The Regal Valley Mall 16 is quickly turning into a real dump
Sheri and I went to the Regal Valley Mall 16 last night to see The Crazies (loved it) and I was surprised to see what a dump the theater has become. This 16-screen theater opened in the Valley Mall not too long ago. I don’t remember the exact date, but it looks much older than it has any business looking.
The place is a dump.
As the photo shows, most if not all of the seats are ripped, exposing large sections of dirty, ratty looking foam.
If Regal’s not going to replace damaged seating, they ought to at least invest in some duct tape. Since it now comes in different colors, they could even get some that matches the color of the seat.
It’s pretty obvious they just don’t care.
18 inches of snow makes this blizzard some kind of record
The blizzard looks to be over. The sun is shinning and it’s not snowing anymore, but the ground is still blanketed with the white stuff. The Herald-Mail is reporting that we received 18 inches of the stuff here in Williamsport.
The National Weather Service is saying this storm was a record for the month of December. I’m not sure why it’s important to categorize it by the month. It’s not like it’s August or July. It’s December, one of the months we get snow.
I guess a lot of people yesterday decided to would be a good idea to go out and drive around even though local law enforcement was pleading with people to stay off the roads and to please stay home. It’s not like there were a lot of places for people to go, except of course a snowy ditch on the side of the road. That’s where a lot of people ended up yesterday. In a snowy ditch.
Most if not all of the stores in the area were closed yesterday. I guess it’s hard to get people in the world of retail to come to work in the middle of a blizzard when you are only paying them minimum wage.
Yesterday was some kind of major shopping day in that it was the final Saturday before Christmas, the day we honor the birth of the Son of God, the man that told people to forsake treasures here on earth and to instead sell everything we own and give it to the poor. We honor his birth by ignoring what he said and instead we buy lots and lots of stuff for the people in our lives. If these people also happen to be poor, than so much the better.
Now that it’s stopped snowing and the roads look to be clear, I imagine the malls and other stores will be making up for yesterday with lots of shoppers. And yes, I will probably be one of them. I have a 30% off Borders coupon that expires on Monday. Plus, I think we still have a few gifts to pick up.
Books-A-Million comes to the Hagerstown area
It was only a few weeks ago that I was saddened to learn that the Waldenbooks in the Valley Mall was closing. The book store had been a constant fixture in the Valley Mall as long as I’ve lived here in the Hagerstown area. We stopped by the Valley Mall this evening and I was pleasantly surprised to see that a Books-A-Million had moved and and set up in place of Waldenbooks.
It’s a Christmas miracle!
A large Books-A-Million opened recently in nearby Martinsburg, West Virginia. This one of course is much smaller, but it’s still great to have a place in the mall to buy books and magazines. Walking around inside tonight, it looks as though the sections are more or less the same as they were when it was a Waldenbooks.
Sending prisoners and the unemployed to Afghanistan
One of the most popular parts of the local newspaper, The Herald-Mail, is the Mail Call section. It’s where people call in and leave messages about the things that concern them. To be honest, I used to think that The Herald-Mail was just making up these calls. Most of them are almost too silly and too entertaining for me to believe that they are true.
I’ve since changed my mind. I’ve realized that the Hagerstown area has no shortage of the type of people that would call into Mail Call.
Here’s one that caught my attention today:
I’m a veteran. What they should do is empty out the prisons, and all these young guys hanging on the streets, and send them to Afghanistan. They’re not doing any good on the streets where they’re at now. All the prisoners and people that’s unemployed and stuff, roaming the streets, send them to Afghanistan. Let them fight the war.
As an unemployed person, I really appreciate being grouped in with people in prison. As bad as getting laid off was two months ago, if this person was in charge, I would be on a plane right now sitting next to Bernie Madoff and Charles Manson heading to Afghanistan.
That would really suck.
The state of Virgina is fixin to kill Muhammad
Tonight at 9 p.m the state of Virgina will be executing John Allen Muhammad, one of the so-called beltway snipers.
Back in 2002, Muhammad and his young ward, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized people in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virgina. People were afraid to cut their grass, pump gas, or go shopping. Before they were done, they had killed 10 people and wounded 3 others.
The three weeks they were driving around and shooting people from the trunk of their car was a colossal bucket of suck for everyone. They were caught sleeping in their car at a rest stop here in Maryland on Interstate 70, about halfway between Frederick and Hagerstown.
The reason Muhammad is now in Virgina and not Maryland is because the Bush administration had him transfered to Virginia so that he could be tried there first. The reason? Because the prosecutor in Virginia was a Republican who had aspirations for higher office.
The prosecutor in Maryland was a Democrat.
I’m generally against the death penalty, not because I care about people like John Allen Muhammad. I don’t. I just don’t see how it solves anything. When Muhammad shuts his eyes for the last time tonight, the people he killed will still be dead. I also have a problem with how the death penalty is given to some, but not others.
It seems far too arbitrary.
With that said, I’m glad Muhammad is getting his ticket punched tonight. If we are going to have the death penalty in this country, why not him? I can think of no better person than John Allen Muhammad to get strapped down on a gurney and a toxic cocktail pumped through his veins.
Nice sunglasses buddy
There’s a Native American Indian Pow Wow going on this weekend at the Hagerstown Raceway. The Herald-Mail was kind enough to run photos from yesterday’s event so people like me can see some of the sights without having to go to the trouble of venturing out to the raceway and ponying up the $5 admission fee.
It’s not like I haven’t seen a pow wow before. I was once at the Francis Scott Key Mall in Frederick when one of these hokey events was taking place in the mall’s center square. I stood there in the mall and watched for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. What I saw were people that were supposedly honoring their ancestor’s culture and spiritual beliefs by prancing around the mall dressed in costumes made with synthetic materials. Nearly all of the participants were wearing eye glasses, something their ancestors probably didn’t do even if they weren’t lucky enough to have perfect eyesight. One of the female participants was wearing a costume made from pink buckskin.
Though there are many words I could use to describe what I saw, the words “traditional” or “authentic” would not be included.
The whole thing just seemed tacky. It would have been different if what I saw were people engaged in the historic and authentic reproduction of their ancestor’s beliefs. I didn’t see that. I saw something a lot different than that. Instead of honoring their ancestors, if anything, what they were doing was actually dishonoring those beliefs.
Hagerstown’s very own health care town hall
United States Senator Benjamin L. Cardin held a town hall on health care yesterday at the Hagerstown Community College and the 450 people that were allowed to attend spent most of the time with Cardin screaming at him about illegal aliens, abortion, and how government health care will result in the elderly being euthanized.
As the above photo shows, there was at least one man walking around the event displaying a photo of President Barack Obama depicted as Adolf Hitler.
