Month: May 2015

Political perseverance

By Cathy Keim

I have just returned from two trips to see family in Georgia, Florida, and California. I saw all six of my grandchildren in a three week period. I put aside all my usual responsibilities and just enjoyed seeing family. However, I could not put aside my thoughts of what will my grandchildren’s lives be like? Change is in the air. Everywhere you look you see chaos and systems stretching to the breaking point. When will the turmoil explode into our lives and how will that affect our children and grandchildren?

The question that I have posed to many people recently is: Do you think that this is what the 1930’s felt like? People knew that trouble was brewing, but what could the individual do about it?

Richard Fernandez takes a stab at setting the current stage of events and offering possible actions to take in his excellent two part post on PJ Media. I hope that you will take the time to read his posts as I found them very helpful.

He agrees with my feeling of a system that is about to break. In the face of the rapidly morphing ISIS, he sees the nation-states floundering and becoming more totalitarian as they try to control events. There are many problems converging on the bloated liberal western governments that make them unable to adapt to the changing times, but the Muslim jihadists could be the final straw.

The liberal politicians will try to manage the crisis by seizing more and more of our liberties in the name of security. He projects this as a done deal, but his proposal about what to do to survive that and to bring back a civilization for our grandchildren caught my interest because many of us that are trying to have an impact on our government sometimes feel defeated by the lack of positive results.

Fernandez states:

The challenge before ordinary people is to join actions which will help Europe and North America work its way through this coming episode of psychosis. In general three survivable exits from madness can be attempted.

  1. Reforming the system through regular political action in a way similar to how the British went from absolutism to a constitutional monarchy. The old system replaces itself with new parts in a more or less peaceful process;
  2. Creating “monasteries” of survival by establishing affinity groups which preserve culture, technology and values from submergence in the wave of chaos;
  3. Flight to the frontier. Creating technology that will allow some people to physically escape or hold off barbarism.

Reforming the system through political action is probably the most obvious response and the one people will most commonly use. It means engaging in thankless, often fruitless interaction with the generally dishonest political class, but while it will never deliver as much change as one hopes, it will never be completely fruitless. It does something. Whether it can do enough to help us avoid the crisis entirely remains to be seen. But it should be tried. (Emphasis mine.)

There is the call to action for all of you who regularly pick up your phone to call your representatives, write thoughtful emails to be read by disinterested staffers, attend hearings and public sessions to state your case, and write letters, articles and blogposts to educate and motivate your fellow citizens. He covers it all in that paragraph.

The constant disappointment when your representative votes the wrong way again, the easily discernable ruses the professional politicians use to cover their lies, and the irritation when a staffer is rude or implies that you are uninformed are all familiar to anybody that dabbles in politics. For those of us that are called to action in this area, enjoy a small chuckle at how succinctly he covers the whole array of political malfeasance, but remember that we must keep trying.

Eventually the wheels will fall off the progressives’ vision of utopia. They can continue to try to perfect mankind by increasing their control over our thoughts and actions, but at some point the money will run out, the debt ceiling cannot be increased again, and the barbarian hordes will breech the defenses. At that moment, the progressives will finally see that the myth of the perfect man living in harmony with others is not possible on this earth. There can be no utopia.

It is at the moment that the conservatives will need to step in and guide the shattered remnants of Western Civilization to begin again or the new Dark Ages will descend. So, take a deep breath and prepare to call our politicians to account. We must keep trying to work with the system we have to prevent this dire scenario. The stakes are high, but our Founding Fathers never said it would be easy. They struggled to birth this nation. We must struggle to keep it.

An assessment of the current situation

By Cathy Keim and Michael Swartz

Here is a question for our loyal readers: Now that it is mid-May, do you think that the GOP elites in Washington, D.C. have fulfilled their campaign pledges to stop President Obama’s fundamental change of our country?

Michael and I have voted no on that question and to make our point we have signed the Open Letter to Congress: Interim Assessment from the Citizens’ Mandate. (Our signatures are on page 5.)

I wrote about the original Citizens’ Mandate on monoblogue back in February. After working hard on the 2014 elections, many of us felt great relief when the GOP won by a landslide. That feeling was quickly replaced by a sense of betrayal with the passage of the CRomnibus budget and the retaining of John Boehner as Speaker of the House. The Citizens’ Mandate was a call to the GOP leadership to remember their campaign promises and to fulfill their obligations to their voters.

