Friday night videos – episode 34

This oughta be an interesting one, kids. Let’s see what trouble I can dredge up this weekend as we ease into summer.

I’ll begin with an issue which is sure to be contentious this summer – the lack of fiscal responsibility in Washington, D.C. The group is called “Bankrupting America” and the process of doing so is what Congress seems to be ignoring in favor of these pressing issues detailed. Call it fiddling while Rome burns.

But Newt Gingrich has some solutions to what ails us, does he not? Or is he just pimping his new book? You decide.

Yet there are others profiting on the other side. We had no idea public service could be so, well, self-serving. Check this out from Americans for Limited Government.

Then again, there are many in Maryland who would be happy just to have a job. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a very business-friendly government as Americans for Prosperity points out.

Yeah, we lost that fight. But another is brewing over illegal immigration. As one example, check out the Center for Individual Freedom’s take on the Arizona immigration law, SB1070.Yet illegal immigration is a battleground for Maryland voters as well, as a 17 year old videographer suggests by her coverage of a rally of those who want the borders secured.

This time I’m going to wrap up, not with a song, but with a video Bob McCarty (a veteran himself) did about the preparations for Memorial Day at a cemetery not far from his Missouri home.

As for me, I’ll probably be at the Wicomico County observance Monday morning. Hopefully neither our aging veterans (nor the JROTC regulars who tend the flags) won’t wilt in the predicted heat.

With that, I’ll be back with more videos in a week or so.

Media, part 2: Wargotz on health care

With the third in a continuing series of radio spots (playing in selected markets, I’m told WQMR-FM out of Ocean City is carrying the commercials,) U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz looks at health care.

While the cutest line in the 60-second spot is, “Washington’s plan is about mandates and consequences, imposed by 16,000 new IRS agents. And the Internal Revenue Service is not known for having a compassionate bedside manner,” Wargotz stays with the fairly standard Republican and conservative prescriptions for change: medical savings accounts, the opening up of the insurance market by allowing sale of policies across state lines, policy portability and tort reform.

(Continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Kratovil joins bid to overturn ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’

While it wasn’t a strictly party-line vote outside of the Maryland delegation, Frank Kratovil joined his other six Democratic colleagues from the Free State in voting for an amendment to the defense appropriations bill to overturn the Clinton-era ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for gays in the military, with certain conditions.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)