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A mom and her two children are dead after a private jet crashed into their Maryland home today, a disaster that also killed the three people aboard the plane, authorities said. The jet crashed in Gaithersburg, about a mile north of the Montgomery County Airpark. The plane exploded, setting fires and damaging three houses, fire officials said. The plane sliced through the roof of one home, and the main part of the fuselage and the tail landed against a second house. One of the wings "catapulted" into a third house, where the majority of the fire damage occurred, Robert Sumwalt...

Protesters seem to be attracted to holiday lighting festivities like moths. As Twitchy reported, a mob of Ferguson protesters crashed the tree lighting in Seattle, surrounding and terrifying young children gathered on stage to perform holiday music. Demonstrators in Philadelphia booed a children’s choir as they tried to sing Christmas carols. And in New York City last night, protesters convened but missed out on their dream to burn down the tree at Rockefeller Center. Thursday night was the lighting of the Washington Monument in Baltimore, Md., and once again, the promise of families enjoying holiday festivities was too much for...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Wednesday criticized grand jury decisions to not indict white police officers in the deaths of black men in New York and Ferguson, Mo. "They tell us, at least, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Well clearly a black man's life is not worth a ham sandwich when you put these stories together. And that is the frustration," Steele said on MSNBC. Earlier in the day, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict a New York police officer in the choking death of Eric Garner over the summer. Video captured by...

President Obama on Tuesday urged the lame-duck Congress to approve roughly $6 billion in emergency funding to fight the deadly Ebola virus, saying “we cannot beat” the disease without a greater financial investment from lawmakers. “The urgency remains. If we are actually going to solve this problem for ourselves, we have to solve it in West Africa as well,” he said after a tour of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. “Let's get it done,” Obama added. “This can't get caught up in normal politics.” Obama's visit to the National Institutes of Health was meant to promote the...

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan reassured an auditorium packed with political leaders Monday that his Republican administration will “put aside partisanship” to steer the state in a better direction. But seasoned political hands are raising doubts that the Democrat-dominated General Assembly will meet him halfway. “I stand before you today full of hope, hope for Anne Arundel County, hope for our state and hope for our future,” Mr. Hogan said in a speech at the inauguration of Anne Arundel County Executive Steven R. Schuh, a fellow Republican who took charge of the county that is home to Mr. Hogan...

Protesters took to the streets Monday morning, causing traffic delays in Northwest D.C. Traffic is stopped in the area of 14th and D streets in Northwest D.C. because of a protest.

Democrats hope to take back control of the Senate in 2016, but their plans could be complicated by potential retirements. The two Democratic senators most likely to retire are Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who represent both sides of the party’s ideological spectrum. Boxer, whose fourth term expires at the end of 2016, has a paltry $149,000 in her campaign account, less than almost every other senator facing election next year. As the nation’s most populous state, California is expensive to cover with advertising. If Boxer decides to run for reelection, she would face a major fundraising...

In his first Congressional appearance since news of the lost Lois Lerner emails, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was alternately attacked by Republicans and praised by Democrats who apologized to him for his treatment and called the investigation an “endless conspiracy theory” by Republicans. Under oath before the House Ways and Means Committee, Koskinen restated what Congress had been told privately: that emails of Lerner and six other relevant IRS officials have been irretrievably lost because of crashes of their hard drives and servers. Koskinen defended not telling Congress in numerous previous appearances about the email losses. In those appearances, he...

Washington superlawyer Cleta Mitchell represents True the Vote, one of the groups illegally targeted by the IRS in the scandals that have exposed the agency as a partisan operation. True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht has been harassed by federal law enforcement authorities representing three different federal agencies. They represent the price of politics in the Age of Obama. As John notes below, yesterday the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee released emails that show Democratic staffers communicating with the IRS about True the Vote. It appears that Elijah Cummings, the committee’s ranking Democrat and therefore the Congressman to whom these...

Published on Jul 18, 2013 The House Oversight Cmte. hears from IRS officials about the targeting of tea party & other conservative organizations. Lawmakers take a closer look at IRS headquarters in Washington and the Cincinnati office that dealt with tax-exempt applications.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan went on a fiery tirade about Ferguson on Saturday — threatening that if the demands of protesters aren’t met, “we’ll tear this goddamn country apart!” Farrakhan stated in his speech — given at Morgan State University, a black college located in Baltimore, Md. — that violence was justified in response to the decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson and peaceful protests are only in the interest of “white folks.” “We going to die anyway. Let’s die for something,” the radical figure told the crowd to roaring applause. He even said the parents of...

