January 2012 – Page 2

Is this the way to win an election?

Last night I was tipped off (h/t Richard Cross of Cross Purposes) to a Washington Post item regarding bipartisan support for the gas tax increase. Yes, you read that right – bipartisan.

It seems our Chamber of Commerce types have the misguided notion that increasing the gasoline tax will allow the state to fully fund transportation projects, but I ask of them: what planet are you living on again? This is Martin O’Malley’s Maryland – we all know that the money is going to be spent on 1,001 items in the general fund and the rest will go to build more mass transit and bike paths we don’t need.

Meanwhile, the victims of the War on Rural Maryland will have to once again pay through the nose perpetually, because as proposed by one possible scheme advanced by a state commission the gas tax isn’t just going to go up a nickel each year in 2013, 2014, and 2015 – nope, it’s going to be indexed afterward to a construction cost index. So as union demands get more and more brazen and the cost of construction climbs at a dizzying rate, so will the gas tax. Nice system if you can con people into believing the roads will actually get fixed.

Continue reading “Is this the way to win an election?”

A caving on Bennett Middle School?

Update: As projected, District 2 Council member Stevie Prettyman is indeed the one who sold us out in a 4-3 vote. She joined District 4 appointee John Hall, at-large member Matt Holloway, and District 1 Democrat Sheree Sample-Hughes in voting to commit the county to years of debt. Hope the squeaky wheel minority is happy.

According to published reports in both the blogosphere and mainstream media, Wicomico County Council is holding yet another meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the stalled Bennett Middle School project. County Executive Rick Pollitt has already asked County Council to allot a 7 cent per $100 increase in the property tax to help pay for the new school without presenting the remainder of his operating budget. (The phrase for that where I come from is “a pig in a poke.”)

First of all, it’s notable that the meeting will be a daytime meeting rather than an evening meeting, since I thought the intention of having night meetings would be to encourage participation. Perhaps that time worked better within the schedule of the few squeaky wheels who don’t understand that people are tapped out, so no means no. For working folks, it’s not that easy.

And since it will be a legislative session, this will give at least one of the four who originally voted to hold off on the school until funds are more available the opportunity to cave in to the caterwauling of these parents who are more than willing to pay higher taxes. News flash: there is nothing stopping those in Parents in Action from stroking a check to make up the difference in their tax rates; however, the rest of us may want to see a better funding plan for a more affordable school that won’t put those same children who attend the school into decades of watching the county pay for it.

G.A. Harrison opines in his piece that District 2 Council member Stevie Prettyman is the weakest link among the four, and that over the last week there has been a “sometimes mudslinging” campaign against the four who voted to be fiscally prudent – another I spoke to agreed that the County Council is getting “hate mail.” Perhaps supporters of fiscal sanity were a little too complacent.

Of course, there is the slim chance that we are the recipient of some fiscal miracle and the county can afford this project without saddling the next generation in debt or, more importantly, raising taxes on a population which is already overburdened. Harrison suffers from one possible inaccuracy in his report, though – I believe a seven cent rise in the property tax homeowners would result in a staggering 17.5 cent per $100 increase in the personal property tax Wicomico County businesses are saddled with. Certainly local businesses can weather that increase, no problem. </sarc>

Failing that miracle, it bears noting that a County Council which bends whichever way the wind blows is also subject to a primary challenge next time around. I can guarantee you local Democrats will give no credit for voting to raise taxes in the next election and will instead use the 2014 campaign to paint County Council as the obstructionists who rode Rick Pollitt out of a job.

When the time is right, we can build Bennett Middle School – if the state has it as its priority to build schools there will be no “end of the line.” I say call their bluff and hold the line on county spending.

If you can attend the County Council meeting, by all means do so. We need to support the fiscally conservative majority and make sure they can weather the storm presented by a few malcontents who seem to think a new school will solve all our educational problems.

Revolution stalled

For the second Republican presidential campaign in a row, Ron Paul is an enigma.

Here’s a guy who rakes in a whole lot of cash, only to finish in the middle of the pack or worse in most of the primaries and caucuses he participates in. The last time out, he turned his back on the GOP nominee, choosing to endorse a number of minor party participants. There’s no guarantee he won’t do the same this time, leaving establishment Republicans to fret that Paul may consider a third-party run.

