Tag: maryland

One state is about to start taking money out of your paycheck for benefits you can’t use

Maryland will begin taking money out of workers’ paychecks in January 2027 to finance a paid family leave program that will not provide benefits until a full year later, following repeated delays since its creation in 2022.

The state’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program will require workers to contribute up to 0.45% of their wages, with larger employers generally contributing an additional 0.45%, bringing the combined rate to 0.9%. Maryland officials argue the yearlong collection period is necessary to build an insurance reserve, while former Maryland state Del. Dan Cox, the Republican nominee for governor, told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) that the deductions should be suspended.

The program was established through the Time to Care Act, which lawmakers passed over then-Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto in 2022. Originally scheduled to begin paying benefits in January 2025, the program was delayed repeatedly, with its current timeline setting Jan. 1, 2028, as the date eligible workers can begin receiving up to 12 weeks of paid, job-protected leave.

In his April 2022 veto letter, Hogan called the measure an “irresponsibly crafted, rushed piece of legislation” and warned that it would impose additional costs on Maryland employers and employees. The Republican governor also criticized the bill for lacking a statutory payroll deduction cap or cost-sharing formula and questioned whether the state was prepared to administer the program. Lawmakers overrode his veto the following day.

Cox, who opposed the original legislation during his time in the Maryland House of Delegates, questioned whether requiring workers to contribute for an entire year before receiving benefits was justified.

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So the FBI Did Another Big Raid You Might Have Missed…

Did you hear the one about the FBI investigation in the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners that caught one of them with his hand in the cookie jar of his own nonprofit?

It’s no joke, but it’s one of those stories of Democrat corruption that somehow [cough, cough] got lost in the shuffle. Let’s bring a little sunshine to it, shall we?

Three years ago, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott appointed longtime social worker and behavioral-health entrepreneur Mujahid Muhammad to the city’s Board of School Commissioners. His primary organization, KEYS — Keep Encouraging Youth to Succeed — since 2009 purportedly was involved it counseling, youth recreation, senior services, workforce training, and “culinary therapy”—using grocery deliveries and cooking lessons with families needing mental-health support.

KEYS took a kind of unconventional approach I’d usually think was noteworthy for all the right reasons.

Purportedly.

Project Baltimore reported last week that it “has been digging into KEYS Empowers financials and found that in federal filings, KEYS reports paying out over $400,000 in salaries to zero employees.”

Then there’s this from the Baltimore Banner: “A nonprofit called KEYS Empowers Inc. that lists the same address as its headquarters and Muhammad as the executive director reported receiving more than $4.7 million in government funds for the 2023 and 2024 tax years, tax filings show. That money made up the entirety of KEYS Empowers revenue for those years.”

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“Facing Problems With Crime”: Even Baltimore City’s Hipster-Owned Businesses Are Losing Patience

Baltimore City’s image remains deeply shaped by HBO’s hit crime drama, the 2015 riots, an ongoing public safety crisis, decades of deindustrialization, population collapse, and the opioid and drug crisis. Together, those mounting problems have severely weakened the city’s appeal to visitors, residents, and businesses.

Democrats have held Baltimore’s mayor’s office continuously since 1967, placing nearly a six-decade reign under what can only be described as one-party rule by extreme left-wing Democratic queens and kings. This epic trail of destruction and chaos reflects a progressive experiment that has horribly gone wrong and the resulting crime and economic despair.

A population collapse to a 100-year low, absurdly high taxes, and crime have made it nearly impossible for mom-and-pop businesses to operate, even in the nicest parts of town.

Take Federal Hill, a historic neighborhood just south of Baltimore’s failed Inner Harbor. Once a popular spot for bars, restaurants, and college graduates, it has quickly descended into crime.

Local outlet The Baltimore Banner reports that yet another local restaurant is leaving the area.

Blue Moon Too will close its Federal Hill location in spring 2027 after its landlord declined to renew its lease.

Owner Sarah Simington also warned: “The neighborhood has been facing problems with crime.” 

Instead of moving her local brunch spot into the county, a much safer area, as many other restaurants in the city have done since the 2015 riots, Simington will relocate hers to Hampden, a somewhat safer part of the metro area.

Another popular spot in the harbor area that has been transformed into chaos is Fells Point, a popular bar district.