Seriously? I just don’t get it.
I watched videos on the Herald-Mail website that showed people screaming at Cardin and reading pre-written statements they brought with them to the event. Their ignorance combined with their rude behavior actually made me feel embarrassed to live here.
A majority of the people attending the event appeared to be at least 65 years of age. To hear them yell at Cardin about the evils of government health care, knowing that as senior citizens, they already enjoy quality government health care in the form of Medicare, would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
The Herald-Mail reported that a man was standing outside the Hagerstown Community College entrance on Robinwood Drive with a sign that read, “Death to Obama” and another one that read, “Death to Obama, Michelle and his two stupid kids.”
Classy.
16-year old Hagerstown girl found guilty of soliciting the murder of her father
Danielle Black, a 16-year old Hagerstown girl was found guilty of soliciting the murder of her father, Billy Lee Black. Danielle Black asked a friend, Matthew Gray, to kill her father while the two were riding on a school bus.
Billy Lee Black’s body was found the morning of October 31, 2008 behind his house.
Alec Scott Eger, 20, not Matthew Gray, is charged with committing the actual murder of Billy Lee Black. Eger is awaiting a mental evaluation before he can be tired.
Danielle Black never asked Eger to murder her father.
Danielle Black told her fellow students at South Hagerstown High School that her father often physically abused her, though the girl’s stepmother, Andrea Black, testified that this was not true. Then again, what’s she supposed to say? If she admitted that Billy Lee Black abused his daughter, she too would be culpable if she allowed it to go on without trying to stop it.
There’s a lot about this case that bothers me. There’s no doubt that Danielle Black is a screwed up, creepy person, but is she an adult? I don’t like how children can be tried as adults. A person is either an adult or they are not. We as a society decided a long time ago that a person is not an adult until they are at least 18 years of age. Though some 16 year old children are more mature than their peers, I don’t think anyone would argue that Danielle Black was one of those.
If anything, she’s less mature than the average 16-year old.
City of Hagerstown might examine unpopular sidewalk repair policy
Hagerstown’s City Council tonight is discussing whether or not to create a special task force to review the city’s unpopular curb and sidewalk policy. Currently, the city of Hagerstown requires the owner of the home in which a broken or damaged curb or sidewalk sits in front of to pay for the repair.
These repairs cost anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000.
For years, Hagerstown home owners have complained about getting hit with these repair charges. They don’t own the sidewalk or curb, it’s public property. Why should they be saddled with the repair costs? What’s next, will they be stuck with paying to have the street in front of their homes repaired too?
Maybe I shouldn’t give anyone any ideas.
I think it’s absurd that the city council is even contemplating whether or not to form a special task force to look into this issue. I think they are doing it because they don’t want to be responsible for making the unpopular decision of continuing to stick it to home owners.
A task force should only be formed to catch a serial killer, not to figure out a way to pay for sidewalk repairs.
Area realator compares city employees to Nazis
At a public hearing held to discuss the City of Hagerstown’s property tax rate, Tim Light, an area realtor, took the stage and accused city employees working in the Code Compliance Office of being like the Nazis who worked in the Gestapo.
From my favorite newspaper, the Herald-Mail:
After Martin finished his presentation, Realtor Tim Light took the stage.
Light said he represented several Realtors and investors.
The city should consider making more cuts, he said, rather than relying on property owners to create tax revenue. Light suggested starting with the Code Compliance Office because its employees turn away investors by using strong-armed tactics.
He compared the Code Compliance Office to the Gestapo and the Nazis.
“Code Enforcement killed property values,” Light said. “Everyone knows not to invest in the City of Hagerstown. It’s not profitable.”
Unless the folks working in the Code Compliance Office are hearding people into box cars and sending them to work camps in eastern Europe, I don’t really understand the comparison.
Roscoe Bartlett refers to Democrats as the enemy
Area Republicans gathered at the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center on Saturday for the Maryland GOP spring convention where they talked about how awful Democrats were and how courageous Rush Limbaugh is.
From Hagerstown’s newspaper of record, the Herald-Mail:
As Democrats strengthen their federal control, U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., said he feels ambivalent.
Even while outnumbered, Republicans can fight full bore for their causes. Or they can be content to watch Democrats overspend and make bad policy decisions, benefiting the GOP, Bartlett said.The conventional wisdom, he said, is “when your enemy is committing suicide, you shouldn’t interfere.”
And I thought Roscoe Bartlett’s enemy, like all Americans, was al Qaeda. I should have realized Bartlett would put his political party before his country. Silly me.
Bartlett told the crowd that he was with Rush Limbaugh. He said that Limbaugh had the courage to not say that he wanted Barack Obama to succeed.
It should be no surprise that Roscoe Bartlett would think that a draft-dodger like Rush Limbaugh is courageous. Rush Limbaugh avoided military service during the Vietnam conflict by claiming to have an “old football injury”, and then claiming to having a pilonidal cyst on his buttocks. Roscoe Bartlett avoided military service during World War Two by claiming he wanted to pursue a career in the ministry, though ne never actually did.
This is the man that once called for higher gas prices. He failed to report roughly $1 million in property sales in official documents. He also bowed to Reverend Sun Myung Moon at a crowning ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what Roscoe Bartlett says or does. The people of the 6th district of Maryland will continue to reelect him to the U.S. House of Representatives every two years.
Hagerstown Tea Party a raging success
It would seem that the Tea Party protest held in Hagerstown yesterday was a huge success. The Herald-Mail reports that there were “about” 300 people in attendance. The event’s organizers were hoping to attract 200 people.
I’m still not sure what the protest was actually about. I heard over and over again that it was a grass roots, non-partisan movement, but when you look at the people behind the movement, you only see Republicans.
Was it about wasteful government spending? Where have these people been for the past eight years?
Much of the angst coming from these Tea Party people seems to be directed to President Obama. Do they realize that he has only been in office for less than three months? Do they know that unless they make more than $250,000 a year, their taxes under Obama were cut? I hope these people compare their 2009 tax return to the one they filed yesterday. The amount of taxes they will be paying in 2009 will be less than what they are paying for 2008.
I hope those that stood in the rain yesterday in downtown Hagerstown throwing tea bags in that plastic wadding pool will compare their 2009 tax return to their 2008 tax return.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they will.
Hagerstown Tea Party
From the “official” Hagerstown Tea Party freebie Google Blogspot website:
TEA PARTY PLANNED FOR HAGERSTOWN MARYLANDThe Hagerstown Tea Party represents people who are concerned about their family’s and their children’s future, who are concerned about the skyrocketing national debt, and who think the government is spending too much of their hard-earned money. The Hagerstown Tea Party is a part of a national movement of Tea Parties planned in over 1,500 cities across the U.S. scheduled for April 15.