Should Paul eventually decide to do so, he’ll have a significant and passionate base to begin from for a general election, where independents and disaffected Democrats would be allowed to participate. A large percentage of those who follow him say it’s either Paul or nothing – “There’s no one worth voting for,” said one young South Carolina supporter. Paul’s cult of personality is not unlike that of another 2008 candidate who’s running again this time around – for re-election.

Continue reading “Revolution stalled”

Benefit set to go

On this upcoming Saturday afternoon/evening – be there or be square.

In case you’re wondering, the subject of the fundraiser is little 19 month old Ava DelRicco. She was gravely injured in an auto accident along Coastal Highway in Ocean City on December 16, 2011 and has been at Johns Hopkins ever since. By most accounts she’s on the mend but there’s going to be a long road to recovery for Ava and this fundraiser will help the family deal with all the expenses. As usual, the local music scene is stepping up to participate.

It’s highly likely that more items will be donated for the silent auction and, trust me, 5 dollars is a very inexpensive day out, particularly when the venue is providing complementary appetizers. After all, we’re talking about the dead weekend between the conference championships and Super Bowl and there’s no primary being held on the 28th – so there’s no excuse for any of my core audience in the area to not at least stop by the event for a little while. The band lineup looks pretty promising.

The Pour House is located at the corner of Baltimore Avenue and Wicomico Street near Ocean City’s Inlet.

Update: the event has 10 bands and has been extended to 10 p.m.

Who will fund the resistance? (updated)

As I mentioned last night, I added a few new websites to my sidebar links. One interesting add was a site called Zilla of the Resistance, which I had originally run across via a link from The Other McCain. But what sparked my interest again was a link to her from another Maryland-based site called The Vail Spot, which I also link to. Both Vail and Zilla have something in common which I’m sure they aren’t proud of, but has been an issue: the writers have had recent financial hardships, for various reasons, and both were assisted by the generosity of their reader base.

I’m certainly not going to be the first to bring up this point, but who knows? Maybe I can be the last.

Continue reading “Who will fund the resistance? (updated)”

Odds and ends number 41

Not that I necessarily keep track of these things, but this is my first look in 2012 at those items which are worth a paragraph or three, but not a full post. It helps me clean out my e-mail inbox.

I couldn’t figure out how to embed this “Made in America” video, but I found it interesting when I watched it. I’m generally in favor of free trade and against strict protectionism, but if the difference is as small as they claim then buying American is worth it. Perhaps the claim of using 5% more American products would create 220,000 jobs is a bit dubious, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Our nation needs to take steps in regaining its onetime prominence as a leading manufacturer. But it’s interesting to note several of the companies prominently mentioned have at least one plant in a right-to-work state. I can’t ascertain whether these are all non-union shops, but chances are fairly good – given that only about 1/10 of the private-sector workforce is unionized – that these good, honest American jobs don’t come with the union label.

Not that Maryland is making any quick moves to join the ranks of Virginia and other right-to-work states – this year, HB91 hasn’t progressed beyond first reading. But the group New Day Maryland pointed out to me a couple other bills of interest in the General Assembly this term to keep an eye on, and I thought I’d pass along the word.

House Bill 23, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act, would prohibit the fund-raiding Governor O’Malley is almost as well known for as his constant zeal to raise taxes. And House Bill 43 would allow appropriations bills to be subjected to the same referendum process as those bills not dealing with appropriations. (The last remaining legal straw opponents of the in-state tuition for illegal aliens referendum are grasping for is that the bill is an appropriations bill, although it’s not.)

Both these bills have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 31. I presume written testimony is acceptable, too.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 41”

Another one bites the dust

Just two days before the South Carolina primary, Rick Perry decided at last to drop out. You may recall he was considering withdrawing after the Iowa caucuses, but instead decided to concentrate on placing well in South Carolina. Turns out he wasn’t doing well there either, so Perry decided to throw in the towel and endorse Newt Gingrich.

That’s the topline story. So what can I dredge up from between the lines?

First of all, Perry is the first notable dropout to endorse Newt. Others who were in the race either endorsed Mitt Romney (most recently Jon Huntsman but also Tim Pawlenty and Thad McCotter) or have remained silent as to who they would back. It was thought that Herman Cain would throw his support behind Newt but he made no official statement to that effect, and Michele Bachmann has likewise been mum with her choice.