Organizers of a post-Thanksgiving protest on behalf of workers at a Walmart in downtown Washington, D.C. identified only one of the participants as actually working at that store. The admission underscores the fact that few Walmart workers have been involved in the protests. "Thirty striking workers from Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland took part in today’s protest, and Melinda Gaino, one of the striking workers, works at the H Street Store," said Julie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers union, which organized the event. Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg claimed the number was far...

Welmoed Sisson’s drive between her northern Montgomery County home and her business clients across the Maryland suburbs often includes a trip on the Intercounty Connector, a toll highway with so little traffic that Sisson can’t recall ever tapping her brakes. Almost 19 miles of pavement with no one in her way. Ever. Not even at rush hour. “It’s not an empty wasteland,” said Sisson, 54, who owns a home inspection business with her husband. “But it’s certainly nowhere near the volume of the free roads in the area. . . . It’s nice, but then again, you’re paying for that...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has issued a statement regarding her support for President Barack Obama’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions he ordered on Thursday. “I stand with the President on executive action, because throughout our rich history, Baltimore City has welcomed hard-working individuals from across the world whose unique talents, energy, and perspectives have strengthened our growing economy and diversified the fabric of our neighborhoods,” Rawlings-Blake said. “For far too long, a dysfunctional system has held many new Americans back, undermining our deepest values as Americans and our greatest aspirations for prosperity.” She goes on to say, “I strongly...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)As the tension rises in Missouri ahead of a grand jury decision in the shooting death of a teenager by a police officer, a Baltimore sergeant charged with investigating police here went on Twitter to express her opinion.. "After hearing the facts presented #NoIndictment #Ferguson," the tweet read. As a member of the seven-member Force Investigation Team, Tashawna Gaines investigates police shootings as well as complaints of brutality and excessive force. Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts created the team in January to rebuild public trust after community leaders alleged that the department had a history of unfair searches, illegal beatings...

When it came time for the US Senate to vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline, Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) “clout” did not have much of an impact on fellow Democrat senators. In fact, 35 of the senators who voted against the project were given campaign cash by Landrieu since the 2008 election cycle. Take a look here at the list of senators who don’t seem to acknowledge Landrieu’s “clout.” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) $10,000 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (R-CT) $5,000 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) $10,000 Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) $7,000 Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) $10,000 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) $3,500 Sen....

If the left can’t get around the First Amendment one way, it will find another way around it. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made national news last year when he fought to pass and signed a tax bill that levied a tax on Marylanders, businesses and churches for the amount of “impervious surface” they have on their property.Though the O’Malley administration calls it a “fee,” it is commonly called the “rain tax” throughout the state. It is wildly unpopular and the promise to fight to repeal the tax was a large factor in Maryland electing Republican Larry Hogan governor this...

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made national news last year when he fought to pass and signed a tax bill that levied a tax on Marylanders, businesses and churches for the amount of “impervious surface” they have on their property. Roofs, driveways, sidewalks, and parking lots qualify for the “rainwater remediation fee” to “protect the Chesapeake Bay.” Though the O’Malley administration calls it a “fee,” it is commonly called the “rain tax” throughout the state. It is wildly unpopular and the promise to fight to repeal the tax was a large factor in Maryland electing Republican Larry Hogan governor this month....

ANNAPOLIS — Preparing to launch a Republican administration in deep-blue Maryland, Gov.-elect Larry Hogan on Monday introduced a transition team that included some familiar Democratic faces as he moved to avoid some of the partisan confrontations that stymied the state’s last Republican governor. Mr. Hogan repeatedly promised to lead a bipartisan executive branch that would be staffed with experts, not partisans, to work with the heavily Democratic General Assembly to tackle the state’s severe budget and economic problems. “We have an enormous challenge ahead of us,” Mr. Hogan told reporters as he introduced six members of his transition team. “I’m...

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Montgomery County Public Schools will remove religious labels from school holidays, but members of the Islamic community say the adjustments to the school calendar do nothing to gain parity and a day off for the Muslim holiday of Eid.