The Hagerstown Tea Party expects to have approximately 200 participants. Main Speakers include Delegate Chris Shank and Delegate Andrew Serafini. The event is scheduled for this Wednesday, Tax Day, rain or shine from 3-6 PM in the University Plaza. The plaza is located right next to the University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus and across from Hagerstown Post Office in the middle of the Dual Highway.
Please contact Neil Parrott for more information. He can be reached by phone at 240-329-2645 or by e-mail at hagerstownteaparty@myactv.net.
I don’t know what’s funnier: that they think 200 people are going to show up for this thing or that they are wrong about where the University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus is located.
The Hagerstown Post Office is not on Dual Highway. It’s on Franklin Street. The University of Maryland Hagerstown Campus is on West Washington Street.
What a waste of money
Yesterday there was a special ribbon cutting ceremony at the Hagerstown Regional Airport celebrating the new commuter service to Baltimore. Cap Air will be flying passengers from Hagerstown to Baltimore and will be receiving $1.2 million from the federal government in the form of a special subsidy for the service.
There is a special government program called the Essential Air Service (EAS) that is designed to link rural communities with the national transportation system. Maryland’s two U.S. Senators, Barbara A. Mikulski (D) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D) had to seek a special waiver so Hagerstown would be qualified.
Hagerstown of course is not at all qualified for this special subsidy. One can easily drive from Hagerstown to either Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport or Dulles International Airport in Virgina. Either airport is only an hour drive away.
It was recently announced that the unemployment rate here in Washington County is now at 9.9%. That $1.2 million subsidy going to Cap Air isn’t going to be making a dent in our unemployment rate.
Jonathan R. Burrs for mayor
Being that I’m now living in Williamsport and technically I have to stake in who the city of Hagerstown elects as it’s mayor, I feel like making my opinion in the matter known.
I endorse Republican Jonathan R. Burrs for the mayor of Hagerstown.
I realize that as a card carrying tree hugging liberal, I should probably be endorsing a Democrat if I’m going to meddle in the city politics of Hagerstown. The problem with that is I’ve never really subscribed to the notion that party affiliation matters all that much at the local level. As the mayor of Hagerstown, it doesn’t really mater what his views on gay marriage are or whether or not he supports a woman’s right to choose. Things like this don’t really come up an awful lot when it comes to running a city the size of Hagerstown.
I like the fact that Burrs not only knows what a fiber-optic cable high-speed Internet system is, he believes that it’s in the city’s best interest to establish one as a way of attracting high-tech businesses to the area.
That’s smart.
If you are a Republican living in Hagerstown, I urge you to go to the polls on March 10th and vote for Jonathan Burrs for mayor.
This is why Circuit City is going out of business
I stopped by Circuit City today to see if they had marked everything lower than the messily 10 to 20 percent things were originally marked down the day the liquidators came in. Unfortunately, everything still seems to be priced what it was last week.
I did see something though that was both funny and really quite telling. It was over in the computer section. It was the sign showing that all of the PC TV tuners were marked down 10 percent. As you can see from the above photo, whoever made up the sign referred to them as “thingamajigs”.
Thingamajigs? It’s entirely possible that whoever is handling the liquidation of the Hagerstown Circuit City store made all the signs and they are just completely ignorant when it comes to computer technology, but it appears the Hagerstown store is still fully staffed with red shirt Circuit City employees.
Back in May of 2007, Circuit City fired 3,400 of their long-term and knowledgeable employees and replaced them with lower paid, less knowledgeable replacements. Things for Circuit City went pretty much down hill from there. Your chances of getting a technical question correctly answered by a Circuit City employee after the great purge was about nill.
Meteorologists stink, and I don’t like them
On my iGoogle page, I have a gadget that shows the weather for Hagerstown. It shows not only the current weather, but the forecast for the next three days.
When I looked at it this morning, it showed that today’s forecast called for a high temperature of 40 degrees and a low of 25 degrees. The problem is, the current temperature was already ten whole degrees lower then the “forecasted” low.
Why do they still show the forecasted low of 25 degrees if they know that it’s wrong?
This is why people don’t trust meteorologists. They are the modern equivalent of witch doctors. Even their name is wrong in that they usually, oddly enough, know absolutely nothing about meteors. They pretend to embrace modern technology (e.g. Doppler radar, satellites, etc.), but in reality they are just making stuff up. At least a witch doctor has to shake a stick and throw some bones on the ground.
Meteorologists can’t even be bothered to update their “forecasted” low even when they know that it’s incorrect.
If you come to Hagerstown, you better bring your own road salt
Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith reported that there were 47 traffic accidents in the city on Wednesday, December 24 from the hours of midnight to 8:00 a.m. The reason? Because the city failed to spread salt, that magical high-tech substance that lowers the temperature in which water freezes.
Only a partial salt spreading crew was scheduled to be on duty. Whatever that means.
The totally retarded aspect of this story is that everyone knew that the weather forecast was calling for freezing rain on Wednesday. If there are two words you don’t want put together its “freezing” and “rain”.
I’m guessing that there were even more accidents than the 47 that were reported. Most fender-bender type of accidents don’t get reported to the police. The city screwed up by not scheduling salt to be spread on a night where freezing rain was in the forecast and it’s going to cost people a lot of money.
Charges dropped against Hagerstown cop
All criminal charges have been dropped against 24-year old Hagerstown police officer Curtis W. Kelley. He had been charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment after his live-in girlfriend told the police that he pointed his service weapon at her during an argument.
He allegedly said he wouldn’t shoot her because she wasn’t worth the bullet.
Officer Kelley’s lawyer was able to get the charges dismissed because Kelley’s girlfriend originally testified that she “did not believe he would shoot her,” but that she was concerned Kelley might harm her later. His lawyer argued that the assault charges required the victim to be in fear of bodily harm at the time of the incident. Being fearful of harm later on didn’t count.
Either pointing your weapon at your girlfriend during an argument is wrong or it’s not. I don’t quite understand exactly how her mental state at the time should be a factor. Frankly, it’s officer Kelley’s mental state at the time that should be a concern, not his girlfriend’s.
Maybe he shouldn’t be a cop
Hagerstown police officer Curtis W. Kelley, 24, has been placed on leave with pay and has been charged with various crimes in connection to allegedly pointing his departmentally issued handgun at his live-in girlfriend.
On September 12, Officer Kelly and his girlfriend got into an argument after she told him she was meeting a male friend she has known since kindergarten. Officer Kelly picked up his handgun that had been sitting on a table in their apartment and pointed it at her. He then allegedly said he wouldn’t shoot her because she wasn’t worth the bullet.
