Sen. Cardin to Congress: Extend Unemployment Insurance Benefits!

Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin has urged Congress to pass a bill that would extend unemployment insurance benefits in all states in the Union. But there are two bills

A bill pending in the House would allow states with unemployment rates of 8.5 percent or higher to continue paying out unemployment benefits for 14 additional weeks. But a Senate version applies that change to all states. Maryland’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in September.

OK if Congress is really serious in helping workers in this Great Recession, he's what they really should do. Make all unemployment benefits permanent Yes you heard me, make all unemployment benefits permanent, until the person finds a full-time job. The standing beneficial unemployment rate is 6%, right?

Here are the unemployment rates for all counties in Maryland from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Mid-Atlantic Information Office. (Stats are in %.)

Allegany County: 8.6
Anne Arundel County:6.9
Baltimore County: 8.0
Baltimore City:11.3
Calvert County:6.4
Caroline County:8.8
Carroll County:6.7
Cecil County:9.4
Charles County:6.4
Dorchester County:11.5
Frederick County:6.4
Garrett County:7.9
Harford County:7.7
Howard County:5.7
Kent County:7.3
Montgomery County:5.5
Prince George's County:7.5
Queen Anne's County:6.8
Somerset County:9.5
St. Mary's County:6.1
Talbot County:6.7
Washington County:9.7
Wicomico County:8.0
Worcester County:7.3

It's going to take about two years for private sector jobs to be back at the 2008 level at this point. That means for people who have been unemployed by the recession, it's going to take a long time to get a decent job. So instead of extending it 14 weeks and risking another beg session with Congress, why not make it permanent? The unemployed payed their federal unemployment taxes, and corporations who fired their employees are still making record profit, they should have the responsibility for taking care of their own fired people, until they get anohter job, by paying their unemployment taxes.

News Headline Summary

Here are the top stories for the blog for October 27, 2008.

Slots in Baltimore City?!

Maryland Education Bureaucracy Discovers Long Lost Subject

and...

Maryland Incumbent Serves a Long Political Career.

Tuition Increase Likely! Maryland Senate Subcommittee Approves Higher Education Cut!

If you are a student of the University of Maryland chances are you may have seen stickers promising that if you vote Democrat they'll freeze tuition. But sadly there's something called the Universal Laws of Politics. The first rule of the universal rules of politics is that most politicians don't keep campaign promises when actually elected. Such is the case if O'Malley approves those cuts.

A state Senate subcommittee Friday approved over $80 million in total cuts from the governor's proposed budget, including $6.8 million in cuts to the University System of Maryland, which includes the state's 13 universities and research institutions.

...

• More than $10.5 million of the system's unrestricted funds will be held until each institution can prove its student enrollment is growing at a healthy rate. Institutions that meet their goals will be given their portion of this money, and those that don't might see some of their money go elsewhere in the system.

• Nearly $6.8 million in unrestricted funds will be cut from the system budget, and the cuts must be distributed fairly among all the system institutions. The system will be required to spend at least 4 percent more on each student than it did last year.

• $15 million will be cut from the system's allotment of general fund money. In its place, the system will be allowed to take $15 million from the Higher Education Investment Fund, created last year to set money aside for higher education and supplement state funding when needed.

However there is hope:

State officials expect that there will be nearly $15.4 million in the HEIF at the end of this fiscal year, so the subcommittee effectively voted to drain the savings account. When Gov. Martin O'Malley released his budget in January, he proposed using HEIF money to freeze tuition next year and possibly the following year, as well. So even if the General Assembly adequately funds the system this year, next year's safety net is gone.

Madaleno said spending the HEIF money now rather than saving it for later makes sense in the long run. He noted the importance of "keeping higher education off the funding roller coaster" it has been on for about a decade. He said if the state moderates spending during good economic times, cuts when money is scarce won't seem so severe.

But if that HEIF spending plan falls by the wayside, and O'Malley approves the cut, it will be proof that the first rule does apply, and that most Democrats are just as conservative as Republicans since the Regan era.

What's truely senseless?! Sending Youths to Adult Prisons!

James Edward "Lil' J" Smoot was 14 years old when his fellow Bloods gang members pressed a loaded 9 mm gun into his hand and directed him to knock on the door of an Essex man who failed to pay a weekly $250 "protection fee" to sell marijuana on the gang's turf.

When the man, Marquel "Marty" Smith, opened his door, Smoot pulled the trigger, shooting the man in the head and chest.

"He killed him because somebody told him to," prosecutor J.R. Francomano told a judge yesterday at the young gunman's sentencing hearing. "This was nothing less than a gang hit."

Saying he was disturbed by gangs' ability to "suck in young men like this" to commit the worst of their crimes, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Timothy J. Martin sentenced Smoot to 20 years in prison.

