Dog Bites Man

In one of the least surprising things around you'll find, taxpayers aren't exactly enamored with bigger and badder government:

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”...

....Despite all that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

Gee, I wonder way. Maybe it has something to do with the first couple of stimulus packages not working. Maybe it has to do with the President, his actions, and his rhetoric in continue to stick the accelerator open as we roll down the road to serfdom. Maybe it was the continued display of crass and corrupt leaders in Congress and appointed to the Obama Administration. Whatever it is, the people of America aren't playing ball with this. And Congress, as they are wont to do, is leading our nation down a screaming path that is diametrically opposed to the will of the people.

Then again, that might explain why....

In a corollary to Reagan’s assessment of government, most voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make them worse.

The Rasmussen numbers are hardly surprising given out of touch Democrats are these days. It's very interesting to see how far Congress will try to take the country against the will of the people. The exploding phenomenon of tax tea parties makes for interesting theater and a pretty significant showing of the pulse of the country.

Jack Cafferty can go to hell

Apparently, it's time to roll up the carpet and go home. America as we know it is doomed and we need to start thinking small. So says Jack Cafferty at least:

The interest on the national debt will approach $500 billion a year this year or next. Our country is sinking into the quicksand of insolvency as surely as the victims of subprime mortgages who have lost their jobs and their houses and watched their savings evaporate in the stock market decline.

The current national debt is soaring past $12 trillion. The costs of the stimulus packages and bailouts (and stimulus package is just another word for bailout) are being tacked on and passed on because they are being paid for with money we don't have.

We are staring at unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security in the tens of trillions of dollars. Where's that money going to come from? We have to either raise taxes or cut benefits. There are no other options.

The baby boomers are starting to retire and will consume an ever larger share of these entitlement programs. They will also age in sufficient numbers to drive the political agenda for the foreseeable future. Think they're going to want less Social Security and less Medicare? Think again.

The generation coming along behind them that will be asked to pay for all this can't. There are not enough good jobs left in this country to pay those kinds of bills.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to settle for less. Less money, smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller dreams.

This is not your father's country anymore. And we had better all start getting used to it.

Not a chance Cafferty, not a chance. I mean, Cafferty is right in the respect that Democratic leaders in Congress and writing checks for bills that won't come until long, long after they are done ruining the economy. It will be my generation, my children's generation, and my children's children's generation that will be required to pay off the largesse and i incompetence, the gluttony, and the imperialistic greed of Barack Obama and those who support his reckless and wrongheaded bailout. It is true that this generation is failing future generations for its refusal to spend and manage money responsibly.

On the other hand, Cafferty is advocating the abandonment of the very essence that makes America the oracle of freedom and the beacon of opportunity still today. It's very easy for Cafferty to talk about our need for shared sacrifice, the need to start thinking "smaller dreams." Bollocks. Tell that to millions of people around the world who dream of coming to America in an effort to achieve their dreams, to achieve their goals, to raise their children in a land that provides them with endless opportunities.

Just because Obama and his cohorts in Congress are doing all that they can do in order to crush the American spirit and do what they can do to destroy the American economy, it's no reason to abandon that what makes America America. We must continue, as individuals and as a society, never expect less from ourselves. We must continue to dream dreams that are larger than ourselves and larger than our communities. We have always been "the shining city on the hill." In what kind of warped world would we be living if we abandoned those basic American values and American principles?

In other words, why does Jack Cafferty want us to abandon the American Dream?

If Cafferty wants to abandon America, if all of this spending has forced him to (ironically) give up hope, he can take all of it and go to hell. Now is not the time for people to sit back, meekly accept the situation that has been dealt to them and decide now that America is dead. Because if we live in an America in which we dream smaller dreams, are we in an America worth living in anymore?

Liberals need to help save the planet for a change

This story gets to combine two of my least favorite things in life: pork and global warming hysteria. Observe:

The use of crop-based biofuels could speed up rather than slow down global warming by fueling the destruction of rainforests, scientists warned Saturday.

Once heralded as the answer to oil, biofuels have become increasingly controversial because of their impact on food prices and the amount of energy it takes to produce them.

They could also be responsible for pumping far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they could possibly save as a replacement for fossil fuels, according to a study released Saturday.

Whoops.