Now that is just rude. I’m pretty sure that the Hagerstown Police Department provides bullets to their officers for free. How bad must a woman be if she’s not worth a free bullet? It’s not like it was a special or exotic bullet. It was just a plain old regular 40-caliber bullet.
That’s no way to treat a lady, especially one you share your life with.
It’s also not a good idea to destroy your girlfriend’s self esteem before she heads off to spend time with a male friend. That’s just asking for trouble. [Herald-Mail]
Shop at the Hagerstown Prime Outlets and you might have your car towed away
Some Black Friday shoppers at the Hagerstown Prime Outlets mall discovered upon finishing their shopping that their cars had been towed away. There were so many shoppers at the Prime Outlets that all of the parking spaces were full. Many people began parking on the grassy areas.
Evidently the Prime Outlets has a rule against parking on the grass. The problem is, they do not post signs stating this fact. They keep this rule to themselves.
Shoppers who had their car towed away were forced to pay a towing company $250 to get their vehicle back.
I know where these people were parking. The only reason anyone would ever park there is because there’s no other place for them to park. This is such a scam. [MSNBC]
This is a top job?
Hagerstown’s local newspaper, The Herald-Mail, has a section on their website entitled “Top Jobs“. I think they simply republish on their website the jobs printed in the paper version of the newspaper, but I’m not sure.
While looking over the website this morning, one of the ads caught my attention. It’s for “exotic” dancers at a strip club.
Only the Herald-Mail would refer to a job where a young woman is required to remove her clothing on stage to entertain perverts as a “top job”.
I don’t remember seeing anyone with the name Bible on the ballot
The local newspaper has a photo slideshow on their website that featured various photos taken in Washington County on Election Day. The local newspaper being what it is, failed to put the photos into any sort of context. They didn’t identify anyone in the photos. They offered no explanation as to what the photos were capturing.
For instance, what is this man actually campaigning for? I don’t remember seeing a candidate on the ballot with the name “Bible”. I also don’t remember anything on the ballot that had to do with abortion. I think I would remember that.
If he is Pro-Life, does that mean he is against the death penalty too?
There was something on the ballot concerning gambling. It had to do with allowing slot machines here in Maryland. Personally, I could care less about slots. I don’t gamble or play games of chance. It has nothing to do with my morals or anything like that, I just find gambling to be extremely boring. With that said, I voted to allow slots here in Maryland. The reason? Who am I to tell someone that wants to play slots that they can’t. It’s none of my business.
What exactly is this man trying to get across to the voters? He has a checkmark in the box next to Pro-Life and an “X” next to gambling. Don’t they mean the same thing, a checkmark and an “X”?
I take it that this man was a McCain supporter. I find that to be extremely ironic in that out of the two candidates, Obama is the one that is a born again Christian. He’s the only one that has been married to the same woman his entire life. McCain on the other hand, not so much. He left his first wife for a woman much younger then himself, a woman who’s vast fourtune was built on selling of beer. Most Christians frown on drinking beer, let alone making millions of dollars selling it.
The First Amendment works both ways
Today’s Herald-Mail had a semi-interesting Mail Call entry. It’s from a person who claims they were “verbally assaulted” on election day:
I am writing this to the gentleman and his wife who verbally assaulted me on Election Day as I stood outside E. Russell Hicks Middle School. I would like to remind these fine U.S. citizens that I was well within my First Amendment rights to be there, just as much as they were. Not only am I also a U.S. citizen, but I am also a Christian. I appreciate the constitutional rights that our forefathers fought so hard for. … I was merely peacefully performing a civic duty and standing up for something I very strongly believe in. It would be a dismal day in this great country to wake up and realize that those unalienable rights had been taken away from us.
Except the gentleman and his wife also have First Amendment rights which means they are well within their rights to tell this Christian person standing outside the polling place exactly what they think of him or her. Freedom of Speech works both ways.
This person never bothers to say where exactly they were standing while “peacefully performing a civic duty.” It’s an important point because this person may have been breaking Maryland election law. In Maryland it’s illegal to canvass, electioneer, or post any campaign material within 100 feet of either the entrance or the exit to a polling place (Maryland Election Law § 16-206).
Man faces fines unless he moes his grassland habitat
Sharpsburg resident Dean Joyce has been notified by the Washington County Commissioners that he has to mow his natural meadow habitat down to 18 inches or he will face huge fines. Joyce decided to return his 3-acre field into a natural grassland habitat shortly after moving into his home in 2000. He is originally from Australia and he wanted to learn more about the flora and fauna of the United States.
I have to hand it to the Washington County Commissioners. When they decided to illegally give $10,000 to a Hagerstown all-star Little League team to supposedly cover travel expenses that were already being covered by Little League, I thought they couldn’t do anything as stupid ever again. Clearly I was wrong.
Joyce’s field is the way a field is supposed to look. It’s natural. It’s the way God intended a field to look. [The Herald Mail]
Former Maryland Delegate Robert McKee finally charged with possession of child pornography
It took seven months, but former Maryland Delegate Robert A. McKee has finally been charged in connection to possessing child pornography. Washington County deputies raided his home this past January and discovered a plethora of kiddie porn including computer images, magazines, and video tapes.
The charges are federal. In my opinion, if it was up to local authorities, McKee would never be charged. Washington County deputies confiscated a large amount of child pornography from McKee’s home on January 31. The same home he shares with his “adopted granddaughter”. Washington County Sheriff Douglas Mullendore, a friend of McKee, was present during the raid on McKee’s home. Instead of informing the public that a large stash of child pornography was found in McKee’s home, the news remained secret for two weeks. McKee continued working not only as a Maryland Delegate, but as the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.
According to his attorney, McKee plans on pleading guilty in a plea agreement with the Justice Department.
One more reason not to give Best Buy employees your personal information
I blogged a while back about the time I tried to purchase a Sportster 5 Sirius satellite radio from my local Hagerstown Best Buy. I was paying cash. The person at the register refused to sell it to me unless I gave her my personal private information. I refused to do this so they refused to sell it to me. They told me that Sirius requires them to record the personal private information of anyone buying on of their radios.
I contacted Sirius and they informed me that this was not correct. There was no requirement to gather the personal information of the people that were buying their hardware.
The Best Buy employee lied.
There now appears to be one more reason not to give your personal information to an employee at Best Buy. Amanda Hopkins, a former Best Buy employee in New Mexico has been indicted by a grand jury on numerous felony counts of credit card fraud. She worked as a customer representative at Best Buy. Her duties were opening new accounts for customers. She obtained customer credit information and used the information make numerous purchases on their accounts.
