Thoughts on RWAAC-Gate

There was a story in the Capital yesterday about pressure on RWAAC President Joyce Thomann to resign in light of her comments. I don't think Joyce Thomann should resign. Resignation is the honorable way out, and there was absolutely nothing honorable about what she said. The RWAAC Board should refuse her resignation and remove her by their Constitutionally mandated methods.

There has been a lot of harrumphing about Republicans who have failed to defend Joyce's comments. Mike Netherland has been characteristically off the reservation with some of his learned thoughts on the matter:

If no other good can come from the Thomann affair let it be that it has opened the eyes of conservatives in and around Annapolis as to who in the Republican Party are most likely to throw you overboard when the going gets a little rough.

Somehow, Mike has determined that the entire Republican Party does not consist of "conservatives" but of merely "registered Republicans", and that RWAAC's disapproval of Thomann's statement will "forever be an ugly stain and its only lasting legacy." (Coincidentally, Mike considers himself a true Republican conservative. Go figure).

You know it's one thing to defend a Republican when what they do actually merits a defense. Attacking Democrats on an issue, standing up for principle on policy, and those kinds of things are worthy of my defense. Idiotic comparisons that basically wrap the Republican elephant in a box of hand grenades with their pins removed deserve no sort of defense. Joyce in her position as President of a Republican Club should be focused on doing her part to elect Republicans and get the Republican message out to the people. And as anybody who has ever heard of Godwin's Law can tell you, if you have to invoke Hitler in your argument you've already lost. These comments did one hell of a lot of damage to the cause of conservatism and the cause of the Republican Party.

Conservatism is in a tenuous moment here on our country. We do have a situation where we have a number of Republicans trying to masquerade as conservatives in order to obtain and maintain elected office. Of course, that point has nothing to do with comparing Obama to Hitler. This is the time we need to be attacking the policies of this President (which are, in fact, dangerous to our country). This is the time we need to be focused on defending conservatism and the conservatism message. Taking even one minute of time to defend ridiculous outbursts like this takes valuable time away from defending conservative principles and electing conservative candidates.

So no, I cannot be bothered to defend what does not deserve to be defended. And I don't give a damn who questions my conservative bona fides for it.

Fighting Crime with Stupidity

You don't have to be paying too much attention to realize that you go to Arundel Mills these days at your own risk. Crime has become damn near commonplace at the sprawling mall complex that was (theoretically) designed to be a haven for tourists and for local commerce, not a magnet for criminal elements. Well, instead of doing something constructive to combat the crime wave that has overcome the mall, County Councilman Daryl Jones has decided to do something.....else:

Citing a recent robbery and the perception that Arundel Mills mall is unsafe, County Councilman Daryl Jones is considering introducing a bill that would require all malls to install security cameras in their parking lots.

Yeah, that is Jones' total solution to the Arundel Mills crimewave; security cameras at all malls in the county, much like a Baltimore County law I wrote about four years ago. To prove how completely asinine the Councilman's suggestion, chew on this nugget information:

Les Morris, a spokesman for Simon Malls, the parent company of Arundel Mills and Marley Station in Glen Burnie, declined to talk about how the legislation would affect the malls without seeing the specifics.

"We have an extensive (closed-circuit TV) network that covers the property, both inside and out," he said.

So Jones' solution to the crime problem at Arundel Mills is to require all county mall owners to have the same system that is not solving the problem at Arundel Mills. That's brilliant.

As usual, Democrats always try to enact "solutions" that deal with our crime problems in ways that are designed to make the public feel comfortable with their surroundings as opposed to actually dealing with the crime problem. Democrats love the idea of an ever expanding network of surveillance cameras that we have noted in the past will never stop one crime from being committed. Not one. You might get some cool footage of somebody being robbed (or worse) in the parking lot, but it will be the very definition of naivete to think that a street criminal is going to be deterred one bit by a camera (unless we are installing some sort of Transformers).

The prudent solution would be working with the Simon Company in increaisng police patrols and police presence in the are to arrest criminals......but who ever said Maryland Democrats wants to actually implement prudent solutions?

