Governor Martin O’Malley announces a special session of the Maryland General Assembly starting May 14, 2012, to "complete work on Maryland’s budget."

May 15, 2012 – "Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released the expanded 2012 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State. CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews authors the report every year to draw attention to the “'hidden tax' of regulations---a cost often imposed not by legislators, but by unelected federal bureaucrats."

The 90 Day Report on Maryland's 2012 legislative session.

Roy Beck of NumbersUSA: "Our Rubio DREAM Amnesty Position."

UPDATE! Not a refugee program set up to rescue your grandmother's Anne Frank. For authoritative background, see Dr. James Edwards "Religious Agencies and Refugee Resettlement" here. Testimony (here) of Ann Corcoran, publisher of Refugee Resettlement Watch of Keedysville, Maryland who lays out "Ten Reasons there should be no refugees resettled in the US in FY2013."
State Department public refugee meeting, May 1, in Arlington. This is your chance to voice your opinion on the appropriate size and scope of the FY 2013 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Muslim Brotherhood: 10-Part Video To Detail Their Threat To U.S. (click on foregoing title) UPDATES APRIL 26, 25, AND 24! Andy McCarthy writes April 26 (NRO) – “The Pentagon has just piled on with various federal law enforcement agencies in the rush to conduct a review of training materials with an eye toward purging anything the Muslim Brotherhood might find offensive — like the insane notion that jihad might have something to do with Islam, or the crazy idea that, just because the Justice Department proved the Brotherhood has admitted to having a mission (a 'Grand Jihad') to destroy the United States, the Brotherhood might, like, actually be on a mission to destroy the United States. All the more reason to watch GBTV’s 'Rumors of War III'. I was glad to be part of it, and I just got back from a quick trip to Dallas to watch the unveiling … and then talk about it on Glenn’s show along with a couple of terrific friends — General Jerry Boykin and Diana West — who also appeared in it. More details here. Well worth your time to watch the documentary … and to give GBTV a shot."

NEW - ONLINE: Heritage Guide to the Constitution.

Bipartisan Group of Governors Challenge Most Expensive EPA Rule in History while Senate Democrats Protect the President. Senator Inhofe files a CRA to stop EPA from going through with this rule.

Daniel Horowitz on Congressional Republican 'capitulations:' "The answer is that they won’t hold the line. They will denude the bill of all the drilling provisions and cuts to pensions, while Democrats will agree to remove the tax increases form the Senate bill. As always, we will be left with more deficit spending, and enshrine the highway trust fund, along with the postal service, as the new bailout enterprise of the federal government. That is the inscrutable destination of any and all Republican capitulations."

Daniel Horowitz on "A Senate Full of Squishes."

"YOUTUBES & VIDEOS

Kitman TV on "Freedom, Equality, and the Moslim Brotherhood." Norwegian documentary with English subtitles.

"Runaway Slave - The Documentary Movie"-- see trailer. "While [C.L.] Bryant’s compelling story launches the film, the plot is revealed as he travels the country interviewing people from every economic and social background. Dr. Alveda King, Economist Thomas Sowell, Florida Congressman Allen West, Presidential Candidate Herman Cain and Star Parker are a few of the people Bryant encounters on his trek through the new Underground Railroad in America."

YOUTUBE: "Your next stop, the Nanny Zone."

Click here for video of PlanMaryland: At the Crossroads.

Andrew McCarthy on Civilizational Jihad in America. Watch YouTube.

Heritage Foundation Video: How Much Do We Spend on Defense?

TO NOTE:

AEI's Michael Greve on SCOTUS and Obamacare: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act faces an existential test this spring. The Supreme Court will decide whether the law’s controversial requirement that everyone purchase health insurance – the individual mandate – is unconstitutional. But the issue transcends the scope of President’s Obama’s signature domestic policy reform. Indeed, the court’s ruling may well represent a historic hinge moment for a fundamental question: Are there any meaningful limits to federal power?"

The Transom: ONE CHEER FOR PAUL RYAN: Paul Ryan’s budget releases tend to prompt a two-fold response among those on the right who discuss about entitlement reform and fiscal responsibility every day as part of our job....