Now, we've all had this massive rush in Washington to subsidize corn based ethanol, mainly because they grow a lot of corn in Iowa and they happen to have a Presidential Caucus there. All of the Democratic pork producers love it, because they get to bolster their Presidential cred, make environmentalists happy, and get to say they are "protecting the family farm."

And remember: this 'aint our first rodeo with noting the dangers of biofuels.

One of the big problems that Republicans like myself have has little to do with the idea of using alternative fuels; exploring new ideas and innovation makes good sense. But our problem has been and continues to be this rush to judgment for the latest and greatest fad that will purportedly "save the environment" when, in fact, the science on that is unproven at best or shows that we are doing even more damage at worse.

Rushing to judgment means we all pay. And we are all paying dearly for rushing to judgment and pork barrell spending on envirofuels.

Next thing you know, we're going to be taking about perpetual motion engines as a national priority....

Prescience

So out first proposed changed to the slots law is already in the hopper:

A Baltimore County lawmaker is proposing slot-machine gambling at Maryland's major airport, but Gov. Martin O'Malley called the casino a "bad idea," limiting its chances at a time of slots-related buyer's remorse in Annapolis.

Del. Eric M. Bromwell's House Bill 777 -- the airplane-related number is a coincidence -- would add Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to the list of locations for the casino licenses approved by voters last year.

The bill, co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 11 Baltimore County and city lawmakers, would allow 3,000 slots in the terminal area.

The idea is to separate air travelers from their cash while they wait to board airplanes, said Bromwell, a Baltimore County Democrat. "If you're looking to capture revenues from outside of the state," he said, "we're talking about people from all over the country and all over the world that land in BWI."

Now, this is actually a reasonable idea and I actually have no qualms with the idea of putting slots at BWI. No it doesn't exactly make for a slot machine destination, but it's a better use of some of the empty spaces of the airport than they are now.

So what's the problem? This:

The idea would require a voter-ratified amendment to the Maryland Constitution, which the lawmaker has also proposed.

That's right, because of the knuckleheaded way Democrats dealt with slots, we'll have to go through the entire constitutional amendment rigmarole again. But....we knew that was going to happen:

The fact of the matter is that such language adopted in the Constitution will make it nearly impossible to correct any shortcomings with slots, particularly with slot parlor locations, once it is ensconced in the Constitution. At that point, If zoning becomes an issue as the Amendment allows, there is no useful way to fix it; any changes would also need to be adopted as Constitutional Amendments and subjected to another referendum to state voters. That’s no way to make public policy.

And it's still no way to make public policy. Instead of a simple fix to a simple law, slots language being ensconced in the Constitution means 2010 is going to be a repeat of 2008. Nobody wants to live through that, but in order to save slots from becoming a complete boondoggle, Democrats may be forced to fight the fight once more.

I look forward to the day when we have competent representation in Annapolis....maybe then it won't be so easy to predict their failures.

No Warm and Fuzzies Here

To follow on to my previous post about health care records, CNET has a piece on the complete and total lack of privacy provisions built into the health care sections of the Stimulus Package:

What didn't come up during the president's first press conference was how one section of the convoluted legislation--it's approximately 800 pages total--is intended to radically reshape the nation's medical system by having the government establish computerized medical records that would follow each American from birth to death.

Billions will be handed to companies creating these databases. Billions will be handed to universities to incorporate patient databases "into the initial and ongoing training of health professionals." There's a mention of future "smart card functionality."

Yet nowhere in this 140-page portion of the legislation does the government anticipate that some Americans may not want their medical histories electronically stored, shared, and searchable. Although a single paragraph promises that data-sharing will "be voluntary," there's no obvious way to opt out.

"Without those protections, Americans' electronic health records could be shared--without their consent--with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health records network," said Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a nonprofit group that advocates health care privacy.

The Democratic politicians pushing this bill have far-reaching ambitions. The legislation (PDF) (on page 244, for the curious) hands to a still-to-be-named health care bureaucrat the "goal of utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014." Selecting official standards will be left to the Department of Health and Human Services (page 265).

The databases will, "at a minimum," include information on every American's race and ethnicity. They will be used for "biosurveillance and public health" and "medical and clinical research," both of which raise privacy questions. They will become part of a "nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information."

Read the whole thing.