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Baltimore Rock Opera Society Fires White Director for ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Because She Wore Cornrows to Burning Man

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society has fired its new executive director, Kelly Carnes, after a video showed the white arts executive wearing cornrows at the Burning Man festival, and leftists complained that the hairstyle was cultural appropriation.

Carnes had only been on the job for about two weeks when she was canned.

The volunteer-run theater group, which has staged original rock-and-roll shows in Baltimore since 2009, welcomed her on Instagram on September 14, writing that it was “excited for the new stories about to unfold under AWOL’s leadership as she supports us in our 7,000-year mission of incredible rock theater.”

Less than two weeks later, they fired her.

An email to volunteers, obtained by the Baltimore Banner, announced the firing and said four of the six board members would step down on December 31.

“For BROS to continue, there is an URGENT NEED for qualified people to step up and take these responsibilities from the current board immediately,” the email said.

WBAL reports:

The organization added it was revising its Anti-Discrimination Policy to address cultural representation and dress and enforcing anti-racism leadership training.

“The mission of this group will focus on initiatives and systemic changes related to community culture, anti-racist practices, inclusion, accountability, equity, and access within BROS,” the statement posted on social media adds.

The scandal began with a video from a BROS public event.

Carnes had just returned from Burning Man, the annual arts festival in the Nevada desert. She said she had her hair put in cornrows as a “protective style” against the wind and dust, and that she kept the braids because she did not have time to take them out before her first event with the group.

The style featured cornrows along the top, then longer braids and extensions.

She told The Banner that she had checked with fellow campers, including people of color, and with people she works with at home, before wearing it.

The group later removed the video.

Before a September 22 meeting, the board posted that it had “received many heartfelt and concerned messages from members of our community regarding a video circulated on social media showing our new Executive Director, who is white, wearing cornrows at a recent BROS public event.”

The statement said the board shared “the weight of these concerns” and took the matter seriously.

Carnes said the termination letter did not mention the hairstyle. It said she was “not a good fit,” but she does not accept that explanation.

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Maryland Medical Examiner Officially Rules Black Man Found Hanging From Tree Died by Suicide — Online Lynching Narrative Collapses

Maryland’s chief medical examiner has officially ruled that a Black man found hanging from a tree in Prince George’s County on Sunday morning died by suicide.

The ruling came Monday, just one day after the body was discovered high in a tree in front of an industrial business on the 9300 block of D’Arcy Road in unincorporated Upper Marlboro, WTOP News reported.

Police and fire crews arrived around 7:55 a.m. Sunday. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Because of the height of the body and the need to wait for the medical examiner, many drivers passing by saw the grim sight. Photos quickly spread on social media. Almost immediately, users began calling it a lynching.

County Executive Aisha Braveboy, a Democrat, held a press conference Monday and pleaded with the public to stop.

“Don’t ask for clickbait and use this tragedy to get followers or to get likes, because this is a tragedy,” she said. “A person is dead. He’s dead, and he took his own life.”

Braveboy added that officials “will tell the truth” and she would not entertain “theory, innuendoes and folks who just want to spew, quite frankly, untruths.”

The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the man died of suicide by hanging with no other signs of trauma.

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Body Cam Footage Reveals Maryland Democrat State Sen. LIED to Police About Drunken Hit-and-Run — Cops Let Him Walk Without a Sobriety Test as He Says “Governor Will Take Care of It”

Newly released body-camera footage and surveillance video have raised serious questions about Maryland Democratic state Sen. C. Anthony Muse after his Land Rover struck a parked vehicle and ended up partially on a sidewalk and on top of a tree.

The footage, obtained by Gary Collins of Spotlight on Maryland and reported by Fox Baltimore, shows Muse telling officers that his “driver” had parked his Land Rover Defender on a sidewalk and against a tree, an account that surveillance video directly contradicts.

The video shows Muse himself behind the wheel, maneuvering the SUV for several minutes before getting out and walking away alone.

The incident began shortly after 8 p.m. on Aug. 3 in Annapolis’s Eastport neighborhood while the Maryland General Assembly was meeting in special session over congressional redistricting. Muse’s SUV struck the mirror of a parked vehicle, and witnesses say he didn’t stop.

One caller told dispatchers she was “pretty sure he is intoxicated.”

Surveillance video shows Muse’s SUV later maneuvering for several minutes before coming to rest partly on the sidewalk and on top of a tree in the 400 block of Fourth Street. Annapolis parking enforcement issued a $100 citation.