While the murder was truly senseless, what is really senseless is that Smoot was been convicted as a adult.

Smoot, now 15, pleaded guilty in November to second-degree murder and a handgun charge. He was prosecuted in adult court.

Juvenile courts were established for a reason, to rehabilitate youths and keep them separate from adult prisoners. Due to the "tough on crime" political polices established by the political whores in Annapolis and in Congress more children, as young as 14 are being sent to adult prisons. As I mentioned, prison facilitates are currently run as human warehouses. They do not rehabilitate inmates because the way they are run.

The facts about children in adult jail speak for themselves.

Another Budget Cut?! $300 Million?!

This is proof that no matter who you vote for in the American Idol era, when it comes to bread and butter issues most Republicans and Democrats improve. Especially in the budget cut mania Maryland having for... I don't know, ever?

Lawmakers have been looking for $200 million in cuts in O'Malley's proposed budget to compensate for the flagging economy, but now they are saying that could rise to $300 million or more when updated revenue projections come out next week.

...

Three months ago, O'Malley called the General Assembly into a special session to close the state's structural deficit with $2 billion in tax increases and spending reductions, and a proposal to legalize slot machines that is subject to ratification by voters.

"The likelihood is, given the national economic downturn, that those difficult series of decisions will continue," O'Malley said. "Everybody is looking at the revenue estimates, and if they are coming in lower than projected, there will have to be further cuts."

But I bet there will not be any cuts to corporate welfare and their prison-industrial complex. I can promise you that. But there is one way we can stop this mania: Abolish balanced budgeting.

$2 Million Dollars?! What About Our Profits?!

The O'Malley Government is supporting a bill that would require power plants and other industries that pollute to pay air pollution fees so that the Maryland Department of Environmental Resources to use the money to hire 26 vacant spots for inspectors.

"We need to have adequate enforcement of our air pollution laws, and we don't have that - only 18 inspectors looking after 11,600 sources of air pollution," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat and sponsor of the bill. "That means more air pollution, which causes more health problems for people."

Critics of the legislation say that raising the fees on smokestacks would place an unfair burden on businesses and could lead to higher electric bills for a public already complaining about rate increases.

Here's the difference, the latter were just electric bill increases so that Constellation (who owns BGE) to make more profit. The former is a non issue, because air pollution affects everyone. You want to know a better idea? Outlaw all air pollution except for trace amounts.

Why Reasons Why Maryland Needs Universal Free Higher Education

Fee increases for housing and dining and the University of Maryland-UFHE would fully fund not only tuition, room and board, but also basically necessary infrastructure and needs for universities in the University of Maryland system.

Rising Textbook Costs-A monthly living expenses check of 2,000 per semester (and prorated by month on Summer and Winter semesters) with inflation adjustments would help out a lot with rising textbook costs, so that it will not put students into poverty

Negative Consequences of Using Property Taxes as a Main Source of School Funding

To this day many school districts still use property taxes as a main source of funding for their schools. This is despite two caveats: They highlight inequality between wealthy areas and poor areas in the school system. (That is the first one.) Second, housing market can fluctuate: In this case, we are in a recession and the housing loan crisis this. As property values lower, school districts now suddenly forced to make sacrifices just to keep running. It seems like every year they just keep cutting and cutting budgets . Even worse, there's No (Rich) Child Left Behind they have to deal with.

There are other alternatives to this problem, that is by implementing a county income tax. The income tax would be similar to the federal income tax but smaller. Another idea would to limit property taxes to businesses and people who have more than two homes (so they can only tax the second or subsequent home). I would recommend that both of these ideas be implemented next year, if not this year.

Same-Ethinic Hate Crimes! But Why Teens Are Still Doing Them

I would not believe this for a minute: Same Race Hate Crimes?

The threatening words discovered on the side of Virginia Trotter's Odenton home sent a chill down her spine: In dark red spray paint, someone had written a racial epithet and the letters KKK in what she saw as an act of racially motivated vandalism.

Anne Arundel County police investigating the crime weren't so sure: Trotter and her husband are black - but so are the teenage suspects.

After initially saying that it was not investigating the incident as a hate crime, the department reversed course yesterday and said the case deserves "special handling."

Aren't those teenagers still attend high school? If people are supposed to have a education, why not have a mandatory high school course on human diversity? That course would educate students about people of different ethnicities, cultures, gender, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, etc. That would be a great prevention tool against hate crime than reactive laws. (Even though we still need them for those who don't care about diversity)

Sadly, there's No (Rich) Child Left Behind and the sexual orientationalists who would prevent such a thing from happening because the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender variency.(They rather have teens perpetuate hate crimes than give them education about the people who will eventually meet in real life)

Corrections?! Do Correctional Facilites Correct S***?!

