Let There Be Light...and Air

Like Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith, my coworkers like to be in the dark.

Every morning I enter my section of the building and all of the lights are turned off. I am not the first person in my department to get to work in the morning. In fact, I'm probably about 10th. However, no one will turn on the lights. It drives me nuts.

And like my coworkers, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith refuses to do anything and wants to stay in the dark. I refer to Ridgely Middle School in Towson. To my shocking surprise, this public school has no air conditioning. What school has no air conditioning? Martin O'Malley has been spending what seems to be hundreds of billions of dollars on education including new school construction and they cannot install air conditioning into an older school?

The Ridgely PTA invited Martin O'Malley and Jim Smith to attend a discussion on what can be done, but both self-centered liberals refused to attend. Representatives from the school claim that portions of the building easily reach over 100° and nearly all of the building is 10° warmer than outside.

WBAL cornered Jim Smith in another area of Towson trying to steal money from elderly disabled veterans and asked him about the school. He said, "I am working with the school system to address those concerns..." He wants to address those concerns? Outside of installing air conditioning what does he plan on doing?

On WBAL's coverage a student said that when the school has the students take standardized tests that are for the county's benefit, the students are moved to an air conditioned location, but when the students take tests for their own benefit, they must suffer in the sweltering heat of their class room.

I suspect that O'Malley and Smith may have refused to attend the event because the school is already hot and both politicians are full of hot air which would only make the situation worse.

This is just another example of why some of our elected officials like Smith and O'Malley need to be removed from office. Like my coworkers, they prefer to stay in dark and this is something that we the people should not tolerate.

Football Draft

We had our baseball draft the other night. No - I didn't draft anyone named O'Malley. In fact, I didn't draft anyone named Busch, Miller, Obama, Pelosi, or Reid. I actually want to win. Therefore, I drafted guys named:

Rivers
Manning
Westbrook
L. White
C. Taylor
Ochocinco
Royal
Curtis
Gates

and some Giants. Unlike the next session of the Maryland General Assembly, this should be a good football season!

Filling Senate Vacancies

I'm interrupting this string of blog posts about my vacation to comment on a post by Maryland House of Delegates member Saqib Ali on his blog.

Saqib Ali, if you don't know, once commented on my blog about me listing him as one of the 10 Democrats in the state that needs to be kicked out of office. I do not have any disdain for Delegate Ali, I just do not agree with his politics. Nor do I condone his violation of Wikipedia policy of updating articles about yourself, which he has done regularly. It is a well-written biography and advertisement, but that's not why I'm talking today.

Delegate Ali recently wrote House Bill #369: Special Elections for US Senate Vacancies Act. As the law currently reads, when a Senator leaves office either to appointment to a another office or by some other situation, the Governor of the state appoints his or her replacement until the next election cycle. Clearly, the Governor is going to appoint someone that he or she wants in office and politics being politics, you know there is some kind of kick-back, back-door shenanigans going on. We already saw this in Illinois when Governor Rod Blagojevich offered Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. The seat was eventually given to totally incompetent former Illinois State's Attorney General Roland Burris.

Delegate Ali's new law would mandate a special election called by the Governor of Maryland should a U.S. Senator from Maryland vacate his or her seat. I totally agree with this part of the bill. I do not agree with interim appointments as they, the appointee, usually end up getting elected in the next election cycle anyway without having to properly go through normal election channels to gain recognition, raise election capital, and gain the acceptance and trust of the people. Instead, the Governor picks the candidate of his or her liking, someone who will agree with him and push his agenda on a national level, then the candidate gains favor with the Congress and can easily attract funds for reelection. The intention of this bill is right-on. Congratulations, Delegate Ali, for submitting this part of the bill.

Unfortunately, Delegate Ali also included a provision that would not allow the bill to go into effect until January 2015, many years (hopefully) after we kick O'Malley out of office. The reason Delegate Ali gives for the inclusion of this provision is "so as not to seem to impugn the the integrity of our current Governor."

As if the Governor had any integrity. This totally leaves O'Malley a blank check to appoint a new Senator of his liking should Ben Cardin or Babs Mikulski suddenly decide to leave office mid-election cycle (if we could only be so lucky). Why is the thought of impugning the integrity of Governor being placed above the will of the people? The real intention of this provision is to protect the rapport of the Democratic legislators and their Governor when they vote to approve this bill. Imagine the pissing match O'Malley would have with the Democrats in the General Assembly that voted for this bill without the provision. I think it would make for great headlines!

What is more important? The reputation and rapport of the current gang of motley politicians, or the allowing the people of Maryland to choose which Senator will represent them in the United States Senate?

Unfortunately for Maryland, Delegate Ali is making that decision for us.

New Top 10 List

I finally decided to update my Top 10 list on the side.

