Malone told WBAL News.

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