Instead, as the organizers of the mandate stated:

Contrary to the Republicans’ self-assessment of their first 100 days… more than 100 conservative leaders, in only 72 hours of signature collection, have given the Republican Congress a poor assessment on the members’ performance in their first 132 days in control of the legislative branch.

Among the actions by the GOP Cathy and I disagreed with, they:

  • Funded executive amnesty;
  • Continued Obamacare;
  • Jeopardized national security (by not addressing illegal immigration);
  • Ceded away treaty power on a nuke deal with Iran;
  • Continued excessive federal spending;
  • Undermined faith-based agenda;
  • Helped Obama (by confirming Loretta Lynch as Attorney General);
  • Continued federal education;
  • Punished conservative champions (through changing committee assignments), and;
  • Neglected congressional oversight.

While Congress is doing some things right, there’s a tremendous amount of untapped potential we are missing out on. It’s a reason that other vocal critics such as Richard and Susan Falknor of Blue Ridge Forum, Carroll County GOP Central Committee member Kathy Fuller, and former Delegate Michael Smigiel (who is running for Congress against the incumbent Andy Harris), and conservative commentator Dan Bongino have signed on. Bongino was quoted in the release, noting:

It’s way past time to reinvigorate our party and set forth a set of guiding principles. For too long we’ve been lost in partisan games while forgetting that, in the end, it’s the ideas that will take us to a better tomorrow.

Some may argue that Barack Obama received his electoral mandate in 2012, but it’s just as valid (if not moreso) to make the point that a course correction had become necessary and the results showed the message was sent emphatically in 2014.

Our call is for Congress to translate that message in legislation and oversight. Certainly there’s the prospect of veto after veto, but rather than get the reputation as a “do-nothing Congress” put the onus on the President to respond and – whatever you do – don’t cede any more power to the Executive Branch. We don’t want to have to sign an updated letter in the fall, so get busy.

Another chance to pick Rick?

Say what you will about Rick Santorum, but in the 2012 campaign he ended up being the last man standing against Mitt Romney because he carried a number of states in the South and Midwest – states which are the backbone of the Grand Old Party’s national strategy.

And if you judge by the e-mail he sent to his Patriot Voices supporter list, it appears as if he will try it again in 2016:

A few days ago, Politico referred to me as the “odd man out” of the Presidential race.

A few weeks before that, they referred to me as an “underdog.”

Yet another outlet recently asked, “Is Rick Santorum losing his core audience?”

I haven’t even announced my intentions for 2016 yet, and the mainstream media is already piling on in an attempt to scare me out of the race!

Michael, can you pitch in a generous gift to my testing the waters committee right now and show them just how wrong they are?

These “mainstream” journalists seem to have forgotten that just three years ago, I won the Iowa Caucuses after visiting every single one of the state’s 99 counties.

It’s no surprise that the inside-the-beltway media elites don’t want me to run for President. If 2012 taught us anything, it’s that a strong conservative message paired with passionate grassroots supporters like you wins elections.

Now they’re trying to convince the American people that I can’t build on that success.

I know they’re wrong. I know you know they’re wrong.

Now help me prove just how wrong they are.

On May 27th, I’m going to announce my plans for 2016. And if I decide to run for President, I need a strong grassroots base of support from people like you ready to get to work with me from Day One.

Let me know you’re in by pitching in a generous gift right now.

Thank you so much for your support!

I’m not going to send any money, but it’s worth repeating that I voted for Rick in 2012 (mainly because those I really preferred were already out of the race, but still…he got my vote.) Whether he can hang on to that same coalition which propelled him to primary victories in those states he won is the question, though.

Rick inherited much of the same electorate which supported Mike Huckabee in his unsuccessful 2008 bid, but Huckabee’s already made it known that he’s in the race; meanwhile, the younger and more dynamic Ted Cruz has also built up a following. With new entrants seemingly jumping in weekly (like Bobby Jindal forming his exploratory committee today) there’s not much room for error nor a lot of time to build up a war chest.

It seems that the debate stages are getting more crowded. And while the naysayers on the Left compare this race to a clown car, the joke may sooner of later be on them as the GOP receives a battle-tested candidate against the one who was given the crown.