I find it incredibly odd, curious, and mind-numbing that the same leftists who decried "corporate welfare", decried the "privacy concerns" from the Bush and Ehrlich years (remember the police spying fiasco?), the people who want to handcuff insurance companies when it comes to denyting coverage for preexisting conditions, and the people who complained about government giving too much power to private entities readily and happily signed on to this boondoggle.

To make a long story short, Democrats in Congress have stripped you of your privacy rights when it comes to health care. You will be tracked from cradle to grave, and there seems to not be a damn thing that you can do about it.

So for those of you out there who voted for Obama, I ask you if you are still glad that you handed our nation's right to privacy away to government bureaucrats and health care companies?

The Beginning of the End?

Ed Fuelener from Heritage made some very valid points about the Stimulus Debacle:

This bill has been advertised as an economic stimulus bill—despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will actually weaken our nation's long-term economic growth. While the stimulative utility of the bill is, at best, questionable, it would unquestionably rewrite the social contract between the American people and their government. For example:

• The bill reverses the bipartisan and highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state. For instance, it will start rewarding states for adding people to their welfare rolls, rather than for helping them find gainful employment. And contrary to long-established practice, it will entitle able-bodied adults without children to receive cash assistance.
• It does extreme violence to the concept of federalism—bailing out states that have spent irresponsibly at the expense of taxpayers in states that have been fiscally prudent.
• It greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government. Among other things, it would create a new federal health board to decide which medical services are "effective" in America, paving the way for government effectively to overrule the clinical decisions of private physicians.
• It deliberately censors religious speech and worship on school campuses by prohibiting use of any "stimulus" funds for facilities that are used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school of divinity.

The list goes on. These and similar provisions will mean fundamental changes in our society. In many instances, the bill would establish policies that directly challenge widely held American values.

And he makes several valid points. What a lot of Democrats seem to fail to understand is how invasive the Stimulus Package is, not just in the amount of wasteful government spending that it provides, but in the ways that it fundamentally changes the game.

Most disturbing to me is the new government board that deals with health care. We have already seen time and time again how government intervention into health care leads to disastrous consequences. There are reasons that Europeans who can afford to come to the U.S. for appropriate health care do, and it has a lot to do with the fact that government run health care systems there are ineffective, backlogged, and full of red tape. But this Democratic Congress had potentially changed all that and established a new board that will determine what is best for your health, not you. Does that seem like something you want to see. Do you want a bureacucratic Washington body making decisions for the health care of your parents or kids? Of course not.

Fuelner is right in that this stimulus bill is a dangerous precedent for America; the beginning of the end of the country as we know it. I take solace only in the fact that the American people will see through this charade and see this bill for what it is; a liberal Christmas list designed to take money and freedom away from average Americans...

Feeling Unstimulated

It's bad enough that Democrats in Congress have forced the unwanted, unnecessary, and unsavory stimulus plan down the throats of American taxpayers. Now, look at what the Democrats in Annapolis plan on doing with some of that money:

Maryland will use money from the economic stimulus plan to purchase 100 hybrid diesel-electric buses, state officials said yesterday. The purchase of the fuel-saving vehicles had been on hold because of a shortfall in the state's Transportation Trust Fund. The $65 million purchase will more than double the number of hybrid vehicles in the Maryland Transit Administration's bus fleet.

So, let's follow the logic here:

• Congress appropriates billions of dollars in an effort not to stimulate the economy,but in order to provide a shopping spree in the name of a multitude of liberal special interests;
• Maryland Democrats, instead of using the money to balance the budget in this year and cut spending to ensure that it never happens again, are instead going to spend that money on pie in the sky projects to protect the environment;
  
• The Administration is going to hand over $65 million to the MTA, Maryland's most incompetent agency, to buy buses that we really don't need;
• Ensure that $65 million of the stimulus package winds up not being spent in Maryland.

Is it any wonder why American taxpayers oppose the stimulus package? Is it any wonder why Americans don't trust Democrats not to tax them more? Instead of doing good deeds to try and bolster consumer confidence and get money back in the hands of taxpayers through reductions in federal spending and necessary tax cuts, Democrats instead are going to bury us in more foreign debt while trying to plan Santa Claus. For Democrats, it's more important to make their base happy than it is to do right by America's middle and working class families.

