And yet a third update on Cardin in Towson…

Consider this an early Friday Night Video. Nick Loffer (the voice you hear asking the questions) was kind enough to pass this along.

Does anyone else think that tomorrow’s event is going to make SU briefly relive the Vietnam protest days that most colleges endured in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s? Heck, it may be some of those same people once again protesting government action.

Well, that was fast…

Looks like Campaign 2010 has already claimed its first casualty:

Effective June 29, 2009, Jim Rutledge has suspended his campaign to represent the citizens of Maryland in the United States Senate.

Recent developments have led Jim Rutledge to decide that his personal and professional commitments will prevent him from giving the people of Maryland the necessary commitment to campaign for election to the United States Senate in 2010.

Jim expresses his heartfelt gratitude for all those who have supported him with their time, talents, and resources. Jim will continue to promote freedom and those unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and encourages you to exercise your freedom of speech.

Thank you and Live Free.

Jim Rutledge

It’s definitely unfortunate because there was no sign of his dropping out when he came to address the Wicomico County Republican Club last week. Sure, his was a long-shot bid to unseat Senator Mikulski but that would be true of practically any Republican in Maryland not named Bob Ehrlich.

Apparently this news has emboldened another Republican to throw his hat into the ring, at least according to his Facebook page. Queen Anne’s County Commissioner Dr. Eric Wargotz is running, or so he claims. I’ve already asked Eric about a website so once that’s up and running I’ll link to it. In the meantime we’ll see if Wargotz is willing to campaign here and address our club.

I’m sorry to see Rutledge go but obviously other things are more important to him than a Senate seat.

Postscript: See the comment, he’s back in.

LSYR fundraiser

I know you’ll all complain about the last Weekend of local rock post for two reasons: one because I should stick to politics and the other being I didn’t resize the photos like I usually do before I put together the post – so it’ll take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load. Sorry about that!

In all honesty I could have made this WoLR 25 because many of the photos will fall under that category. But yesterday my lady friend and I sat out in the sun and enjoyed a nice day listening to the music and either renewing acquaintances or making new ones, depending on the person’s perspective and who we met.

Let me throw the pictures on, starting here. There are nine photos.

I stood on the stage and took this shot looking back out over the crowd. At most points there were between 30 and 40 there, the number fluctuated during the afternoon.

These were some of the people enjoying the pulled pork and other goodies put out by the McIvers, who graciously served as hosts.

I’m going to do the political pictures first even though the band opened things up. They played a set before the remarks and one afterward so my chronological order isn’t that important.

This man is Jim Rutledge. As far as I know he's the first Republican to step up and challenge Barbara Mikulski for her U.S Senate seat next year.

First to speak was a new political face; his name is Jim Rutledge. One could assert he’s mad as hell and won’t take it anymore because he’s a political novice looking to replace Senator Mikulski – an uphill battle to be sure.

After a somewhat lengthy introduction, he more briefly touched on some of the focal points of his campaign – national security, taxes, and the Second Amendment were some highlights.

I know someone else who has one of these on her car. It's called speaking common sense.

We’ve also penciled Rutledge in to speak at our June WCRC meeting, so perhaps more people can hear from Jim when our merry band next meets. You may have seen him yesterday evening at the Hebron Carnival since he planned on stopping by there too.

Page Elmore stressed the importance of next year's election because there's been a lot of damage done by the majority in Annapolis.

Page Elmore added a few words in his typical low-key style. I was a little surprised not to see him in his usual red shirt. He’s quite concerned about keeping some of the seats the GOP already has because of some possible changes locally.

Our keynote speaker actually was the briefest one. State Senator Harris just pointed out a couple votes his future opponent made and said he wouldn't have voted the same way.

Andy Harris isn’t quite in campaign mode yet, but mentioned we are just 17 months and 10 days from the 2010 election. It’s going to be an interesting one given his opponent now has a record – certainly Harris will point out its many shortcomings.