The Baltimore Sun's coverage of the murder of correctional officer Jeffery A. Wroten while decent, does not cover a another perspective: Do correctional facilities do their job? There are three purposes of prisons: Keep them from society, restrict their freedom, and rehabilitation. But by how prisons are run since the Regan-era, they mostly do the first two right. If prisons were also for rehabilitation, why does this convict who was severing seven years for assault and armed robbery killed a correctional officer?

P.S. The title of this post is based on a lyric from 50 Cent's Bulletproof track called "Maybe We Crazy"

Another Anti-Immigrant Law?! From Charles, Again?!

Frederick County Commissioner Charles A. Jenkins has proposed another anti-illegal immigrant law, even though his other one died in council last year. His proposal is to periodically audit local businesses that have building permits for any illegal immigrants. If they are any, the company could be fined and have the workers removed. But his proposal has more questions than answers.

Like, how would the law be enforced and funded? Would the law be funded by the fines it would impose? What about legal immigrants? Also, why enact a local law to enforce federal laws against hiring illegal immigrants. But what about the goal of the proposal? Is it to persuade illegals to leave the country? That and the others remain to be seen.

One Cent Hike! Also, Other Tax Hikes in Effect!

With the State of Maryland in a constant budget crisis that seems to never end, I’m afraid that we will not see a real tax cut for the lower and middle class within our lifetime. With that in mind, Maryland’s sales taxes will rise from 5% (that’s 5 cents per dollar) to 6% percent (6 cents per dollar) tomorrow on Thursday. The hike will, according to the Maryland Governor’s Office, will generate about $900 million in addition revenue. The sales tax will make the state competitive to New Jersey, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The States I have mentioned already have a 6% sales tax.

Other taxes for cigarettes, vehicle titling, and corporations have already in effect as of New Years Day 2008. The tax for corporations has been raised from 7% to 8.25%. Taxes for cigarettes are now two dollars per pack. And vehicle titling tax was raised by 20% to 6 cents per dollar.

This article from Gazette.net has a convenient chart of the tax changes in full around the bottom of the page.

Smokes-Out! Bassett’s Restaurant Bans Smoking Early!

It turns out that the statewide smoking ban is passing after all. Just in case, some restaurants like Bassett’s in Poolesville,MD are smoking out early.

Owners Leo and Betty Bassett made the decision to go smoke-free before the state Senate and House of Delegates passed differing versions of a statewide ban last week. A committee is hashing out the differences.

Maryland would join at least 18 states, and Washington, D.C., that have banned smoking in restaurants and bars.

If the bill is signed, the law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2008, said state Sen. Robert J. Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Yet, it's good to see that business owners are looking for the long-term benefits of the ban.

At Bassett’s on Thursday, bar manager Josh Greer said the move will increase bar patrons.

‘‘Personally, I hate to see my civil liberties taken away, but in the long run it’ll be good for business,” bar manager Josh Greer of Poolesville said last week during a brief cigarette break. ‘‘The whole state’s going non-smoking soon, so we’re beating them to the punch.”

This would mean that families, and non-smokers (which are in the majority) can finally enter the restaurant without inhaling secondhand-smoke. Don't worry smokers, you can skill smoke outside.

You Might As Well Have Congress Ban Smoking in Public Places! (Except Outdoors)

(Which would be a good thing, that'll make smokers to quit even faster)

...O'Malley (D) had never explicitly pledged his support for a statewide prohibition, allowing only that he was "willing to consider it" if a bill reached his desk.

We must assume that the Republicrat will sign this bill.

While opposition is waning on the tobacco farmers front, which most of it's farms are rendered obsolete as when Government of Maryland offered to buy them out, The Baltimore Sun reports that the tobacco companies themselves will fight it.

But another tobacco lobby, the Maryland Association of Tobacco & Candy Distributors, is fighting the legislation and has employed lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano. "I've been working this thing like crazy," he said recently.

Bereano says cigarettes are a "lawful product," and that smoking is a "lawful activity." He said of the ban proponents: "They want to run other people's lives."

Melvin R. Thompson, a lobbyist for the Restaurant Association, said the ban would be bad for business. He said smokers might not drink as much, or they might stay home rather than head to a bar or tavern, hurting liquor revenues.

Mr. Bereano, while it's a lawful activity, tobacco equals death. It will not kill users now, but eventually, because smokers will die slowly and painfully. Not to mention harming those around them and the bar workers who constantly have to breathe their smoke. Probably this law will force smokers to reconsider their habits, because smokers are run over other people's lives (through second-hand smoke)and themselves.

Get Rid of HSA's!

I have took this test in my senior year of high school. Luckily, while I did not need to pass it to graduate, I passed them. But special-ed students, people with limited English proficiency, and disabled students will not be lucky, even if the Maryland High School Assessments turns into a graduation requirement in 2009.