The MTA bus purchase is going to be merely the first in a number of new and creative reckless fiscal decision made my Maryland due to the stimulus package. Then again, it's not like we should suspect Annapolis Democrats would learn to be responsible overnight....

No comment is still a comment

John Leopold had this to say in regard to his run-in with police at Annapolis Mall:

"The police determined that this accusation was completely without merit, and I will not dignify this matter with any further comment," Leopold said....

....He declined to answer questions about whether anyone was with him or if he talked to the police officer. Nor would he answer questions about what he was doing moments before police arrived.

"I don't want to talk about this. I'll answer your questions later at another time. If I think it's necessary," he said before hanging up the phone.

Now Leopold finds himself in a bit of a sticky situation, because whether or not the allegations are true or not (and really, who knows) his non-commenting status will automatically lead to voters to assume that he is guilty. Because virtually no politician who is innocent issues a no comment in such a situation. But Leopold has now fallen into the trap of saying no comment which in and of itself is a comment. Recently, Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez both issued no comments before admitting guilt the next day.

As I said, whether or not Leopold is guilty of this offense isn't the point anymore. The point is that the public relations on this were botched, and John Leopold has managed to find a new way to embarrass the Republican Party....

The Attitude Problem

To follow up on yesterday's post, George Della quickly dropped his proposal to outlaw beer pong But that is not really the story I'd like to focus on here.

I'd like to focus more on attitude, particularly the attitude of legislators to try and legislate our way into social order. You have Della's bill outlawing beer pong. You have attempts to outlaw texting while driving. This gets added to a number of other behavioral bills that we have seen over the years; smoking in bars, smoking in homes, smoking in private homes (at least in the Montgomery County fiasco from a few years back), mandating seat belt use, banning trans-fats. Greg Kline keeps a whole list of bills to legislate how we eat during episodes of the Conservative Refuge. Communities across the country mandate participation in recycling programs. All of this examples deal with government trying to overlegislate human behavior.

Is that any way to live? Is this any way to treat free people? Of course it's not. But government officials (usually Democrats) always try to come up with new ways to limit freedom, to limit the ability of people to enjoy the fruits of our American way of life. Most of them are patently unenforceable. A lot of them certainly do not stop certain human behaviors; people still smoke, people still choose not to wear their seatbelt, and elected officials still (allegedly) have sex in public. A law is not going to stop certain behaviors that are objectionable to some other people. You socially engineer people through legislation in a free society.

George Della's foray into beer pong just goes to display the lengths that we have Americans have allowed politicians to convince us that our safety and our ability to regulate our own lives need to be sacrificed in order for the greater good. All the while Della tries to overregulate the lives of regular Baltimoreans, Della was doing bumpkis to lower Baltimore's crime rate, get drugs off of city streets, create economic incentives for city job creation, and provide city students with a decent education. All of those things went unaccounted for as Della worried about beer pong.

That sis the larger attitude problem. Elected officials would rather pass on doing the hard work that is needed, and instead do the easy but meaningless things to get their name in print. That's the attitude that we as Marylanders need to fight. We need to expect more from our elected officials, and demand that they stop nannying us to death....

And that's the end of John Leopold's gubernatorial campaign

Well before it starts, it ends...

Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold is at the center of what will surely rank as one of the stranger political stories of 2009. The Sun's Julie Scharper reports in Wednesday's paper that Arundel police plan to release a 911 tape in which a caller complains of seeing someone engaging in sexual acts in a car outside of a county mall. Police responded to the scene and found the black Chevy in question, which, it turned out, was Leopold's county car.

A Leopold spokesman says police found the complaint to be unwarranted, and no charges were filed.

Leopold was in the car, but no word on whether anybody else was there, or what he was doing hanging out in the parking lot. Rumors about the 911 call have been spreading like wildfire in the state's political community, so this surely won't be the last we hear of it. Check back for updates as we get them.

I had heard about this today, without much detail. Looks like the Sun has corroborated some of the details that I have heard. But any slim hope Leopold had of being elected Governor is gone.

Now that the papers have this story, I wonder if they will start digging a little deeper into Leopold's background on this......

Della goes Balls Deep

Apparently all of Baltimore City's problems have been solved. Why else would State Senator George Della of Baltimore City introduce legislation aimed at beer pong in the city?