A ‘loophole’ is only bad if the government thinks it’s being stiffed

For what is being described as “financial stakes (that) are small, (yielding) just $3 million to $4 million annually.” the Washington Post sure has its collective panties in a wad over the prospect Larry Hogan may veto the “travel tax.”

When I did my last look at the idea, I didn’t really know how much the difference was to the state. Now that I know it’s only a rounding error in a $40 billion budget. the prospect of Democrats (and, sadly, a handful of Republicans) trying to fill in this supposed budget hole looks to me like a “gotcha” moment set up by General Assembly Democrats who will turn around and bash Hogan for enacting the “travel tax” in four years – after all, if they can perpetrate the fiction that school funding was cut this year (never mind the increase of over $100 million) they can make up anything to tell unsuspecting voters that the sky is falling.

But it’s really funny to me that the Post considers this a “travel agent loophole” and “undeserved windfall” when it’s actually a legal transaction. Even the Post admits it:

Rather than collect sales taxes from the agencies based on the actual prices they charge customers for hotel rooms, most states have accepted a reduced payment based on bargain room prices the agencies manage to negotiate with hotels.

That’s as it should be, so it sounds to me like General Assembly Democrats have some sour grapes. The transaction in question is at a reduced rate – why should the state collect the sales tax on the full rack rate if the place of lodging offers the rooms first to a reseller at a lower price? There is no gun being placed at the proverbial head of the hotel or motel to sell the rooms to an online travel agency; they can go it alone and try to market themselves without a middleman. (Hence, loyalty programs and other perks provided by hotels who prefer to keep bookings in-house.)

But it’s obvious that many hotel chains prefer the assurance of knowing they would get something – a “something” that is about 60 to 70 percent of full rate – for a room which will be paid for many times over before the paint dries on the renovation or new construction based on future reservations already on the books. Chances are your room rate is really paying for the employees who check you in and take care of the rooms moreso than the bricks, mortar, and furnishings in the facility, and that factor can be adjusted easily by management. (To use a local and somewhat extreme example, just drive through Ocean City in January and note how many hotels and motels shut down completely for the winter. No one is there to pay for the bricks and mortar, so no employees save a caretaker and maintenance are needed.) So even getting a reduced rate from a travel agency which reserves the rooms just in case isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a cause for complaint by a state which hasn’t completely given up the attitude that “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine, too.”

Conversely, to use another traveler analogy, you won’t hear the Post (or any of their liberal allies) tut-tutting if gasoline prices go up and the state collects more sales tax as a result – no one there would consider that an “undeserved windfall” for the state. I’ll explain.

Should the per-gallon tab for gasoline go up another 50 cents (as it has over the course of the last few months, from about $2 locally to north of $2.50) the state will make up the $4 million “lost” by vetoing the “travel tax” in no time. A 50-cent per gallon increase, as we have already had, nets yet an extra half-penny to the state per gallon come July as an additional 1% gasoline sales tax increase takes effect then. Just based on that 50-cent gas price increase alone coupled with the 1% increase (to 3%) – hence, the half-penny – and assuming the state consumes 7 million gallons per day (probably still in the ballpark despite these old statistics), they will make an “extra” $4 million from what they could have anticipated receiving when 2015 dawned in less than two weeks.

Yet the Post will not throw a pity party for motorists – I guarantee it. Ignore their whining and leave the hotel room rate system be.

The perils of social media

I’ve been sitting on this one for about a week, as I’ve had a busy last few days and have been following some other items that placed themselves on the front burner. But way back on the stove was an e-mail I received a week ago that I found interesting enough to reply to.

It was an e-mail from a gentleman who is trying to resurrect a social media site for conservatives. In this case he was looking for a link to his site from mine. (I guess he’s found out I run a relatively conservative political shop over here in the hinterlands.) In return he would build a fan page for me on his site, which is fine with me as far as that goes. In my case, I just read the e-mail and it piqued my curiosity – what happened to the original site?

So I asked this guy, DJ Cohon. Here’s what he said:

We had the site from 2008 to 2011. In the past we had a little over 15,000 members. At the time it was costing us too much money. Then facebook had shut down our fan page which was a major blow. The main reason however was the site was getting completely taken over by people against the Tea Party movement. I was spending too much time deleting blogs that were anti-american to say the least. The final straw was a major ddos attack.