It occurs to me that I forgot to take a “spread” picture so you don’t get to see all the great food we had to partake in. So I’ll just get to the band pictures and wrap this up.

The band is called “The Occasionals” and played a number of classic rock staples – quite well, I might add.

The three guys who make up The Occasionals are shown as a group here.

Here's the guitar player closer up.

This one is the bass player closer up.

And finally a neat shot of the drummer.

Also, I should complement the guys who did the sound, it was excellent. Okay, perhaps the people across the way had objections but it’s not like the party was an all-night affair. Get a life people!

I spoke to YR head Mark Biehl, who thought the turnout was excellent for a first-time event. Of course, there were lessons to be learned and fine tuning to do for what the LSYRs plan as an annual affair but overall Biehl termed the gathering a “successful” one. There was a 50-50 drawing which brought in a few more dollars and a post-party gun shoot I didn’t attend – all in all, the day (and previous night for those who tended the cooking pig) was quite eventful.

Finally, yesterday after I came back home I found out someone there supposedly had some “choice words” for me when we met. Well, that someone didn’t come up to me and tell them to my face and it’s not like he didn’t have the opportunity so I’ll leave it at that and let both you and I guess what they might have been. Heck if I know, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it either.

Simply put I’m looking forward to promoting and enjoying more LSYR events as time goes on and permits!

Free thuggery

We all knew it was coming, the question was how long it would take to become a reality. The misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act of 2009” was introduced earlier this week. And my only surprise at H.R. 1409 is that Frank Kratovil’s name isn’t on it as a co-sponsor (at least not yet. The unions do have to get what they paid for last year.)

In a nutshell, what EFCA2009 provides is the opportunity for unions to twist the arms of workers so they sign a card claiming their support for a union shop. Once the union gets 50% plus 1 of the eligible employees the union is allowed in. For their part, the unions claim that management attempts the same sort of dirty tricks but in neither case should a secret ballot be influenced. Apparently unions want to reduce their chances of losing since they only win these elections about 2/3 of the time.

Because the bill has 222 co-sponsors, there’s little chance of it being stopped in the House – in truth, there’s little chance Frank Kratovil will be strongarmed into going into the record as voting for it unless there’s a procedural need to do so. Certainly he knows that the First District would probably rather see good right-to-work legislation than live by the EFCA2009.

Where this bill may be killed is in the Senate – that is if the GOP sticks together and sells its case to the American people. In all honesty we’re probably not ever going to get a significant portion of the hardcore union vote anyway so there’s little to lose by stopping H.R. 1409 dead in its tracks.

On the other hand, by allowing the plunder of small businesses by union locals thirsty for new sources of revenue from the dues they collect (much of which is immediately funneled into the coffers of the Democrats) the GOP puts itself at a severe monetary disadvantage by not stopping this bill. With President Obama already overturning a number of business-friendly provisions enacted under the Bush Administration there’s little doubt that EFCA2009 is yet another payback to Big Labor – one that could yield an even greater dividend than bailing out the United Auto Workers provided.

The group Americans for Job Security has set up a Facebook site to oppose the EFCA2009 initiative, and I encourage those Facebook members who believe that a worker’s right to a secret ballot should remain in place to join. Otherwise you may arrive at work one day to find Guido and Lefty waiting at the time clock with a paper for you to sign.

The 2012 campaign continues

And if you don’t believe me, just check out this video from the Obama front group “Organizing for America”:

You’ll notice about 2/3 of the way through that Mitch Stewart solicits e-mail addresses – again, a clever way to build up and expand the database originally started way back in Howard Dean’s abortive 2004 Presidential campaign and enhanced with Obama’s 2008 run.

Then again there’s nothing wrong with activism and involvement; it just needs to have a push from the correct direction. It’s interesting that Stewart blames “special interests” for standing in Obama’s way when it’s the special interests who have the most to gain from Obama’s agenda – that is if you consider Big Labor, supporters of a rewarmed HillaryCare, the teachers’ unions, radical environmentalists, and corporations who have gained from the massive government involvement in their affairs and are now rent-seeking as special interests – most right-thinking Americans who inhabit the producer class do believe those groups are special interests.