Don't believe me? Here's some verbiage directly from the text of the legislation:

(B) A HOLDER OF A RETAIL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES LICENSE OR
OWNER OR OPERATOR OF A BOTTLE CLUB MAY NOT PROMOTE, ENCOURAGE, OR ALLOW ON THE PREMISES A GAME COMMONLY KNOWN AS BEER PONG OR ANY OTHER GAME OR CONTEST THAT INVOLVES DRINKING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES OR THE AWARDING OF DRINKS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AS PRIZES.

Really? Is this really necessary? Do we really need to impugn on the freedom of Baltimore City residents, businesses, and bar patrons by micromanaging the lives of its citizenry like this? Does this really need to be a state issue?

Oh.....and did the homicides, rampant drug used, urban decay, and ghastly public schools in Baltimore City suddenly get fixed over night? Because otherwise, Senator Della is seriously asleep at the switch.

There is no other way to say this: Senator Della needs to loosen up, get a life, and focus on the legitimate problems that Baltimore City has. And I assure you the beer pong is far, far, FAR from the list of priorities facing the city. And you never know; if this Carrie Nation act keeps up, maybe another team of rivals will form to bring some common sense to the situation...

The Brian Griffiths Minute: 02-09-2009

I Get Letters....

Judd Legum springs to Judd Legum's defense by email:

Dear Brian:

Thanks for your interest in my blog.

I just wanted to respond briefly to the following claim: "Legum stating that people support the stimulus package is nothing short of a bold-faced lie."

Actually I wrote that "a new poll by Gallup shows that the American people strongly support Obama's handling of the stimulus issue." This statement is fully supported by the Gallup poll. Here is a direct quote from Gallup: "The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is handling the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill."

The Rassmuessen poll is interesting but does not ask the same question.

Feel free to contact me if there is any further confusion.

-- Judd

Of course the issue here is always in the phrasing of the statement, as it always is with the liberals.

This, you'll remember, is what the premise of Legum's post was:

Steele said that “the president is upside-down with the voters on this issue.”

THAT is the operative statement in Legum's post, the intimation that Michael Steele was at fault for stating that Obama is opposing the will of the American people....something that the is clearly demonstrable in the Rasmussen poll. The reason that the Rasmussen poll doesn't ask about the President's handling of the stimulus issue is irrelevant because the people of this nation oppose the stimulus regardless.

The nuance Legum tries here is cute, but glosses over the lack of support for people of this Democratic boondoggle.

For a lawyer, Judd Legum is a bad liar

Well all know that Judd Legum, the newfangled prettyboy of the loony blogging left, has some truthiness issues given his past employment. But today he unleashes a pretty sizable whopper:

Yesterday on ABC’s This Week, Former Maryland Lt. Governor and current RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that President Barack Obama’s approach to economic stimulus was not supported by the American people. Steele said that “the president is upside-down with the voters on this issue.”

Today, a new poll by Gallup shows that the American people strongly support Obama’s handling of the stimulus issue:

Yeah......about that:

With the Senate poised to vote Tuesday on an $827-billion version of the economic recovery plan, 62% of U.S. voters want the plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending.

Just 14% would like to move in the opposite direction with more government spending and fewer tax cuts, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty percent (20%) would be happy to pass it pretty much as is, and five percent (5%) are not sure...

....An analysis by Scott Rasmussen notes that the stimulus debate is now driven by a tug-of-war between the popularity of President Obama and the nation’s deeply ingrained reluctance to increase government spending. Forty-eight percent (48%) of voters believe that increased spending is generally bad for the economy. On the other hand, 57% say tax cuts are generally good for the economy . Overall, 37% of voters favor the stimulus plan and 43% are opposed. Most of those who are undecided have a favorable opinion of the new president and are likely to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I understand that Legum is just covering for his President, who is already cruising towards the title of least effective President ever (why else would he have stopped governing and started campaigning today....at least he knows how to do that). But Legum stating that people support the stimulus package is nothing short of a bold-faced lie.

I give Legum credit though, it looks like he set all sorts of state blogosphere speed records in torching one's credibility...

Bringing Annapolis Together

At least we now know the one thing that will united Democrats and Republicans in Annapolis is Facebook.

