FROSH SEEKS PRICE CUT FOR OD ANTIDOTE: Attorney General Brian Frosh is asking the maker of a heroin overdose drug to lower its prices for government agencies, a copy of a letter made public on Thursday shows. Frosh is calling for an agreement similar to those made in New York and Ohio this year, in which California-based Amphastar Pharmaceuticals provides a rebate to public agencies that purchase naloxone, which is used to save the lives of people who have overdosed on heroin. Led by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a host of local and federal officials have raised concerns about a spike in the price of the drug that has occurred at the same time public health officials are responding to an increase in deaths from heroin.
Gov. Hogan on the phone in the hospital. Governor’s office photo
CUTTING DROPOUT RATES: Beginning in the 2015-16 school year, 16-year-old students can no longer drop out of school in Maryland, reports Jeremy Bauer-Wolf for the Frederick News-Post. A law passed by the state Legislature in 2012 took effect July 1, raising the age of compulsory school attendance to 17. Under the same law, by the 2017-18 school year, only 18-year-old students will be able to drop out.
HOGAN TUMOR SHRINKING: Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that the tumor in his neck that led to the discovery of his cancer has shrunk considerably after two rounds of chemotherapy — a sign, he said, that he is responding well to treatment, reports Ovetta Wiggins in the Post. The doctors “are very, very pleased. They are almost shocked at how well I’m doing,” Hogan (R) said during a phone interview from his room at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, shortly before he was discharged on Thursday afternoon. “They think the odds are great. I’m doing better than expected.”
UNTESTED RAPE KITS IN WICOMICO: Vanessa Junkin of the Salisbury Daily Times writes about the untested rape kits between the Salisbury Police Department and the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department, part of a national story investigated by U.S. Today and its Gannett affiliates. There are nearly 100 untested sexual assault kits between the Salisbury Police Department and the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office. But testing these kits wouldn’t have helped the cases, officials say.
BUS RAPID TRANSIT ALTERNATIVE: Adam Bednar of the Daily Record writes that Bus Rapid Transit, a possible alternative to the now defunct Red Line light rail proposal, would still require substantial investment, and it’s unclear if it could meet Baltimore City’s transportation needs. Members of Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration have previously voiced support for investigating a rapid bus system as a cheaper substitute for the $2.9 billion Red Line, which would have connected Woodlawn in Baltimore County with Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in East Baltimore.
MARYLAND LIVE HOTEL: Developers of Maryland Live want to build an 18-story hotel at the Hanover casino. Plans for the project, submitted to the county’s Office of Planning and Zoning, show a proposal for a 300-room, 20,000 square-foot hotel on a five-acre site behind the casino. The addition of 370 parking spaces is also included, Rema Rahman reports in the Annapolis Capital. Due to its height and proximity to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, the project required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which was granted July 7.
MO CO STORMWATER FEE STRUCK: Steve Lash of the Daily Record reports that a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge on Wednesday struck down the county’s stormwater fee, saying it is unmoored by the county’s cost of providing runoff protection as required by state law.
CUTTING GUN DEATHS: In a column for the Daily Record, Fraser Smith writes about gun deaths and how gun licensing such as that in New Jersey could cut the number of murders.
SANCTUARY CITIES IMPERILED: House Republicans approved legislation Thursday that would strip millions in federal funding from “sanctuary cities” such as Baltimore City that have adopted immigrant-friendly policies, a response to a killing in San Francisco that has thrust immigration back into the political forefront.
O’MALLEY TACKLES WALL ST.: Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley on Thursday called on his competitors to propose specific policies to overhaul Wall Street, suggesting that only those who do so can consider themselves “credible” to voters, John Fritze is reporting in the Sun.
CATONSVILLE NUNS GO TO SUPREMES: The Little Sisters of the Poor are taking their fight against an Obamacare requirement to provide contraceptive coverage to employees to the Supreme Court. Alison Knezevich of the Sun reports that the global order of nuns, which has its U.S. headquarters in Catonsville, is appealing a ruling last week by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which directed it to comply with the Affordable Care Act requirement that its insurance carrier cover contraception for lay employees or face fines from the IRS.