This time we are much more prepared with spam checks and filters in place before the launch. The conservatives of the country need a place to call their own. I read everyday online how FB is removing more and more pages that are right leaning. They are once again trying to shut down the voices of the people. Another fan page for Allen West just had their page taken down because they had a link to a site that showed a picture of Mohammad. They had over 300,000 fans. GoFundMe has also recently taken a stand against right leaning causes. They are doing this in preparation for the upcoming election. I was thinking about bringing the site back after seeing what has been going on. And after receiving many messages through twitter from followers asking to put the site back up I decided it was time.

To each his or her own – if I had 15,000 readers a week I would be floored. So I checked out the site (teapartytown.us) and right now it has is a video, a space to gather e-mail addresses, and a fairly broad range of submenu items which are hit-or-miss – but it looks like a quality, well-done site. There’s already a handful of fan pages, mainly for 2016 presidential candidates but a couple bloggers there, too. It’s on track for a July 4 relaunch.

I realize that the next couple paragraphs are going to assume that Cohon’s story is true. I have no real reason to believe he’s not telling the truth and he’s not going to gain much by lying to me. But if what he said about the demise of the original site is correct, what does that say about the tolerance of the Left to opposing views? It’s anecdotal evidence to be sure, and there are people out there who will believe anything that fits into a particular worldview and narrative, but overall Facebook and other social media sites seemingly only put up with conservatives because they have to at best and are openly hostile at worst. Say something there to defend the right to life or traditional marriage and you run the risk of someone swinging the ban hammer.

But in the back of my mind there’s just something which gnaws at me about the label “TEA Party.” I don’t shun the label myself, but there is a connotation to it that is negative to some as well. As long as Cohon doesn’t envision massive commercial success, though, he should do just fine in the niche of several million Americans who tend to be conservative to libertarian in their outlook. 15,000 people is a nice number, but in the universe of Facebook, Twitter, and so forth it’s like a tiny asteroid. I’ve been to rallies where 15,000 was just the population of the restroom lines.

Maybe the thought occurs to me because, while there may be a need for a group like TEA Party Town, we as a movement can’t be a community insulated from the outside world. To paraphrase an old quote: we may not be interested in war, but war is interested in us. In the minds of many who subscribe to the philosophy of the TEA Party, if government and the world left us alone we would be satisfied with life – but neither is going to happen soon. So we have to deal with the world as is, and that includes the traditional social media.

At my church the sign over the front door tells us we are entering the mission field. It’s worth having a place to preach to the choir and speak among friends – in fact, I encourage the fellowship – but we can’t abandon the rest of the world when doing so.

The next big thing in Salisbury

Rumor has it that he’s going out the door by not standing for re-election as mayor, but if this is so Salisbury Mayor Jim Ireton is declaring war on private property as his swan song.

On Monday, according to a press release from his office, Ireton will set the wheels in motion to eliminate the non-conforming “4 to 3” or “4 to 4” properties in the city, with the stated goal that all housing units in the city will either have no more than two non-related occupants or be single-family housing. Approximately 400 households in the city would be affected.

Ireton is also looking to hire a Community Development Specialist, with the stated goal for this new position being “someone who can identify funding sources, and coordinate with the various agencies involved to shepherd properties through the tax sale process.” That last part is interesting because it brings me to my main point: it looks to me like the city wants to become a much larger landowner. To wit:

According to Salisbury’s Vacant Building Registry, there are 187 vacant and/or abandoned houses within City limits. The effect of these properties on their surrounding communities is demonstrably negative, causing losses in neighborhood property values, increases in crime and vagrancy, and public health concerns. The proposed budget amendment would set aside $45,000 for a fund which the City would use expressly to purchase vacant and abandoned homes at tax sale. Starting in FY2016, an additional $500,000 in bonded debt would be earmarked for acquisition, rehabilitation, repurposing, demolition, and legal fees. Homes bought by the City would be determined to be either eligible for donation to Habitat for Humanity or Salisbury Neighborhood Housing Service, or unfit for rehabilitation and demolished.

Imagine if you will an entrepreneur suddenly deciding to go out a purchase a whole bunch of houses at a tax sale, and the hoops this owner would have to jump through to secure all the permits, inspections, and other hassles a prospective investor would endure because the wheels of city government move so slowly. It’s a climate that discourages investment, so oftentimes properties sit vacant or abandoned. Factor in the difficult economic times of the last several years and there’s no question that too many people believe investing in Salisbury would be a losing cause.