Best Buy doesn’t trust their employees so why should you? Every Best Buy I have been to has a person standing the exit checking the receipts of customers that purchase high value items. The reason? They are afraid that the person who ran the sale did not charge the right amount. They worry that their employees with have friends or family members come in and buy something and they won’t charge the correct amount. Instead of scanning the iPod player or the Blu-Ray player, they’ll scan a DVD movie or a pack of gum. By all appearences, it looks that you paid for what you were purchasing.
To think some people believe Hagerstown has a problem with racism
Yes, this says what you think it says. Click here to see a larger image. I don’t know what is more disturbing, that something like this could be found in Hagerstown’s own Rocky Ridge Collectibles or that the seller wants $45 for it.
And that was not the only piece of racist crap sitting on the shelf. No, it was only the most agregous. There were other similarly framed works of racism for sale along with this one.
Sorry for the crummy quality of the photo. I took it with my camera phone. I had to temporarily move a stack of cowboy hats to get a clear picture. Who would have guessed that the same vendor that was selling this framed piece of historical hate would also be selling cowboy hats?
It’s 2008. It would be nice if we could finally get past this type of stuff.
Porcelain clown doll freaks out some Hagerstown residents
And to think I thought the city of Boston was bad when they treated a stupid Lite-Brite character flipping the bird as some sort of terrorist attack. It turns out Hagerstown is a city of scardey cats too.
Someone left a black and white porcelain clown doll on the front steps of Hagerstown’s very own methadone clinic. Someone called 911 and the Hagerstown City Police responded by shutting down traffic so they could investigate this vile terrorist threat. It rook them an hour to realize that it posed no threat.
A porcelain clown doll? That’s what we’ve come to?
Former state delegate caught with child pornography remains free
On January 31, 2008, law enforcement officers raided the home of Robert A. McKee and seized two computers, 30 videotapes and printed materials from his home that officers described as being child pornography. At the time of the raid, McKee was an elected delegate to to the Maryland House of Delegates. He was also the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.
He was also a Republican.
When news of the incident was made public a week later, McKee resigned from both the Maryland House of Delegates and his position with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.
It has now been 190 days since investigators seized the child pornography from McKee’s home. He has yet to be charged with any crime.
Why not?
Herald-Mail continues to smear Kelly Cromer
If the Herald-Mail newspaper is going to continue smearing the reputation of Hagerstown City Councilperson Kelly S. Cromer, I guess I will continue to blog about it. Being that the Washington County Ethics Commission cleared Cromer of acting unethical the day she was pulled over by a Hagerstown police officer for speeding, I thought the Herald-Mail would move on.
Evidently I was wrong.
Today’s edition included a front page story reporting that the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) voted unanimously on July 16 to rescind Councilwoman Kelly S. Cromer’s associate membership. This was before the Washington County Ethics Commission even ruled on the matter. Their decision wasn’t made public until July 31.
Today’s article included something that appears to be factually wrong. It reads:
She also was quoted as saying the police department had a vendetta against her because she questioned the validity of a program under which some city employees are permitted to drive city-owned vehicles to and from work.
She was never quoted as saying the police department had a vendetta against her. Someone who claimed to have been with Cromer when she took a phone call from the reporter from the Herald-Mail asking about the incident claimed on a message board that at no time in the phone conversation did Cromer say the word “vendetta”.
Shortly after reading that, I emailed Dan Dearth, the reporter who wrote the article, and asked him if Cromer actually said the world “vendetta”. He promptly replied:
Rick,
I never quoted her directly as saying that. I asked her whether she felt some city officials and some members of the police department had a vendetta against her. She said, “Yes.”
Thanks.
Dan
Dan Dearth was the one that chose the word vendetta, not Cromer. She only answered in the affirmative when asked if she felt “some” city officials and “some” members of the police department had a vendetta against her. She did not answer in the affirmative that she felt that the entire police department had a vendetta against her. The key word is “some”. The way it reads in today’s paper is that Cromer was quoted as saying the entire Hagerstown police department had a vendetta against her.
She never said that.
Can anyone even blame her if she does feel that some in the Hagerstown police department have a vendetta against her? How else did the newspaper learn about the traffic stop three weeks after it happened? Someone leaked the story to the newspaper and it wasn’t because they were a supporter of Councilperson Kelly Cromer. They did it to make her look bad and the Herald-Mail seems to be going out of their way to do everything they can to help.
Religious group terrorizes Hagerstown residents with giant scary abortion photos
People from the anti-choice group Face the Truth came to Hagerstown yesterday and terrorized people with giant scary abortion photos. Hagerstown is only one stop on their 15 city terror tour. Who knows, maybe they will make a stop in your city too.
My biggest problem with groups like this is that they take photos from a medical procedure and blow them up to 100 times the actual size to make them look like something they are not. They then wave these giant posters in your face and demand (demand!) you look at them.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
It doesn’t matter how old you are.
It doesn’t matter how young you are.
They will force you to look at their ghastly pictures.
It’s as though their right to make you look at ginned up photos is more important than your right not to see the photos.
Some members of Face the Truth even dragged their young children to the event and made them hold signs denouncing a woman’s right to choose.
The members of Face the Truth and other similar anti-choice groups want you to think that a fetus is the same thing as a human baby. The reality is that the two are not the same. Just because a gigantic posterized photo of a fetus might look like a human baby doesn’t make it an actual human baby. Have you ever seen a pig fetus? They too kind of look like a human baby. The same thing applies to a monkey fetus. They look remarkably similar to a human fetus.
That doesn’t mean they are human, even if they look like they are human. Looks can be deceiving.
My letter to the Herald-Mail over their editorial concerning Kelly Cromer
I blogged a while back about the local newspaper’s war against one of Hagerstown’s city elected councilmembers, Kelly Cromer. I read an editorial that was even more of a hack job then normal. I decided to temporarily lift my self-imposed ban on writing more letters to the newspaper. I originally blogged that if the newspaper didn’t publish my letter, I would go ahead and publish it here.
I don’t think they ever published my letter, so here it is:
I read the editorial published June 24 (Cromer’s apology for incident isn’t enough) and I was amazed at what I read. By demanding that Hagerstown City Councilwoman Kelly Cromer prove that her version of events concerning the May 26 traffic stop are true, you are in a very real sense demanding that she prove her own innocence. That’s not the way that it works. If Cromer committed some type crime or abuse of power, it’s up to her accusers – mainly the Hagerstown Police Department and the Herald-Mail — to prove her guilt. So far that hasn’t happened.
Much of what we know about this traffic stop was learned from reading a special supplemental report written by the officer that stopped Cromer, a supplemental report that was written the day after the actual traffic stop. We know from reading the supplemental report that the officer had to call his supervisor during the traffic stop and ask for advice. I wonder, did this officer receive any more advice the next day while writing the supplemental report? If so, how many people helped him write the supplemental report? Do any of them drive city owned take-home vehicles?