Of all of the more ridiculous decisions that have been made by Annapolis Bureaucrats over the years, this has to be right up on there. We've gotten to the point in society where so many people felt that the process of politics and government were leaving them behind. In the last year, members of the General Assembly have been gradually warming up to social networking (Facebook in particular) and blogging as ways to communicate with their constituents and as a way to sidestep the gatekeeper role of the media. That last part, of course, is something near and dear to us Republicans who get the shaft from our local newspapers and television stations when it comes to fair and accurate reporting.

But for now the plug has been pulled, and if you listen to folks from the Department of Legislative Services, the plug was pulled without cause:

Gaudiello told The Baltimore Sun that there has been no damage or loss of data associated with the dozens of viruses coming from links hosted on the social-networking Web sites, but that the action was taken as a precaution.

So an entire capability used by legislators of both sides is wiped out "as a precaution." If DLS wants to block websites that may be associated with viruses as a precaution, they better be prepared to shut down the entire web to legislative computers.

A spokesman for Facebook pretty much sums up a lot of the thoughts on this debacle:

"Most network administrators understand that the value Facebook brings to professional and civic discussions far outweighs the small risk it poses," he said.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't think that this decision has been made aimed at or punishing a particular party, as some people have intimated. I just think a brain-dead bureaucrat made a brain-dead decision that should be reversed and rectified ASAP. DLS needs to encourage citizens and legislators to stay connected, not throw up additional roadblocks to public participation and legislator interaction.

Props

Wanted to give a shout out and thanks to Minority Leader Tony O'Donnell and the other members of the House Republican Caucus for sponsoring HB472, a bill that would extricate Maryland from the National Popular Vote scheme that has been floating around for a few years that would tie Maryland's Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote. I've talked in detail about this attempt at Constitutional subversion and the mental midgets who push for it many times before, though the bill strangely passed during the 2008 General Assembly Session.

Mind you, HB472 doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing, but I commend the Caucus for fighting the good fight on this one.

You mean O'Malley lied to us?

Yeah, I know that O'Malley fibbing would be inconceivable. But remember how O'Malley and his slots supporters said that by adopting the slots amendment we could turn Maryland into the land of milk, honey, and free money? Well....

As they prepare to open bids for slots licenses today, Maryland officials are casting a wary eye on Kansas, hoping that recent history will not be repeated.

In Kansas, two gambling development companies won the rights to build "destination casinos" near Kansas City and in the southeastern part of the state - projects that the state was relying on for an economic boost. But in the face of the recession, the companies have withdrawn their bids, leaving Kansas officials hanging, and delaying the flow of gambling dollars.....

....As in Maryland, Kansas saw the legalization of casinos as a way to stem the flow of gambling dollars out of state and to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

"There was a feeling that there was a lot of money leaving Kansas that we would like to keep here," said Stephen Martino, executive director of the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission, which recently announced layoffs because of the stalled casino initiative. Kansans now gamble aboard Missouri riverboats and in Oklahoma tribal casinos, as well as in Iowa and Colorado.

In 2007, the Kansas Legislature passed a measure authorizing slots parlors at greyhound and horse tracks, and full-scale casinos at four "gaming zones" across the state. The winning proposals, selected by a commission, were grandly conceived....

....As of last month, all three projects had been withdrawn, casualties of the economy. Of the four winning proposals, only the smallest - an $88 million casino in Dodge City - is moving forward. No slots parlors at racetracks have materialized.

Now, this legislation in Kansas passed long before the people of Maryland were given the opportunity to vote on the slots amendment. And long before the people of Maryland voted on this proposal, Kansas' gaming enterprise was heading towards its inevitable doom due to a deflating economy and competition from surrounding states.

Gee, I don't know of anywhere else such a paradigm might exist. Or even find a worse predicament due to the expansion of gaming opportunities.

But, be that as it may, slots supporters (and the mainstream media, of course) found it completely unnecessary and inconvenient to talk about the fact that Kansas did not find their financial panacea through the slots industry. And all of that would not bother me (being pro-gambling and what not) had it not been for the fact that O'Malley sold his reckless spending and fiscal shenanigans to the populace under the false pretext that slots revenues were going to save the day. Here, we have a populace sold a bill of O'Malleynomic nonsense when the Governor and his cronies willingly and knowingly oversold the potential economic impact of slots licenses.

But hey, it's not like we've ever been able to trust O'Malley anyway.....