MDE's Abuse of Power, Abuse of Reason

One of the classic arguments that liberals like to put forth is that when disaster strikes, the government should be strong so it can "help," Ronald Reagan's words notwithstanding. However, here in Maryland, it seems like a certain government agency thinks that the when disaster strikes, your first responsibility should be to......the government.

After last weekend's tornado, officials from the State Department of the Environment managed to determine that John Long of Dundalk had "purposefully placed a significant amount of yard waste, debris or items that could have resulted from the recent storm we had" into a nearby creek and a nearby flood plain. Mind you, MDE had exactly no reason to suspect that Mr. Long was responsible for the debris that was in the yard. In fact, trash and refuse has been washing down from nearby locations off of Merritt Blvd for fifty years prior the last weekend's tornado, and a lot of the debris that MDE is trying to ping Long for has been washing up during that entire time period. In fact, I'm hard pressed to figure out a good reason as to why MDE decided to wait until immediately after a natural disaster to start poking their head around this particular area. Butthat doesn't seem to keep the zealots that Martin O'Malley has placed in charge of the Department of the Environment from demanding that Long clean up the mess he didn't make....under the penalty of a $10,000 a day fine if the mess is not cleaned up within thirty days.

We all know that Governor O'Malley and many of Maryland's other leftist Democrats enjoy using the power of government to keep the citizens in check. But even the most adamant liberal has to be able to comprehend that a government that is prepared to use its instruments of power to put the screws to a homeowner who is trying to clean up for a natural disaster is a government that is abusing its power. And you have to think to yourself that it is only a matter of time that a government that is going after the downtrodden is going to come after you.

Perhaps you might want to let MDE Secretarty Shari WIlson or the Governor's Chief of Staff what you think of their ridiculous handling of this matter.....

The Impact of O'Malleynomics

Governor's Martin O'Malley's seemingly neverending quest to destroy Maryland's middle and working class families looks like it is right on schedule:

Unemployment in Maryland climbed to 7.2 percent in May, a more than 25-year-high, as joblessness rose in nearly all states, preliminary government statistics show.

Compared with a year earlier, unemployment rose in every state last month, including Maryland, where the rate has jumped from 4.1 percent in May 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.

Maryland's unemployment rate has not been 7.2 percent or higher since July 1983, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

During the 12 months through May, Maryland lost more than 64,000 jobs, not adjusted for seasonal changes, preliminary government numbers show.

Of course, as we have noted here time and time again, this is what happens when you enact the economic policies that Governor O'Malley and his Democratic cronies have been pushing for the last three years. When you continue to raise taxes, when you continue to inflate spending to unmanageable levels, and when you continue to make it harder and harder for business to compete, middle and working class workers and their families pay the consequences. Jobs are lost. Businesses are shuttered. Tax revenues plummet. And the economy is destroyed.

I hope Governor O'Malley can sleep well knowing that he put the expansion of government and his own political self interest ahead of average Marylanders by adopting such reckless fiscal policies. O'Malley has cost a lot of people their jobs and a lot of people their livelihoods, and I hope that these people who have been negatively impacted by the Governor's incompetence remember the toll these policies have taken on them and their families...

The End

Well, the Maryland Young Republicans Convention was today. And I lost. But I wanted to share with you my "campaign speech" prior to the vote.....



.....and tomorrow is another day. Thanks for your support.

Double Take

I had to do a double take when I saw this mini-editorial posted on the Sun website:

The Maryland Public Service Commission's order Thursday concluding that it has the right to review Electricite de France's proposed purchase of part of Constellation Energy Group's nuclear business looks like nothing more than an attempt by the state to shake down the company for cash. That wouldn't be so bad, except that the state already shook Constellation down 18 months ago with the promise that it wouldn't do so again. But it seems that when it comes to Constellation and BGE, Gov. Martin O'Malley and his appointees on the Public Service Commission don't know when to leave well enough alone.

Read the whole thing.

If I were in the O'Malley Administration (and, since I have common sense, I'm obviously disqualified there) and the Sun editorial board (who has been at the vanguard of the "stick it to Constellation" movement) started question questioning my appointees decisions as overreaching, maybe I'd start wondering if they were right.....

Eating their Money

Every time Superintendent Kevin Maxwell kvetches about the lack of funding for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, remember this:

Next year, parents won't have to ask. A feature of a new software system coming to county schools will allow parents to look online and see whether their children are really buying a balanced hot lunch or surviving on ice cream and cookies.

