Odds and ends no. 7

A little bit on a lot of subjects tonight, with some help from the Sun and Gazette.

Today Governor O’Malley testified in favor of Maryland repealing its little-used death penalty, which is already on hiatus following a Court of Appeals ruling late last year. But there was a good point made by State Senator Nancy Jacobs, who related that David McGuinn, already serving a life sentence, stands accused of murdering a guard at the Maryland House of Correction last July. Jacobs noted that if McGuinn is convicted that this killing would be “a freebie for him” if the death penalty were repealed since the state would have no higher punishment available.

Personally, I thought the statistics cited by O’Malley were dubious at best, particularly on the cost of housing the inmate vs. the lengthy appeals and court battles that seem to be necessary to see justice served. It’s the tying up courts with endless and sometimes frivilous appeals that adds to the cost of the death penalty, and a limitation on the number of appeals would cut the cost significantly.

Leaving aside the irony that the party pushing the rights of people tried and convicted of taking another’s life in cold blood is also the one who advocates keeping the wholesale slaughter of unborn babies legal, I think the death penalty needs to stay and does serve as a deterrent. Further, it’s because of DNA testing and other forensic advances that Kirk Bloodsworth and others have come off death row, so the argument that an innocent person may be executed rings much more hollow as well.

Speaking of pushing rights of people tried and convicted, hearings are set for at least one bill that would repeal the three-year waiting period already in place for multiply-convicted felons who have served their sentence to regain voting rights. The gentleman who was quoted in the story only has to wait a few more months to be legally granted the right under Maryland’s current law anyway – and had he been convicted of just one count he’d already be eligible. Interestingly enough, the bill also removes the prohibitations on people convicted of buying and selling votes to regain the franchise.

And of course, here’s more voting madness brought to you by Maryland Democrats. As expected, the early voting bill cleared the House of Delegates 101-31. On the majority side locally were the three Democrats (Cane, Conway, Mathias) and Page Elmore, while Delegates Addie Eckardt and Jeannie Haddaway correctly voted against this measure. (A similar bill passed the State Senate 31-16, and I’m guessing both our Senators were in the minority simply because that roll isn’t on the General Assembly website quite yet.) As I’ve said before, there’s no need for this early voting when we already have “shall-issue” absentee ballots. Those multi-vote bus trips to Ocean City for inner-city Baltimore residents who get the (also legal) “walking-around” money from their Democrat ward heelers might not be as much a joke as I thought when I came up with that analogy.

I’ll put an end to the bad news from Annapolis for tonight by commenting that not only are Democrats trying to pick up votes through the devious means of adding convicted felons to the registered voter list and allowing them weeks to vote as many times as necessary, they’re also trying to buy union votes by ramming through a so-called “living wage” – that hearing was yesterday and all of the anti-business types made it to testify. While state Labor Secretary Tom Perez stated that the goal of this effort was to “strengthen and grow the middle class”, this will certainly make state contracts more expensive by arbitrarily increasing the salaries of particular workers in private companies, and in turn discourage bidders on state contracts who don’t want to deal with the additional red tape – fewer bidders means less competition and higher bids. And of course taxes have to pay for these contracts. So the state puts money in some middle-class pockets but takes it out of a whole lot more of them through higher costs. Plus, see for yourself the bill’s enforcement provisions, which sound like they could be a real good witch hunt against a business who may innocently slip up.

And before I finished, I wanted to make some comments on the coverage of last night’s candidate forum. Apparently my assumption that “Cato” and Joe Albero were both present was correct, as were commenters from Duvafiles – “sneeky peek”, “sbygal”, and “iyeska” – based on what they added to Bill Duvall’s post.

Saying that, I’m a bit disappointed by the bloggers’ heavy emphasis on how poorly Gary Comegys did. Like it or not, I do have to agree with what Tim Spies said this morning on Bill Reddish’s radio show – most voters in Salisbury get their news from the Daily Times so all that they know about Gary Comegys from last night is that he essentially ran on his record. The DT also pegged Terry Cohen as a tax raiser, as well as citing Louise Smith and Tim Spies’ calls for an Adequate Public Financing Ordinance. This effectively plasters the reformers with a high-taxation label. Meanwhile, John Harris and John Atkins were placed in the “growth pays for growth” camp that the current City Council people seem to believe is the case (giving out TIF’s to developers aside.) This implies that they’ll not pass along what are sure to be increased city costs to taxpayers.

This election is not just a referendum on one City Councilman. And Joe, because of what I’ve stated above I doubt Gary will finish out of the top six as you think he will – in fact I’m of the opinion he’ll be the number one vote getter in the primary, solely on name recognition. It’s a lot like people think about Congress – Congress as a whole is terrible and corrupt, but my Congressman isn’t one of those terrible and corrupt people.

While we as bloggers are gaining influence in the city of Salisbury, I’d still guess that 80% of the voters in Salisbury couldn’t name one of the local blogs. Obviously our writing community is one made up of people who are more than average in the motivation department; otherwise, I wouldn’t sit here for two hours writing this, perusing the Maryland media for backup items to my assertations while trying to make this effort sound like one that makes sense to the reader AND one they enjoy reading. The same sort of thing applies to my cohorts, who spend a lot of time on their websites as well.

So when bloggers complain about the lack of balance in the regular media, they need to avoid being the pots that call the kettle black. While as a group they may not like the actions of “Bubba” Comegys, they also need to give reasons that people should vote FOR the alternative candidates too.

One final note. Speaking of the regular media, yours truly is going to get a crack at it on Tuesday morning. I’ll be filling the “hot seat” at 7:40 on Bill Reddish’s AM Salisbury radio program (1320AM, WICO). This is literally hot off the press, so there’s a scoop for you all.

 

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

2 thoughts on “Odds and ends no. 7”

  1. Michael said…
    …yours truly is going to get a crack at it on Tuesday morning. I’ll be filling the “hot seat” at 7:40 on Bill Reddish’s AM Salisbury radio program (1320AM, WICO). This is literally hot off the press, so there’s a scoop for you all.

    Great, be sure to remind us!

    Michael also said…
    …So when bloggers complain about the lack of balance in the regular media, they need to avoid being the pots that call the kettle black. While as a group they may not like the actions of “Bubba” Comegys, they also need to give reasons that people should vote FOR the alternative candidates too.

    Agreed — a level of professionalism should also be practiced on a blog if a blogger is to be treated as such.

    Once again (lengthy) but good post.

    >>This Comment Is Hate Free

  2. While as a group they may not like the actions of “Bubba” Comegys, they also need to give reasons that people should vote FOR the alternative candidates too.

    Michael,

    You are absolutely correct. Thank you, I’ll take this bit of advise and put it to good use the next time I have the opportunity. When asked a question about Comegys or anything for that matter, I become a bit overzealous. Sometimes, we all need a bit of good solid advise.

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