President Obama submitted the largest budget in American history with the largest projected deficit in American history at a time when the government is actually being run via continuing resolutions because the current budget is still being ironed out. Something about that just doesn’t make sense, particularly when it’s his party running Congress.

Seven weeks into an Obama presidency it almost appears that he’s already running the country in perpetual campaign mode much as President Clinton did during the first four years of his run. (The second term was more damage control mode thanks to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and accompanying impeachment drive. In Obama’s case the scandals seem to be falling amongst his underlings, though.)

It goes without saying that little of Obama’s agenda can be stopped in the House of Representatives and given the tendency of a small group of Senate RINO’s to place what they consider political expediency above principle it’s not likely that body will be much of a speedbump either.

But the one thing both House and Senate are afraid of is a large-scale backlash from constituents – witness the firestorm conservatives caused on immigration or the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination.

I’m considering this video an effort to short-circuit the prospect of a conservative grassroots rebellion by isolating those on the left who would be most likely to be active and sending out their competing propaganda to a list of activists all their own, one backed by much of the mainstream media. This is particularly true in our Congressional district, where a freshman Democrat who barely won election (and flip-flopped on the stimulus bill) will most likely face a strongly conservative challenger next year.

So I bring this video to your attention even though it’s from a source that would normally not attract my notice as much. It proves a point that we on the right need to stay on our toes and not let the intraparty squabbles such as Limbaugh vs. Steele or Limbaugh vs. Newt distract us from the main goal of squelching the socialist Obamanation agenda.

Maryland’s pod

This morning I took a little time to see about something I assumed would be true and I was absolutely 100% correct. So far there have been 64 recorded votes in this Senate session and our two erstwhile, well-meaning, but for the most part incorrect Senators have voted in the exact same manner all 64 times. At least in Delaware you get a little variation between Senators Carper and Kaufman – they have voted at odds with each other 6 times in 59 votes.

To tell you what this means, let’s look at what the not-so-Free State’s not-so-dynamic duo has supported in just this edition of Congress.

They both voted for the “porkulus” package conference report. In addition, they voted against a direct rebate on taxes rather than spending the money (in other words, they feel the government knows better where to spend your money than you do), voted for ACORN funding with the “porkulus” money, for maintaining the Clinton tax on Social Security benefits, against decreasing our taxes in general, for expanding the government in general with “porkulus” funds, and for maintaining a tax break for their Hollywood friends.

If that wasn’t bad enough, they allowed the expansion of SCHIP, but against expanding it to the unborn. Meanwhile, they also cast their ballots in favor of people scrapping their private insurance to get on the government dole and against the true intent of the SCHIP program, which was to help low-income children be covered. Nor will the unborn in other nations we assist be spared, in part because of their votes.

They also voted to allow the tax cheat Timothy Geithner to head the IRS and against true freedom of choice whether to join a union or not.

Yet the majority of Maryland voters elected these two – only six counties voted against both the last time they were on the ballot. (We should thank the voters of Carroll, Cecil, Garrett, Harford, Queen Anne’s, and Washington counties for their common sense – unfortunately the lower Shore needs to become hip to Senator Mikulski’s true record by November of 2010.) I have to ask if these sorts of votes are what the electorate truly wanted.

There has always been a “throw the bums out” attitude among the general public, EXCEPT when it comes to their own bum. I’m sure both Senators are decent people in person, I don’t recall meeting either in person so I couldn’t say from personal experience. But their voting record is dreadful, particularly in this session which has primarily focused on pocketbook issues. Simply put, they don’t trust you with your money and believe only the government that placed us in this economic mess can allow us to get out of it. If that’s not a definition of insanity, it’s pretty damn close.

Then again, Maryland voters have proven time and again that they vote with their eyes wide shut and against their better interests – that is, unless they enjoy being sheeple.