This also changes the equation of the race, as it’s now down to four main contenders. In political terms among that rapidly shrinking group, Perry’s departure leaves only Mitt Romney with any sort of executive experience as a former governor and Ron Paul as the last remaining current officeholder – Newt left the House in 1998, Rick Santorum was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, and Romney chose not to run again in 2006. And presumably the anti-Romney vote is now split just three ways, with conventional wisdom predicting the new weakest link to be Rick Santorum.

But let’s talk about some other factors at play here.

Continue reading “Another one bites the dust”

Obama kills Keystone jobs, reaction is as expected

Yesterday it was announced that the Keystone XL project, an oil pipeline which would have connected the oil sands of Alberta to refineries that could handle the product here in the United States, was shelved again by President Obama. This despite his quest to find “shovel-ready” projects and address the nation’s high unemployment rate.

Reactions? Well, pretty much what I expected. Needless to say, Mark Green at Energy Tomorrow was critical of the decision, stating President Obama wasn’t after jobs but “settled on a different calculus – re-election politics.” The American Petroleum Institute writer also pointed out the Keystone project had been under review for three years, plenty of time to gauge environmental impact. This is particularly true when one considers the Keystone XL pipeline could have run close by the existing Keystone pipeline already in use.

Continue reading “Obama kills Keystone jobs, reaction is as expected”

No SOPA for you!

My website could be an endangered species because of something I choose to do for the entertainment of my readership.

Last year two bills were introduced, one in the House and one in the Senate, that could radically damage the internet as we know it. In the Senate, the version is known as the Protect IP Act, while its House cousin is called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Backers of the bills claim they are necessary to prevent the theft of intellectual property, but to find out what these bills really are about one can just follow the money – the national Chamber of Commerce, which favors the bill, claims that Hollywood studios, record labels, and publishing houses collectively lose $135 billion a year from piracy.

So how would this affect me? Well, you know that neat little feature I do called Friday Night Videos? In theory, putting up a video of a song originally recorded by some other artist – whether I recorded it or not – wouldn’t leave just little old me liable; oh no. This bill also drags my service provider and search engines into the equation as well, making it an enforcement nightmare and perhaps, over time, the perfect vehicle for ridding the internet of websites someone doesn’t like. Those who back the bill claim it’s only about foreign websites which pirate the best Hollywood has to offer, but that’s just a starting point. All because I’m doing my part to promote local music.

In fact, the initial push against these two acts used teen sensation Justin Bieber as an example, for he became an internet sensation by covering R&B songs as a youngster. Because he was singing copyrighted works, Justin would be violating this law. My counter to this argument, though, is that re-exposing these old songs may recreate interest in the originals so the pie isn’t sliced into more pieces but instead becomes bigger.

On the other hand, I have original content on this website which is copyrighted (just scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see indeed I claim the copyright.) Granted, I don’t monetize my content or put it behind some sort of paywall like several newspapers have done, but I do get a little pissed off when people steal my stuff without acknowledgement. I can understand the frustration some feel when this piracy happens, but there are already copyright laws on the books to cover this. (Actually, all I ask of those who wish to use my content is giving me the credit for writing it and providing a backlink to the appropriate portion of my site.)

So I fall into the camp of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” There’s no doubt that $135 billion is a lot of money, but as I pointed out earlier there’s a dynamic effect as well. Someone is making a lot of money from selling Justin Bieber’s records, and that money may not have been spent if not for him. And we’ve heard this same story before – the VCR is going to ruin Hollywood, song sharing is going to destroy the recording industry, and so on and so forth. Hollywood is just trying to get the government to protect their profits – there’s nothing wrong with the system as it stands, and the possibility of having hordes of high-profile lawyers checking content will have a chilling effect on discourse, much like the Fairness Doctrine did for radio.

But internet providers aren’t taking this lying down. Today (since this post went up at 12:01 a.m.) a significant part of the internet will “go black” to protest the possible adoption of these new laws. Included in the protest are some of the internet’s heaviest hitters – Google, Mozilla, and Wikipedia are just a few. (WordPress.org, the front site for the company which wrote the software enabling me to bring this and all my other posts to you, is also a participant.)

And the pressure is working. I normally don’t have a lot of good things to say about our state’s junior Senator, but Ben Cardin was a sponsor of Protect IP who now won’t vote for it as currently constituted. It’s a small step in the right direction, anyway.