Cromer made no public mention of this incident until three weeks later when a reporter from the Herald-Mail contacted her while she was on vacation. The reporter asked if she believed there was a vendetta against her and she answered in the affirmative. Cromer didn’t choose that word “vendetta” to describe the situation, it was your reporter.
What I find to be the most peculiar thing – and that’s saying a lot — about this whole controversy is how the Herald-Mail found out about the traffic stop in the first place. It would appear that someone from the Hagerstown Police Department or some other city employee leaked the story to the Herald-Mail. Three weeks after the fact. It appears to me that this was done to make Cromer look bad in the eyes of her constituents. She is certainly taking a lot of heat for a word she herself never said. What would motivate someone to do such a thing? Maybe just maybe it was in response to her suggestion that the city investigate the validity of the take-home vehicle program. I can’t help but wonder if the person who leaked the story to the newspaper drives a city owned take-home vehicle. Since we will never know the identity of this person, we are left with only our suspicions.
Rick Rottman
Hagerstown
Booze party!
The local newspaper, The Herald-Mail runs a daily feature called Mail Call. It’s where they publish comments left on an answering machine, supposedly by people in and around the Hagerstown area.
I’ve had the theory for some time now that most of the calls are fake. I think they are made up by someone over at the Herald-Mail. Listening to a bunch of voice mails and transcribing them word for word sounds like a lot of work.
That’s something not often associated with the Herald-Mail.
This one cracked me up:
I’m a resident in the North End of Hagerstown, and I’d like to make a comment on this article in the paper this morning about shutting down the street to have a booze party. We can’t even have a nice Christmas tree in the square anymore because they said it interfered with the flow of traffic, but yet they want to have a booze party. I think it’s ridiculous. They call it an art district down there. How does that coincide with a booze party? Someone please tell me.
I’m going to out on a limb and take a guess that this fictitious caller doesn’t like booze parties. What he or she is referring to is the Downtown Live Hagerstown music festival. It’s a one day event where national bands and musical artists come and play on the square in downtown Hagerstown. They shut down Washington and Potomac street to vehicle traffic and make it a pedestrian-only area.
It’s been a huge success the first two years it’s been held. Though they serve beer, I don’t think any of the street vendors serve hard alcohol.
Happy birthday America
Today is Independence Day. The day in history the original 13 colonies declared their independence from mean ole England and became a real life country. Let freedom ring.
I must say, out of all of the countries that broke away from England, the United States has done awfully well for itself. Have you seen Rhodesia Zimbabwe lately? Ouch.
Sheri and I will be celebrating the holiday by not working. We were going to go to a community yard sale that takes place here in Hagerstown every Fourth of July, the Mile Long Yard Sale, but it looks like it’s going to rain.
MSNBC being the fine news organization that it is is showing back-to-back episodes of Dateline: To Catch a Predator. It’s where they trick some dumb pervert online into thinking he is chatting with a child about sex and they get him to come to what he thinks is the child’s house. In reality, it’s a home rigged with cameras, cops, and NBC’s smarmy Chris Hanson. What else would you expect them to do today, cover the news? I watched a segment earlier and I could swear I saw the predator at a Wizard World Philly. I would switch over to Fox News, but they would try to turn me into a Republican, and I don’t want that to happen.
The Herald-Mail’s war against Councilwoman Kelly Cromer continues
I promised myself a while back that I would stop writing letters to my local newspaper, the Herald-Mail. I wrote a letter last year where I referred to the deceased Rev. Jerry Falwell as “an idiot”. My comment was edited by someone at the Herald-Mail to read that I called him “a fool”.
They made me sound like Mr. T.
I read something this morning that made me do a reversal on my self imposed no-letter to the editor policy. It was a heavy-handed piece of drivel pretending to be an editorial calling for, among other things, Cromer to write a check to the United Way (huh?) for claiming that a Hagerstown police officer was “lying” when he submitted a report stating that she asked him if he “knew who she was” when he stopped her for speeding.
I doubt they will publish my letter. If they do, I will make sure to link to it. If don’t publish it, I will post it here.
This isn’t the first time the Herald-Mail has editorialized about the Cromer traffic stop. On June 14th they published an editorial accusing Cromer of being too quick in accusing the police of a vendetta.
What they failed to mention was that it was the Herald-Mail — not Cromer — that came up with the word “‘vendetta’.
I read a post over on the Herald-Mail message board written by someone claiming to be a friend of Cromer’s. Among other things, this person claimed to have been with Cromer when she received the phone call from the Heard-Mail reporter asking about the incident. This person claimed that at no time did she hear Cromer use the word “vendetta” when talking with the reporter.
Huh?
Last week I emailed the reporter who wrote the story and asked him if Cromer said the word “vendetta”. I got a response almost immediately. He wrote:
I never quoted her directly as saying that. I asked her whether she felt some city officials and some members of the police department had a vendetta against her. She said, “Yes.”
So there you have it. The mystery is solved.
If there is no vendetta, why was the story leaked?
Hagerstown Police Chief Arthur Smith is weighing in on comments made by Hagerstown City Councilwoman Kelly Cromer concerning a supposed vendetta against her for looking into the city’s take-home vehicle program.
He wrote a memo to Hagerstown City Administrator Bruce Zimmerman asking that something be done.
From the Herald-Mail:
“This traffic stop was conducted on May 26, well before any contentious debate in reference to take-home vehicles.”
That’s not entirely correct. I remember reading about Councilwoman Cromer’s interest in the take-home vehicle program before May 26. In fact, I emailed both Councilwoman Cromer and Herald-Mail reporter Dan Dearth about this subject on May 19. Something I read in the article caught my attention:
In February, The Herald-Mail filed a public information request seeking the cost the city incurred to provide employees with vehicles for fiscal year 2006-07 and to date for fiscal year 2007-08. The city responded almost a month later, saying, “There is no document that satisfies your request.”
This didn’t sound right to me. I used to have a job where I was given a company car. One of the things I had to do was to keep a detailed record of the miles I drove each week. I had to keep track of both the miles I drove on company business and the miles I drove for personal reasons, such as driving back and forth from my home. These personal miles had to be kept track of so that a dollar value could be determined and then this dollar amount would be reported on my W-2 as taxable income.
The City of Hagerstown has to keep track of the cost of all personal mileage. Otherwise they would not be able to correctly report this figure to the IRS. That’s something they simply don’t have a choice in doing.
As far as vendettas are concerned, why did someone from the Hagerstown Police Department leak the story about the traffic stop to the Herald-Mail three weeks after it happened? If Police Chief Arthur Smith doesn’t appreciate what Councilwoman Cromer is saying about one of his officers, maybe his police department shouldn’t have leaked the story to the newspaper.