Some opponents of the test say that as many as 25,000 students are at risk of failing at least one of the exams, but state officials say programs to improve performance and generally improve scores on tests mean only a handful of students will fail.

Many students having the most difficulty with the tests are in the groups affected by the delay. According to a state education Web site, there are more than 31,000 special-ed students in high schools; almost 6,500 with limited English proficiency; and nearly 5,000 who fall under Code 504, which includes many students with disabilities. However, not all of these students are in the Classes of 2009 and 2010, the groups affected by the change.

I smell a No (Rich) Child Left Behind connection...

Don't Kill Off The Terrapin's for Good

"In the ideal world we'd close the fisheries down, put bycatch reduction devices on all the crab pots and prevent loss of habitat,"

That's what the Maryland's Department of Natural Resources should do to protect our UMD's beloved school mascot, the Terrapins from being extinct.

Maryland watermen caught more than 10,000 of the state's official reptile last summer, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The figure, which is a 20-fold increase from the year before, sent a shockwave that rippled through the state's environmental community and has caused the involvement of the state's legislative and executive bodies.

According to an article in Saturday's Baltimore Sun, the administration opposes the potential passage of legislation sponsored by Sen. Roy P. Dyson (D-Southern Maryland) that would outlaw catching the turtles in the state. An O'Malley spokesperson said passage of legislation would not preserve the traditional power of the state Department of Natural Resources to regulate fisheries. In the event of a revival of terrapin populations, the administration says, the department should be empowered to allow resumption of trapping.

Wait, O'Malley opposes such a common sense law? We should protect all of nature's creatures even if it means sacrificing some businesses. If this Republicrat really cares about the environment, he should support it.

Will the Death Penalty Repeal Law Be Executed by the Assembly?

Shameful this bill may not get a chance to go the the Maryland Senate. If does though, prepare for a uphill battle.

Death penalty opponents are gearing up to make their case before the legislature, an effort to capitalize on what they believe is changing national sentiment on the issue. Coupled with the high court decision, O'Malley's opposition to the policy, which he has said is costly and does not necessarily act as a deterrent to crime, has bolstered a new wave of activism in Maryland to wipe the punishment from the books.

Activists feel that brewing questions about how lethal injections are administered have only helped their cause. They note that even former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush instituted a moratorium after a botched injection in that state.

"People who support the death penalty, including Jeb Bush, think there's something wrong with the method we use to execute people," said Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions. "And that's a complex discussion in and of itself."

I'll promise you that all of the committee members are Christians. If they vote down this bill, it will really prove what kind of Christians they are.

Outlawed! Anti-New Ground Rents Bill Awaits O'Malley's Hands.

About time we get stopped it.

Once enacted, the law would prohibit the creation of any new ground rents on residential property, effective Jan. 22, 2007. Some senators questioned whether it was appropriate to enact the prohibition retroactively. But Frosh said the provision was necessary to avoid a "land rush" of property owners creating new ground rents before the law goes into effect.

Several more ground rent bills have been filed and are scheduled for hearings next week. While the bill passed today was designed to make sure the ground rents do not become more prevalent, the other legislation directly tackles the current system.

What about ground rents in other cites in America?

Pass This Bill=Near 100% Record Student Voting!

If a bill in the Maryland Senate passes, it would lead to almost lead to a record amount of student voters on the polls throughout the University System of Maryland.

In addition to allowing students to initiate or modify their voter registration when they enter a university system school, the legislation would establish a permanent on-campus residence for students, eliminating a need to update voting information when students move to another area of the campus.

Other key provisions in both Grayson's proposal and the Senate bill would also prompt administrators to take a more active role in getting students into the electoral process, including communicating with students via mass e-mail at least three times before an election about registering to vote. If passed, the bill in Annapolis would also require universities to run registration drives and contract non-profits to coordinate voter education campaigns.

"If it's easier to register and its easier to vote and you don't have to wait in line for hours, obviously more students will be able to vote," said Rosapepe, who promised to introduce legislation after witnessing long lines at Stamp Student Union caused by a lack of voting machines.

If anyone in Annapolis is reading this, I have one thing to say: Pass this Bill Now!

Police Prepared for Riot! Left Disappointed!

Last night while there was dozens of students screaming crazy, there was no riot. Route One was still flowing with traffic. Students going to and from restaurants to eat or to their bars. Prince Georges County Police however took no chances and set a two-rowed riot squad lined up along Knox Road next to city hall. A black police truck was standing by opposite of the City Hall building. College Park Fire and EMS Department also stood by as a precaution as well as additional officers and patrols of County Police. After around 7:50pm, the riot officers left the area, the black truck with them too. They realize that a riot will not going to happen.

So that was it, Terps won, no riot, everyone slept peacefully. The Diamondback also written a piece of tonight's peaceful night.