When parking enforcement officers approached, one radioed to police: “The senator just entered the vehicle. I’m not sure he should be driving.”

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FDA Using Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Young Baboons for Infection Experiments in Maryland

The Food and Drug Administration is buying up young baboons with taxpayer dollars so researchers can infect and kill them for research in Maryland.

White Coat Waste Project has released a new report detailing how the agency issued a $368,626 purchase order on August 31 to buy 20 baboons for pertussis experiments at its Maryland primate laboratory.

An active protocol allows the lab to use up to 48 animals.

Some of the baboons will receive experimental vaccines or antibodies. Others will get no protection at all. Then researchers will pump the bacteria that cause whooping cough into their windpipes and noses.

The primates will be subjected to violent coughing, vomiting, breathing problems, fever, weight loss, nasal discharge, and weeks of illness.

Staff will draw blood and swab noses and throats again and again.

Some of the animals will be killed and dissected so researchers can examine their lungs, windpipes, and lymph nodes.

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Maryland Gov. Cheers State Supreme Court Ruling on Redistricting Plan to Remove Sole GOP Congressional District – Rep. Andy Harris Responds

Maryland Governor Wes Moore released a video statement on Saturday, announcing that a ballot initiative to erase the state’s single Republican district was approved by the Maryland Supreme Court and vowing to use the ruling to disenfranchise state Republicans. 

Per Politico:

The Maryland Supreme Court on Thursday gave Democrats a victory in the state’s protracted redistricting battle, allowing the Legislature’s proposed amendment on redistricting that party leaders want to clear the way for a 2028 gerrymander to appear before voters in November.

If approved by voters on Election Day, the measure known as Question 3 will prevent future Democratic redraws from being subjected to strict compactness and geographic standards that undid their last attempt at an 8-0 map in 2022.

Following the ruling, Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore applauded the ruling, claiming it means “that the power of our democracy belongs in the hands of the people.”

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Judge Halts Another Democrat Scheme To Rig State Congressional Maps

Democrats have done a lot of weaselly things in the pursuit of power, but their ploy to grab a congressional seat by a quick and crooked change to Maryland’s constitution is a real doozy. 

A Maryland judge this week saw through the legally tortured redistricting scheme and put the kibosh on the hastily made ballot question. 

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson on Wednesday enjoined the Maryland State Board of Elections from putting an amendment question on the Nov. 3 ballot that the legislature unlawfully conceived. 

“Because the legislature did not follow the very laws it enacted, the court finds the enactment of HB2100 to be legally deficient,” Thompson wrote in his pointed opinion. The Board of Elections immediately appealed the decision to the Maryland Supreme Court. 

Shrugging Off the Law 

The rushed plan effectively seeks to wipe out the Old Line State’s sole Republican-held congressional district, just as Democrats tried and failed to do in Virginia earlier this year. 

As court records spell out, the General Assembly just last session passed a bill that established new content requirements for statewide ballot questions and set a July 1 deadline for amendment questions to be submitted to the Board of Elections. Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat with presidential aspirations, backed the Senate bill. The law went into effect on June 1. 

A month and a half later, Moore issued a proclamation calling the General Assembly into “Extraordinary Session” to begin on Aug. 3. The purpose? To “pass legislation to amend the State constitution to clarify and reaffirm that the provisions which govern the requirements of our State legislative districts to not apply to Maryland’s congressional districts.” 

But the special session convened more than a month after the July 1 ballot certification deadline. The General Assembly disregarded a law that it recently had passed. It was fresh of mind. They couldn’t have forgotten about it. 

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Hakeem Jeffries Humiliated as Maryland Gerrymander Scheme Crashes in Court

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has suffered another embarrassing setback in his campaign to capture congressional seats through aggressive Democratic redistricting.

This time, a Maryland judge blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that could have threatened the state’s lone Republican congressional district, as reported by Red State.

Jeffries, who represents New York’s Eighth District, personally traveled to Maryland to encourage Democrat lawmakers to pursue the plan.

His lobbying effort now looks like another wasted trip in a growing series of legal defeats for his party.

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson ruled Wednesday that the amendment cannot appear on the November ballot.

He found that lawmakers missed a statutory deadline, presented voters with misleading ballot language, and violated Maryland’s single subject rule.

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