So instead of addressing the situation of why investment is such a risk, the city will go into the business of home ownership. Not only that, they plan on running up plenty of debt to get themselves into a position to decide whether to renovate or tear down these dwellings.

It seems to me the better use of tax dollars would be to take care of what they do own. For example, I live across from a city park that is essentially an empty, semi-wooded lot with one lonely basketball hoop in the middle of it. For a few thousand dollars they could perhaps install a walking path, nice flower beds, and perhaps a couple trash receptacles. It’s not a large space, but it is a focal point of this little neighborhood.

If you believe the rumors that Jim is going to try and trade places with Jake Day, this isn’t the way to do it. Six years ago, we were promised that “help is on the way” but this isn’t going to be much help in making Salisbury an attractive place in which to invest. Why take a chance on buying a house when your next door neighbor could be a property owned by the city?

Shorebird of the Week – May 14, 2015

Bennett Parry

I can’t believe I’m picking Bennett Parry as my Shorebird of the Week – again.

You see, at the tail end of the 2013 season when I originally tabbed Bennett, he was in the midst of some great starting pitching. Here we are in May of 2015 and Parry is doing the same thing for Delmarva, shutting out Asheville for six innings on two hits last Thursday before Tuesday’s almost as stellar losing effort against Augusta, where two consecutive doubles did him in for a 1-0 tough luck loss. Parry allowed just three hits in five innings in that start, and has allowed only 23 in 31 2/3 innings pitched so far this season. He’s only given out eight walks against 25 strikeouts, leaving himself a sub-1 WHIP for the season.

So why hasn’t my 2013 forecast that Parry was “a contender for Frederick’s starting rotation (in 2014)” come true? Beats me. If you look at Parry’s Delmarva body of work over those parts of the last three seasons he’s been here, you really can’t argue that with an ERA under 3, strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 2.5-to-1 (with about a strikeout per inning), and overall WHIP of 1.22 – mainly as a starter, by the way, so he’s facing batters multiple times per game – he doesn’t deserve a shot at the next level. Yet in five pro seasons Bennett has never gotten past Delmarva.

I’ve seen Bennett pitch a few times over the last three seasons, including a couple starts this year. One thing I notice is that he’s the kind of pitcher you watch for awhile and realize, hey, he’s in the fifth inning and throwing a shutout (or at worst keeping the team in the game.) It’s not flashy, but he does get his outs and they add up to innings and suddenly you’re applauding another solid six-inning effort.

I will concede to my above point that Bennett is a little older than the league now (he turns 24 in August) and was drafted in the 40th round in 2011. (Under current draft rules, that would be the final round.) When you’re 1,205th on the totem pole, nothing comes easy and apparently it hasn’t for Bennett, either. But here’s hoping that, for the second half of the season, Parry finally gets to try his luck at the next level and see if he can compete there.

Sneaking laws into the books

Important update: Per the Maryland General Assembly webpage, the date of presentment was actually fixed as May 3. This means the legislative limbo can run as late as June 2.)

On Tuesday Governor Larry Hogan risked carpal tunnel syndrome by signing hundreds of bills into law. The extraordinarily high output was made necessary by two factors: the events in Baltimore that scuttled a planned bill signing back on April 28, and the desire to enact these laws within the period mandated by the state’s constitution. As a refresher, Article II, Section 17 (c) of the Maryland Constitution states:

Any Bill presented to the Governor within six days (Sundays excepted), prior to adjournment of any session of the General Assembly, or after such adjournment, shall become law without the Governor’s signature unless it is vetoed by the Governor within 30 days after its presentment. (Emphasis mine.)

There are a handful of bills which may make it into the books this way. Since the General Assembly session ended at the stroke of midnight April 14. 30 days hence would be tomorrow, May 14. (Update: presentment doesn’t happen with adjournment, as I have found.) Some of the bills in limbo happen to be those which are part of the monoblogue Accountability Project, so you can bet there are some calculations going on about whether a veto can be sustained.

Many of these bills Hogan has held off on signing establish or extend fees and taxes, with a few being issues local to Calvert, Charles, and Howard counties. Two of them extend or increase fees in state courts; in another case I wrote about the “travel tax” of Senate Bill 190 a few weeks ago. Senate Bill 183 would mandate the adoption of the Geographic Cost of Education Index, which would be a budget-buster. He’s also passed on extending the film production activity tax credit that the producers of “House of Cards” wanted.