Another complaint registered by some is that many of the groups who are leading the fight against Protect IP and SOPA are far-left groups. That is true, but groups like the Heritage Foundation, TEA Party Patriots, and FreedomWorks have allied with them to create a bipartisan coalition against the cause. I don’t mind having people on the other side with me when they’re in the right.

The internet doesn’t need a gatekeeper, and as we’ve seen too many times the best intentions of government go astray rather quickly once the camel’s nose gets under the tent. But rather than put my website down for the day and go black, I’m going to leave this post up and encourage you to contact your representatives and Senators to tell them SOPA and Protect IP are bad ideas.

But you might want to have a phone book handy to look up the numbers. Use that as a reminder of what the post-SOPA internet might be like.

Worcester County has some TEA

In days of old there was a superstition that a voyage should not begin on Friday and beginning it on Friday the 13th was a complete no-no. But the Worcester County TEA Party decided to buck tradition and have its inaugural meeting last week – it was an opportunity to have a good keynote speaker that they couldn’t pass up.

(All photos on this post are courtesy of Donald Stifler.)

Andy Harris speaks at the Worcester County TEA Party.

One source, a supposedly reliable one, stated that Harris made the statement at the TEA Party that he would vote for any of the Republican presidential candidates except Ron Paul – then again, the person relating this is a Ron Paul supporter. I’m seeing if there was any video of the event to corroborate this charge, but this wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise. Harris is one of the co-chairs of the Gingrich campaign in Maryland despite the fact that Newt endorsed Wayne Gilchrest in 2008 – as did Ron Paul. (Harris denies saying such a thing.)

According to a more legitimate news report, Harris held the audience of about 120 in the palm of his hand by answering a number of audience questions but he wasn’t the only speaker or even politician there. Three members of the Worcester County Commission were in attendance along with four of their Republican Central Committee – pictured below is Derrick Smith of the WCRCC along with U.S. Senate hopeful Corrogan Vaughn (right), who also spoke at the event.

Stifler noted that he was “pleased to see that Vaughn had to wait a couple of times during his speech due to the applause from the crowd when he compared the Civil Rights Movement to that of the Tea Party, speaking for his family that worked directly with Dr. King.” (Vaughn is a godchild of Dr. Ralph Abernathy, who worked with the slain civil rights leader and was with him when he was assassinated.)

“Corrogan attests to the fact that both were Republicans and if alive today these men would be active in the Tea Party,” Stifler continued.

That’s sort of an interesting flip side when compared to the other groups who have adopted the mantle of the civil rights struggle, such as the gay rights movement. Moreover, the TEA Party isn’t necessarily about adopting new rights but re-establishing the God-given ones we are granted in our Constitution.

This meeting won’t be the last for the Worcester County group. Based on the interest from the first go-round, their next meeting will be Friday, February 17, once again at the Ocean Pines Community Center.

I can’t close, however, without at least quickly addressing the snide remark in the newspaper about the lack of younger people at the event. It isn’t surprising coming from the media, but to be perfectly honest an older crowd is rather typical of the composition of the average TEA Party meeting. But as long as there is at least some interest from a small group of younger people it’s progress, given the vast majority of those under 30 who voted for Barack Obama. Perhaps the economy and dread of a future where they can’t succeed as their parents did is beginning to bring them around to the right way of thinking.

Another upcoming event on the opposite end of the Shore which doesn’t yet feature Vaughn but already has six of his opponents as confirmed speakers will be sponsored by the Cecil County Patriots and Americans for Prosperity on Thursday, January 26 beginning at 7 p.m. It will be held at the American Legion Hall located at 300 Cherry Street in Perryville, and the public is invited to attend.

All ten GOP Senate candidates have been invited, and confirmed as participants are Dan Bongino, Robert Broadus, William Capps, Rich Douglas, Rick Hoover, and David Jones. (No word yet on Joesph Alexander, John Kimble, Brian Vaeth, or Vaughn.)

Questions for the forum can be submitted to info@cecilcountypatriots.com. For more information, please visit the Cecil County Patriots website or call Jackie Gregory at (410) 620-7667.

Update: According to Gregory, Vaughn will be participating in the event.

And the winner is…

Someone finally uncrowned Ridgely Griffith and afterthegoldrush.