"Parents are going to love it," said Jodi Risse, supervisor of food and nutrition services in county schools.

The Board of Education is paying $283,643 for the new system from Georgia-based Horizon Software. It will replace the current system used in county schools, which is more than 20 years old, Risse said.

It works like this: Instead of handing out lunch money every day, parents can log in to an online program and use a Visa, MasterCard or e-check to put money in their child's account. Then students use their student ID in the cafeteria to access the account and pay for lunch.

Meanwhile, parents can go back into the same online system and see an itemized list - just like a credit-card statement - of what their child bought.

"It's usually lunch, lunch, lunch, but then (you see) every a la carte item, ice cream, cookies or chips," said Tina Bennett, a director with Horizon.

I cannot possibly fathom a more ridiculous use of $283,643 from the school budget than this.

Amazingly, a similar system is already in place in county public schools; it's called the "brown bag" program, where parents actually make a meal for their child and send them to school with it. It gives the parent immediate access to foods their child is consuming at lunch, involves parents in the lives of their kids, and (more importantly) it costs nothing to me as a taxpayer.

Anne Arundel Public Schools have absolutely no responsibility to be the food police to parents. While I'm appalled by the waste of money this program is, I'm not surprised given the fiscal irresponsibility shown by Maxwell and our unelected Board of Education, particularly when you consider that this system costs as much as the salaries of several teachers.....

Squeezing for the Last Drops

As if Governor Martin O'Malley hasn't spent enough money, hasn't raised enough taxes, and hasn't bloated the size of the Maryland state government enough, apparently he has decided to double down in advance of his re-election campaign:

Drawing little public attention so far, a small team of aides has developed a list of 15 major goals -- and several dozen smaller ones -- intended to guide the remainder of O'Malley's term, as well as a second one if he wins reelection next year.

Among the targets: Increase public transit ridership by 10 percent a year. (That would require doubling the growth seen last year, when high gas prices led many people to abandon their cars.) Reduce violent crime against women and children by 25 percent by 2012. (That would require recent trends to accelerate and continue for several years.) And end childhood hunger in Maryland by 2015. (No one seems to know exactly how that would be measured.)

Other goals provide aggressive benchmarks for education, the environment and health care.

O'Malley's office is preparing to publicize the efforts in coming days. But the loftiness of the goals and the motives behind them are already sparking debate as O'Malley prepares to stand for reelection.

Yeah, no kidding. Governor O'Malley has already left a trail of broken promises across the state from his first election campaign. Remember lower energy rates? Remember promises not to raise taxes? Remember enforcing the death penalty? Yeah, the Governor hopes you don't remember those promises either. But in typical O'Malleyesque fashion, he decides not to explain his failures as a Governor and instead goes back to his old bag of tricks to criticize......Bob Ehrlich:

In an interview, O'Malley described the goals as "pretty ambitious but not unachievable," and he said that is by design.

"If by putting my political neck on the line we're able to get halfway to these goals, it will be far more progress than the previous administration," O'Malley said. "The politically safe thing to do is never have any goals, because then you can't be judged or measured by them. That's the risk we take."

No Governor, working towards your goals isn't progress. It's a regressive strategy that is designed to increase the size of government at the expense of Maryland's middle and working class families. It's a strategy that is designed to create feel-good talking points for your re-election campaign instead of providing any actual goals to create good public policy. Even those goals that seem reasonable are festooned with your administration's previous failures. Take a look at transit policy; how can the MTA hope to increase ridership when they are so hopelessly mismanaged? Ending childhood hunger? Maybe a good place to start would not to make feeding children so difficult through aggressive tax increases and large increases in government spending. Do you not understand that those policies are what makes it hard for families to make ends meet, harder for individuals to support local charitable efforts, and harder for businesses to stay open to continue to employ Maryland's middle and working class families?

It of course is easy to be cynical of Martin O'Malley's efforts due to his failed administration. But since O'Malley and Co. never seem to learn their lessons, the only way the people of Maryland will notice the administration's new efforts is the continued contraction of Maryland's economy and more and more taxes coming out of their paychecks unless we eneact positive change at the ballot box next November....