Business interests, though, should be happy that Hogan hasn’t signed the de facto two-year fracking ban or the extension of flexible leave.

On the social issue end of the spectrum, we do not yet know the fate of bills which would decriminalize marijuana, allow for same-sex couples to have their IVF procedures covered under insurance, let those who have undergone the treatment to revise their gender to change their birth certificates to reflect this, or allow felons who are out of prison but still on probation or parole to vote.

These are less than 5% of the bills which were passed. Many others have already been vetoed as duplicative, but those above are the ones most likely to get an attempt at overriding the veto – or they can try, try again in the next term knowing that the votes for passage were there the last time. Some bills may be improved with a few minor changes that can be worked out while others should just be put out of our misery.

I’m hoping that Governor Hogan sends a strong message by vetoing the following bills I advised voting against:

If he wishes to let the decriminalization of marijuana become law without his signature, that’s quite all right.

This all goes to show that my monoblogue Accountability Project should be a hot-ticket item when it comes out. next week. The good news is that it’s free and available for the taking once I upload it Monday. (See the update above.)

Upping the ante

At our Central Committee meeting last night we had the pleasure of hearing from Wicomico County Executive Bob Culver. One thing we touched upon in the meeting was the aspect of public hearings for gauging public support of an elected school board in Wicomico County, at the behest of Senator Jim Mathias. We learned that none of these sessions had been planned yet, so I’m going to throw out the first ideas on this.

I don’t think anyone would say that there can be too few public hearings but I think that there can be too many. Sooner or later people would lose interest so I think the optimum number would be five.

To me, five is the fairest number because we could base one in each County Council district – important because the proposal would use those same boundaries for school board districts. As far as timing, I think August is the best month although September is acceptable as well. This has more to do with the availability of facilities than anything else, because in most cases schools would be the ideal location for these public hearings. Specifically, I think the hearings should be sited in the following facilities, all of which lie within that Council district.

  • District 1: West Salisbury Elementary School
  • District 2: Mardela Middle’High School
  • District 3: Wicomico Youth and Civic Center
  • District 4: Bennett High School
  • District 5: Pittsville Elementary/Middle School

These locations are somewhat spread through the county, although by necessity most are in the Salisbury area.

Obviously elected officials may not be able to make each of these hearings, and the idea is to hear from as many voices as possible. But if the respective County Council members can act as hosts and facilitators, the process should be satisfactory to all involved.

Then we can get to the business of passing this bill in next year’s session. The people’s voice delayed should not be the people’s voice denied.

Secession over energy

You might recall that an ongoing, back-burner thought we on the Eastern Shore have had is the idea of seceding from the state of Maryland – a state which otherwise belittles us, doesn’t share our concern about the agricultural community, and tries to lord it over us because we only have a small percentage of the population. With a Republican governor that sentiment has diminished somewhat but it’s still active among a few.

The southern tier of counties in the state of New York have a similar beef. Their state is controlled by the denizens of the Big Apple, which overshadows both the urban enclaves of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany and the rural areas upstate. Those who represent the urban areas have prevailed on the state government to ban fracking in the state, which means areas within the Marcellus Shale formation can’t tap into that valuable resource, while just a few miles away Pennsylvania towns and cities are thriving. This story by Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times makes it plain that residents in that area are frustrated, just as those who live in the western end of Maryland have been pleading for the state to lift its de facto ban on the practice. Instead, the Maryland General Assembly put yet another two-year delay on the books.

In both cases, the problem lies in the small minority of citizens who are blessed to live in an energy-rich portion of a state being forced by a majority who thinks they know better to suffer, watching those who live just a few miles away prosper.

Also in both cases, the chances of secession vary between slim and none, with slim vacating town to pursue a fracking job in an adjacent state.

Of course, this is the small drawback to having 50 different state governments: it allows for some to fail in their economic efforts. Both New York and Maryland have an economic engine which depends on the growing alliance and partnership between Wall Street and the federal government, with thousands of financial sector workers in New York City and thousands of federal employees in Maryland. In their worldview, we can secure all our energy needs from renewable sources and oil and natural gas are dirty, nasty fossil fuels. Problem is we still use an awful lot of those fossil fuels because renewables are extremely expensive or highly subsidized.