Until late Sunday afternoon it looked like the music-based website would cruise to its third straight title in my Best Local Blog contest. But supporters of Delmarva Progressive dropped well over a half-thousand votes on the poll and enabled that site to snatch away the victory.

With a record 1,001 votes cast, the results came in as follows:

Delmarva Progressive, 788 votes (78.7%)
afterthegoldrush, 205 votes (20.5%)
Chesapeake Journal, 8 votes (0.8%)

Chalk it up as a rare liberal victory about these parts. In fact, the 1,001 votes ended up as a figure just a few tallies higher than the total of all nine preceding rounds (six first-round battles and three semifinals.) It’s a definite surprise given the fact Delmarva Progressive only picked up 10 votes in its semifinal – but it is what it is.

So congratulations to the crew over there for winning the contest, and moreso thanks to all who voted.

Drawing the curtain on this year’s contest does allow me to share a couple other thoughts, though.

First of all, the other day I was speaking to a blogging friend of mine from another part of the state who commented on the lack of websites in her area, particularly in comparison to the number of websites in this region. Obviously many of us deal with politics here but there are a number of other interests represented as well – just look at the contenders I had as evidence. If I were to classify the eighteen websites I selected this year, seven deal mainly with local news, three cover politics, and three could be described as personal journals. There were also blogs which covered sports, local history, music, food, and a fairly miscellaneous site as well. And I’m sure I don’t link to every single local website – there may be another couple hundred out there I don’t know about or just don’t get updated frequently enough for me to link to.

As for the contest itself, I based the original concept on the Mobbies, which is a similar popularity contest among Maryland-based blogs conducted by the Baltimore Sun. For the first two years of the contest’s now-three year run this site was among those nominated in the political category. (The political category disappeared in 2011, swallowed up into the formerly-separated news category.) For a site based on the Eastern Shore, I thought I placed rather respectively when I competed.

In my opinion we have a thriving local blogosphere, but one where civility and useful information is on the endangered list. Maybe a local media outlet needs to step up to the plate and have a contest similar to the Mobbies but concentrating on the Delmarva area. It would be a way to reward worthy websites and encourage the general public to visit them, and perhaps it would be an incentive for others to clean up their act.

Like it or not, the blogosphere is here to stay, and it’s up to all of us to determine its direction. Needless to say, I had my own personal favorites among the eighteen I featured but I left it up to the voters to decide who moved on. There’s a logical next step which should be taken, though, and it should feature those sites Delmarva can be proud of.

Report: Huntsman to drop out, endorse Romney

According to an AP story by Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt, Jon Huntsman is preparing to drop out of the GOP presidential sweepstakes and endorse Mitt Romney. Ironically, the same newspaper whose edition of the story I used (The State, based in the Columbia, SC area) spent its Sunday edition endorsing Huntsman in the South Carolina primary to be held next Saturday.

But the die for Huntsman was probably cast in New Hampshire, where he finished a distant third in a state where he was counting on competing with Mitt Romney for moderate Republican, independent, and disaffected Democratic votes. Finishing 22 points behind Romney and not expecting much of a showing in a much more conservative state (South Carolina) where Gov. Nikki Haley already placed herself squarely in the Romney camp, it was probably felt that Huntsman had no path to victory against his former boss, Barack Obama. So the two convention delegates Huntsman won can go ahead and support another candidate rather than be among the loneliest duo at the national Republican convention.

Yet while a number of conservative pundits believed Huntsman was a conservative actually attempting to broaden his appeal as a moderate, in reality Jon had two major problems I found: he supported the DREAM Act and believed in anthropogenic climate change. Neither of them are particularly conservative, and they overshadowed many of his good points with an electorate which has cried for a more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney.

Still, Romney will be Huntsman’s choice going forward, based on perceived electability – no surprise there. However, all that may do is bump Romney’s ceiling from 25 percent of the GOP electorate to 26 percent. Unfortunately, there’s not much Romney could gain from a Huntsman endorsement; meanwhile, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, who both exited the race with a broader base of support, haven’t stated publicly which competitor they will endorse. Those two endorsements could help sway the race to more of an extent than Huntsman’s commitment and it’s fairly likely they’ll be backing one of Romney’s opponents.

So we have the first qualifier on Maryland’s ballot to drop out of the running. Now the question is how many other “ghost” candidates will be on the docket we see April 3rd.