Leave Councilwoman Kelly Cromer alone
From the Herald-Mail:
A Hagerstown resident told the City Council on Tuesday that she intends to file an ethics complaint against Councilwoman Kelly S. Cromer over a traffic stop in which Cromer was given a warning for allegedly speeding last month near City Park.
During a council meeting, Cathy Ridenour said a “can of worms” had been opened after Cromer was given a warning rather that a ticket on May 26 for allegedly driving 43 mph in a 25-mph zone — an infraction that carries a $90 fine.
“I, as a tax-paying citizen of Hagerstown, am asking that the (Washington County Ethics Commission) investigate in full the incident that occurred in regards to Councilwoman Cromer being stopped …,” Ridenour said. “My belief … is that no one is above the law and using one’s position of authority is inexcusable, unprofessional and wrong.”
Now this is just getting silly. Unless Cathy Ridenour knows something that the rest of us don’t, she has no basis to accuse Cromer of anything. She certainly has no basis of going to the Washington County Ethics Commission.
Even if Cromer somehow used her position on the City Council to get out of a ticket — and there currently is no evidence showing that she did — it’s the police officer that made the decision to NOT give her a ticket.
I think I’m going to do my best John Kerry impersonation now and flip-flop on this. At first I was ready to criticize Cromer for trying to get out of ticket, but now I’m not so sure if she has anything to be criticized about. She claims she didn’t say “Don’t you know who I am“. She claims that since the officer obviously knew who she was, she asked him if she needed to look through her luggage for her license.
The more I think about it, the more I believe she didn’t ask the officer if he knew who she was. She obviously knew the shit-storm that was created when her fellow City Council member Alesia Parson-McBean said that when she was stopped by the police.
Of the two versions of the story — Cromer’s and the officer’s — it’s Cromer’s that makes the most sense.
I get the feeling Councilwoman Cromer does not like Mayor Bruchey
Hagerstown city councilwoman Kelly Cromer on the the Herald-Mail online forum:
The Mayor doesn’t care one bit if we look bad, as a matter of fact he tries very hard and goes out of his way to try to make some of us look bad. He only cares about himself. He is a liar and a phony. His day is coming, I have an ace up my sleeve that will be life shattering for him.
Cromer is referring to Hagerstown’s mayor the honorable Robert E. Bruchey. Either they are playing a lot of poker or she doesn’t like him.
Not that there is anything particularly wrong with a city councilwoman not liking a mayor, especially if one is a Democrat and the other is a Republican. Sometimes I think government works better if everyone involved hates each other’s guts.
It’s not like this is unprecedented. In 2006, Hagerstown Mayor Richard Trump resigned after only nine months in office. It was reported that he quit because of his inability to get along with the city council. Bruchey — who already had one term as mayor under his belt — stepped in to fill Trump’s position of mayor.
I have no idea if Cromer’s criticism of Bruchey has any validity to it or not, but I do appreciate her candor. She is an elected official that says exactly what she thinks. And considering the fact that she is a criminal defense lawyer, I think she knows a thing or two about the legality nuances of libel and slander. If she says that Bruchey is a phony and a liar, I have to believe she has some kind of credible evidence to back it up.
We all know that people don’t say stuff on Internet message boards unless it’s true.
Hagerstown bar selling crack cocaine may lose liquor license
Who knew selling crack might result in the loss of your liquor license? From the Herald-Mail:
The Waterin’ Hole Tavern at 15 E. Baltimore St. in Hagerstown faces a $2,500 fine and the revocation of its liquor license after the owner and several patrons were charged recently for selling crack cocaine.
Therisa Lamp, owner of The Waterin’ Hole, appeared at a hearing Wednesday before the Board of License Commissioners for Washington County, also known as the liquor board, to answer the charges.
Board chairman Robert L. Everhart said a decision would be made within 30 days.
What’s to decide? It seems like a no-brainer.
Metra Reid’s kids are smarter then your kids
Washington County’s newest public school, Rockland Woods Elementary School, will be open to all kids that live in the county. It doesn’t matter where they live. If they live in the county, they can attend the school.
This is not good news to some.
From Hagerstown’s one and only crap newspaper, The Herald-Mail:
Metra Reid, who lives with her husband and two children in the Westfields housing development, said during Tuesday’s public meeting that open enrollment at the school will be a disservice to her children. When her family moved to the development three years ago, she said they were promised that the school would offer a high quality of education.”It’s not fair to penalize those of us who live in the development by just sending in whoever,” Reid said. “We had such high expectations for the school.”
She said children from families in other parts of the county do not value education as much as families in her neighborhood.
“When you buy a home in a neighborhood, you want people like yourselves,” Reid said. “It’s not fair to just let anyone just ship in whoever. Think about it before you let everyone and anybody go to that school.”
Reid said her daughter attends a private preschool in Hagerstown and will attend Rockland Woods in its second year. Her son would enroll in the school’s third year, she said.
Reid said her daughter is able to count into the hundreds and is learning to write. She said students from other areas of Washington County would not be at the same level when they enter kindergarten.
“It’s not fair to put her in the classroom with 20 other children who won’t know their alphabet,” she said.
I’ve got to say that her daughter sounds like a big dork. She’s not even five and she’s counting into the hundreds? Who makes their kid count that high? I’m not saying it’s comparable to water boarding or making them listen to Jimmy Buffet music, but can’t she think of some other way to torture her kids?
Better yet, can’t she come up with some other way of feeling good about herself without living vicariously through her children? Just because she forces her kids to learn how to count or learn their alphabet before they should doesn’t make them any smarter.
Kids should be allowed to be kids. The alphabet and counting to a thousand will wait.
The fun never ends with the Herald-Mail Forum
I blogged a little yesterday about my troubles with the Herald-Mail message board. Mostly I told people to go to Steve Likes to Curse and read Steve Shives’ excellent breakdown on what went down.
I emailed the Herald-Mail website administrator explaining what happened. I’ve yet to get a response. My suspension was removed yesterday. I only knew this because I read about it in the comment section of Steve Likes to Curse. If they were going to remove my 2-day suspension, they ought to at least tell me. What good is announcing it on a message board I was led to believe I was suspended from?
When I went back to the message board, I found the following post from the moderator:
After careful consideration of all the factors involved, and rereading the initial post and the subsequent replies. I have reconsidered my original judgement [sic].
Bentcorner used the term “Negro” and not the other “N-word”, for the record.
After researching the term “Negro”, it does not appear to have the same connotation that the other “N-word” has. While his post may or may not have had anything to do with the nature of the thread is not being considered. It did not take the post off-topic (anymore than what anyone else has ever done).