Paul Larkin. the Overcriminalization Project of Heritage Foundation: "Defanging the Lacey Act: The Freedom from Over-Criminalization and Unjust Seizures Act of 2012"

Dan Mclaughlin of RedState: SuperTuesday by the Numbers.

Veteran columnist Wes Vernon reviews Kevin Freeman's Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It Can Happen Again. "After cheering the collapse of the U.S. financial system, [our enemies] now stand in commanding position over the U.S. economy, with their boot on our back."

Andrew McCarthy reviews Mark Levin's Ameritopia."The stark question Mark Levin poses is whether we are so far gone that the losses are permanent. Do we throw off Ameritopia and pivot back toward liberty and self-determination? Or will we remember this pass as “the good old days,” the soft tyranny in an inexorable disintegration into some harsher variety that has, for millennia, been the fate of failed democracies? Levin—insightful, fact-driven, pulling no punches— characteristically declines to don rose-tinted glasses. Ameritopia is the deep contemplation of a staunch believer in the vision of the American founding, one who sees that if dramatic counteraction does not begin promptly, all will be lost."

John Berleau: The STOCK Act's muzzle and how to Fix It in Conference" (Update, February 10).

"The STOCK Act’s Muzzle — How 'Insider Trading' Bill Could Shut Down Grassroots Communication," by John Berlau on OpenMarket.org.

Delegate Bob Marshall's briefing on his bill to Prohibit Foreign Law in Virginia Courts (HB 825).

"FREE MARYLAND” -- A Discussion Paper About Ways to Reach Conservative Goals Over the Next Decade, by Richard Falknor.

BLOGS TO VISIT FREQUENTLY:
Hans Bader: Millionaire collects Food Stamps; Food Stamps Cover Far More than the Price of Food.

--America's Survival, Inc. Freedom, Independence and Sovereignty. See archive page.

--Debbie Schlussel

--Ron Lipsman: The Write Stuff

--Monoblogue: Delmarva, Maryland politics, and more

--Potomac Tea Party Report

--NewZeal - Trevor Loudon's invaluable perspective

--Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left

--Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

--John Fleischman's Flash Report (California).

--Center for Immigration Studies blog

--Election Law Center: Latest developments on suspect contests

--Refugee Resettlement Watch: Washington County, MD-based blog, covering abuses in our bigger-than-you-would-think 'refugee' program.

--American Dream Coalition: "Protecting freedom, mobility, and affordable home ownership"

--Neighborhood Effects: "American state and local economic policy and political economy issues"

--Capital Research Blog: Research on philanthropy and nonprofits

BASIC LINKS:
Statistical Abstract of the United States. Everything you wanted to know about life in the U.S. but did not know who to ask.

Use FIRE's spotlight to see how colleges in Maryland restrict speech.

Republican Study Committee presents handy guide with photos: "Freshman Republican Members of the 112th Congress"

Angelo M. Codevilla on "America's Ruling Class--And the Perils of Revolution." The broad rethink that has changed the way the many conservative commentators talk about the danger we face.

American Thinker's "Complete Lexicon of Political Speech."

Senator Judd Gregg: How the Senate can obstruct and delay Obama's revolutionary initiatives. See Blue Ridge Forum.

2009 letter from Maryland's John Kane to senators Leahy and Specter endorsing Tom Perez as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Letter endorsing Perez from Tony O'Donnell.

Heritage Foundation: "Letting Patriot Act Provisions Expire Would Be Irresponsible"

John O'Sullivan's First Law, on the staff of large organizations and liberalism.

"How Our Laws Are Made." Revised and Updated by John V. Sullivan, Parliamentarian, U.S. House of Representatives. Presented by Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania. July 24, 2007

FAIR's Jack Martin: "The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Marylanders"

"The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Road to Reform"-- Maryland and Virginia, Pew Foundation.

Maryland State Constitution.

City Journal's Bradley A. Smith: "In Defense of Political Anonymity. "

The Founders' Constitution: key readings.

"Multiculturalism and Cultural Marxism," William S. Lind

Heritage Foundation: "The Birth of the Administrative State"

Heritage Foundation's Paul Rosenzweig: Overcriminalization.