Perhaps what needs to secede is the crazy idea that fracking is something to be avoided at all costs from the laws of the several states. Until then, those poor people in New York and western Maryland will continue to see prosperity from afar.

Irrelevant?

As I relaxed after a long Mother’s Day weekend with family, this story from the Washington Times piqued my interest. Here’s Jeb Bush, who most consider the “establishment” Republican candidate, trying to make believers out of the religious Right as the graduation speaker at Liberty University. You may recall LU is where Ted Cruz kicked off his own 2016 campaign, and the school founded by the late Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell seems to be a popular stop on that circuit.

Yet I contrast this to the idea, popularized by some and echoed by that s0-called “establishment,” that the only path to victory is to moderate or even capitulate on some social issues, particularly gay “marriage.” Where are the Republican presidential candidates who are choosing to cater to this crowd? I think the answer is simple: there’s not enough voters there to really matter.

Something I’ve seen over the years, in many elections, is that it’s rare that a Republican can succeed by being Democrat-lite. I will grant that the most recent Maryland election could be seen as a case where the avoidance of social issues – despite the bait continually laid by desperate Democrats – may have assisted in a GOP victory. Or maybe it didn’t because there was only a tiny percentage of Maryland voters who are militantly pro-abortion or fanatical in their support for gay “marriage.” Regardless of whether the issue were brought up or not, most of those would have supported Anthony Brown. I can even turn the question on its head and ask those who are in a group like Millennial Maryland: let’s say Larry Hogan had come out against abortion and for traditional marriage. Would you, as nominal Republicans, have still supported Hogan?

You see, this is the question those who are considered “values voters” continually have to ask themselves when we see an otherwise conservative candidate fall all over themselves trying to pander to various centrist groups who would rather not see social issues be prominent campaign issues. I think most who are social conservatives realize it’s the economic message that carries the day overall, but having an evangelical candidate could be the difference between maybe just voting for the candidate (with the risk these discouraged voters may stay home or just vote down-ballot races) or being active in knocking on doors, making phone calls, and opening the checkbook.

Until someone can prove to me that there are millions who will beat down the doors to the GOP if they would just throw the values voters under the bus, I think I would lay my money on a conservative nominee who can stand on all three legs of the conservative stool – fiscal, social, and national security – and appeal to values voters. Is it not worth pointing out that Falwell’s Moral Majority was an early supporter of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election? I think he did pretty well for himself.

It seems to me that this part of the Republican Party needs to find its voice and make sure it nominates a clear alternative to the morally bankrupt policies of the political insiders. Yes, we call that Judeo-Christian values.

The final hurdle

This is sort of a programming note for those who are interested.

Over the last week on social media I was detailing some of my findings as I went through the votes for the monoblogue Accountability Project. There was a Delegate who was racking up an impressive record of consecutive correct votes; alas, his streak stopped at 15. Anyway, I have completed the tallies and over the next few days will write up the “awards” segment.

However, one thing I cover in my summary is the disposition of bills and that depends on Governor Hogan. On Tuesday he will sign the last batch of bills he plans on making into law and hopefully will present veto statements for others which won’t. You may recall he was supposed to sign a group of them on April 28 but the Baltimore riots forced a postponement. It means come Tuesday Larry might have carpal tunnel from signing so many bills because he’s doubling up the batch. This means I should be ready for release on May 18, since I like to put things like that up to begin a week.

Speaking of veto statements, this also allows me to bring up the idea that MDPetitions.com (the brainchild of Delegate Neil Parrott) is urging people in a last-ditch effort to veto three bills. As it turned out, they were all votes in the monoblogue Accountability Project and for all three the correct vote was against passage – so I join that call to veto the following bills:

  • SB 416/ HB 838 – Insurance Mandate for same-sex wedded couples to get In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments
  • SB 743/ HB 862 – Modified Birth Certificates for Sex Changes, No Surgical Change Necessary
  • SB 340/ HB 980 – Convicted Felons Voting without Completing Their Sentences

I go into the reasons as part of the mAP, although on the IVF and birth certificate issues Cathy Keim and I have already explained our opposition.

As regards my writing partner Cathy, she is on a little hiatus for family time. So if you miss her pieces – and I’ve noticed she’s made quite a few fans over the short time she’s been associated with this site – don’t fret because she should be back in the saddle over the next couple weeks.

Once I get through that I have a couple more pet projects. And you thought I’d take it easy on the off year.