Bentcorner has my sincerest apologies for my hasty decision and is hereby reinstated.
The moderator had to research the word Negro to learn that it didn’t have the same connotation as the N-word? This is the same person that thought removing all the letters except the letter “N” was a good way of making the word not racially offensive. There’s only one word in the English language that has the same connotation as the N-word.
It’s the N-word.
As soon as I found out that my suspension had been lifted, I began deleting all my posts from the Herald-Mail message forum. The reason? I don’t appreciate how the moderator is able to edit posts. He drastically altered my comment. He made it appear I wrote something all together different then what I really wrote. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?
If he truly thought my comment was racially offensive, he should have just deleted it. He didn’t do that.
I’m once again suspended from the Herald-Mail forum. This time it’s for a year. I can’t log back on again until March 25, 2009. The reason? I don’t know. Once again, I wasn’t informed of the reason. It can’t be for anything I’ve posted because I haven’t posted anything since my initial suspension. I’ve only been deleting my posts.
There is no rule against that.
Click here to see a screen capture showing that I was suspended for a year.
Turns out being labeled a racist is not as fun as you might think
I was suspended from my local newspaper’s message forum yesterday for posting a comment they deeded to be “racially offensive“.
I’d like to explain what actually happened, but I’m still too pissed off to put it all into words. Luckily for me, fellow Hagerstown blogger Steve Shives of Steve Likes To Curse already blogged about it. He does a much better job then I ever could describing what actually happened.
I’m not even going to try. Go read Steve’s blog post and let me know if you have any questions.
Superhero movie to be filmed in Hagerstown
I saw this on the Herald-Mail website:
The producers of an independent movie project are preparing to film in Hagerstown this weekend and have been scouting locations.
“We’ve been looking at parking decks, alleys, offices and also a downstairs bar,” film producer Kirk Twyman said in a prepared release.
The movie is “set in present times, in a world where superheroes and villains are commonplace,” Twyman said in the release.
The movie – to be filmed Friday, Saturday and Sunday – is about two brothers who come into contact with a superhero who has mistaken them for criminals. There is a battle where the superhero is killed, Twyman said.
Twyman said the movie project has been lining up extras and is holding a casting and networking event Friday at Ava’s Lounge from 7 to 10 p.m.
Twyman said the movie project also will be a pilot that will be submitted to networks. The budget for the project hasn’t been announced.
Additional filming will take place after shooting in Hagerstown is completed. About 30 cast and crew are involved in the filming in Hagerstown.
The movie is called ‘Accidental Villain’. The last movie to be filmed here in Hagerstown, Gods and Generals, was an absolute bomb of a movie. And when I say it was filmed here in Hagerstown, I mean that the old Lowe’s building was converted into a movie sound stage and many if not all of the interior scenes were filmed from inside the Lowe’s building.
Hagerstown Herald-Mail glorifies politician caught with kiddie porn
In today’s Herald-Mail, there was a front page article on Robert McKee. He is the state delegate recently caught with child pornography. Two weeks ago sheriff deputies obtained a search warrant to enter his home where they discovered a substantial amount of child pornography including computer images, video tapes, and magazines.
Did the Herald-Mail investigate the matter further and find out why it took two weeks for anyone at the newspaper to find out about this? Did they discover why McKee was allowed to continue working as the executive director of Big Brothers & Big Sisters?
No. They ran a story that glorified Robert McKee for all of the wonderful things he has done over the years. This man who possessed a substantial amount of kiddie porn.
The most revolting part of the article was where they talked about the wonderful things he has done for Little League:
Williams, the president of Williamsport’s Conococheague Little League, said McKee regularly volunteered to be a district representative at games.
“He was for the kids,” he said. “He was great for Little League.”
He was for the kids? Gee, I wonder why this sick freak was so interested in the kids.
Maryland delegate under investigation for child pornography
From the Hagerstown paper of record, The Herald-Mail:
Maryland Del. Robert A. McKee, R-Washington, on Friday announced his resignation from the House of Delegates after information surfaced that deputies, acting on information that child pornography was in the residence, searched his Halfway home on Jan. 31.
During the search, investigators seized two computers, about 30 videotapes and a “significant amount” of printed material, including magazines, Washington County Sheriff Douglas Mullendore said Friday afternoon during a press conference.
No charges have been filed.
McKee, in a faxed statement, also said Friday that he had resigned from his position as executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County, an organization he said he served for 29 years.
Yes, that’s right. When this asshole isn’t carrying out his duties as our elected representative in Annapolis, he is running the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County. You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.
Even though authorities found a “significant amount” of child porn in the delegate’s home over two weeks ago, he remains free. He has yet to be placed under arrest. How much child porn does one have to amass before being placed under arrest? This asshat should have been forced to announce his resignation from the House of Delegates from a jail cell. This is why we have jail cells. Why hasn’t he been placed under arrest?
McKee was present when the search warrant signed by Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone III was executed, said Mullendore, who knows McKee personally.
I guess it’s safe to say if you are going to be a collector of child porn, it pays to be friends with the local sheriff.
Local judge calls three black female lawyers ‘Supremes’
What better way to celebrate the beginning of Black History Month then to read an Associated Press story about a local judge being reprimanded for making disparaging comments about three black female public defenders?
Last April, Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone referred to the three lawyers as “The Supremes” and told a defendant to get “an experienced male attorney.” He has acknowledged that his comments suggested racial and sexual bias. Boone said he was trying to protect the three public defenders from representing a difficult defendant.
But isn’t that their job? Women can do any job a man can do. That includes representing criminal defendants. Even if they are male.
I discussed this issue on a message board for people local to the Hagerstown area. Most people didn’t think this was that big a deal. Some said that it was actually a compliment since The Supremes are a famous singing group and maybe the judge was a fan of their music. I don’t agree. The only thing these three lawyers had in common was the color of their skin and their sex.
It would be like me referring to three black men as the Harlem Globetrotters. If I were to say something like that where I work, I would most likely be fired. This man is a judge.
It’s just another strike against Hagerstown concerning racism and how the rest of the country sees when they take a look at us. Things like this make me cringe. Recently our city got some negative exposure in the national media after the plan to rename a street after baseball great Willie Mays received negative response from some in the community and the plan eventually failed because of it. Mays played his first professional baseball game here in Hagerstown. Hagerstown’s former mayor William Breichner thought race was a factor in the public response that led to the end of the proposal.
I was embarrassed after the Willie Mays street renaming controversy and I feel embarrassed over this controversy. It makes us look like a bunch of ignorant racist hicks. Stuff like this only makes it harder to attract good companies bringing good wages to the region.
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