BDC AIDS CITY BIZ: The Baltimore Development Corp. has distributed $417,000 to help property owners and businesses recover from physical damage incurred during the Baltimore riots and looting last April, Ed Gunts reports for the Baltimore Brew. As of Wednesday, 47 applicants received nearly $128,000 for repairs and improvements to damaged storefronts, and 14 businesses received more than $289,000 in business recovery loans, BDC President William H. Cole reported to board members during its monthly meeting Thursday
LIVE WHERE THEY POLICE? Should Baltimore City require its new police officers to live within the city limits? Is there any evidence to suggest that leads to better policing and safer neighborhoods? Dan Rodricks of WYPR-FM talks residency requirements for police, and gets the perspective of a 15-veteran of the Philadelphia police force, which requires officers live in the city for the first five years of their career.
When will Frosh seek to stop the crimes that continue–Despite the fact that Maryland courtrooms remain active crime scenes, with backdated, forged and fabricated documents still sloshing around them, state and federal regulators have not filed new charges of misconduct against Bank of America, Bank of New York, Deutsche Bank, U.S. Bank, Green Tree, or any other mortgage industry participant, since the round of national settlements over foreclosure fraud effectively closed the issue. The BANKSTERS continue to commit fraud upon hardworking people and fraud upon the courts. The biggest Ponzi scheme the world has ever seen , where the Banksters created credit out of thin air, not for their borrowers, but for the banksters themselves via the Federal Reserve’s magic check book, with no bank account behind it. The Bankster then loaned that imaginary money to people on the security of overvalued real property with the deliberate aim of reducing the artificially raised property prices and putting people out of work.People without income cannot pay their bills, so they were guaranteed they could steal all that real property from their rightful owners. Of course you would say to yourself, that makes no sense because the Banksters would lose money when foreclosing on the security , but you’d be wrong because the banksters insured the debt with an insurance company, but just forgot to tell the borrowers that. SO they knew they could not lose. Its what you might call having your cake and eating it too. You see, just secretly insuring the debt was the way they ensured that they lost no money. First they sold investors in Wall Street on the idea of using pensions and other fund moneys to invest in the profitable housing market. Then they sold homeowners on the idea of borrowing money against their rising property values, secure in knowing that they had artificially raised those prices and knew they could reverse that trend rapidly, when the time was right. Then they found another group of investors and sold them on insuring against the unlikely risk of those secure mortgages defaulting. But, as you know, they had already insured the downside risk. So they devised a new name that no one understood called the credit default swap. These were not insurance policies regulated by the states, but were unregulated securities sold on wall street to investors. So, once they got the business of insurance outside of the regulatory realm, it was no holds barred and they sold the same investment to up to 20 different groups in respect of every mortgage pool they pretended to create in the securitized mortgage scam.But people need to lose the mindset of someone who has been brainwashed by the garbage put out by government at state and federal level and echoed in the corporate owned media
SO therefore, The banksters along side Freddie and Fannie, were and still are continuing to submit fraudulent documents to the courts in order to steal homes from homeowners. They and their substitute trustee lawyers (ie Samuel I White PC, just one of many ) are submitting FRAUDULENT papers to the courts in order to FRAUDULENTLY foreclose on homeowners across the nation. Mortgage notes with Forged Owners signatures and ta-da endorsements are being submitted to the courts in order to steal homes. Bank of america(or as they like to refer to themselves…fka countrywide) made a deal with the attorney generals to modify loans that they really had no right to modify as they were illegally acquired to begin with. They committed notary fraud, forgery, added fake endorsements and as their crimes began to come to light…………they made a deal and instead of modifications (which they LED the homeowners to believe what was happening)….they handed the fraudulent documents over to Green Tree, soon to be called DiTech..corporate criminals are notorious for changing their names after lights shine on their crimes…, among others, to foreclose. Meanwhile, homeowners are the ones who are paying the price by having their homes taken because of felonies that are being committed . Fraud upon the courts, racketeering, forgery, wire fraud, notary fraud…pathetic, nauseating, and just all around COMPLETELY disgusting. Wake up America. Wake Up.