I had several comments about the previous Top 10 List - 10 Maryland politicians that needed to be voted out of office. My favorite one was the comment about how my blog is full of hate and the person was going to vote for each and every one of the people I had listed. Idiot. Not all of them are in the same district. No one can possibly vote for all of them. Unless of course, the Maryland General Assembly decides to allow early voting and the flexibility to vote anyway, which will allow people to vote early and vote often.

My new top 10 list is the 10 best Maryland Republicans of all time.

1) Helen Bentley - Congresswoman Bentley basically saved the Port of Baltimore and thousands of longshoreman jobs in the city in addition to related jobs around the state. Her activity with the port was so successful that it was eventually renamed the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore.

2) Theodore McKeldin - he was the last Republican Mayor of Baltimore (1963 - 1967). The city named the water fountains at the Inner Harbor named in his honor. This is the same water fountain where you can watch homeless people bathe during the day. McKeldin oversaw the construction of Friendship Airport, now called Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. McKeldin then defeated William Preston Lane Jr for Governor (who had the Bay Bridge named after him) and pushed for state highways such as the Baltimore Beltway, the Washington Beltway, and Route 50. He returned to being the Mayor of Baltimore and began the focus of urban renewal and a plan to create the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

3) Marjorie Holt - served in Congress from 1973 until 1987 and was the first Maryland Republican woman to serve in Congress. In 1975 she refused to sign a Congressional Declaration of Interdependence that would have given up national sovereignty and promoted a new world unity and subjected Americans to International law and redistributed American wealth around the world. She was eventually nominated by President Reagan to serve on the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament.

4) Connie Morella - she was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1978 and served until 1987 when she was elected to Congress to serve Maryland's 8th district, much of which covered heavily liberal Montgomery County. Another moderate, Morella opposed the party's stance on abortion, gun control, gay rights, and the environment. Mike Miller, Casper Taylor, and former adulterer Governor Parris Glendening redrew the Congressional map after the 2000 Census to undermine her reelection. Though illegal, their gerrymandering techniques worked and she was defeated by liberal and socialism supporter Democratic Chris Van Hollen.

5) Bob Ehrlich - the most recent Republican Governor of Maryland and the first since disgraced former Governor Spiro Agnew. Despite high approval ratings, rating higher than the current Governor, the moderate Ehrlich was defeated by an unpopular and highly hypocritical Mayor of Baltimore (who probably wants a bridge named after him) who befuddled the Governor with flowery rhetoric.

6) James Glenn Beall - a World War I veteran and one of the longest serving (if not the longest, I don't know), Beall was elected to serve in the Maryland Senate in 1930. Beall was then elected to serve in Congress from 1943 until 1953 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until 1965. He was defeated by Democrat Joseph D. Tydings, who's adopted father had the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna named after him.

7) John Marshall Butler - another World War I veteran and long-serving Republican politician, Butler was selected to serve the Baltimore City Public Service Commission from 1947 until 1949. He was then elected to the United States Senate and served from 1951 until retiring in 1963. He was preceded by Millard Tydings, the I-95 bridge guy.

8) Gilbert Gude - first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1953, he served until 1958. He was later elected to the Maryland Senate in 1962 and served until 1967 when he was elected to the Congress where he served for another 10 years.

9) Robert Kittleman - a World War II veteran, Kittleman served in the United States Navy from 1943 until 1946. He served as the chair of the Howard County Republican Central Committee and, as a white guy, was a member of the NAACP. He was active in the Civil Rights movement. In 1983 he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates and served until 2002 when he was elected to the Maryland Senate. Unfortunately, he passed away mid-term. He was replaced by his son, Allan Kittleman and Route 32 is named in his honor.

10) Allan Kittleman - current Maryland State Senator and one of the few sensible voices in the Maryland General Assembly. Neither a conservative nut job, nor a blind liberal, Kittleman is one of the lonely dissenting voices to the radical legislation that passes through our state government, but he stands tall doing what is right.

Honorable mention - Jeannie Haddaway - once named the sexist politician in Maryland. I have no disagreement with that.

Voter Problems

My operatives in Prince George's County learned that many people suspect the Republicans of trying to stifle the vote in this heavily Democratic county by making it rain. I don't think it's true that the Republicans are making it rain, but if it's keeping people from voting for idiocy, I'll take it.

My other operatives throughout the state are also reporting that Republicans are being blamed for various issues.

In Greektown in Baltimore City, I learned that Republicans are being blamed for really low voter turn-out. In Towson, Republicans are clearly at fault for the heavy traffic on the Beltway. In East Baltimore, it's the high crime rate that is their fault. And finally, in Annapolis, it's Maryland Republicans that are being besmirched for Martin O'Malley's lousy haircut.

As you can see from this anecdotal evidence, we'd all be better off if it weren't for that Republican minority in this state. As State Senate President Thomas V Mike Miller once said the Democrats were going to bury the Republicans of this state so far down that it will take 20 years for them to get out. I think he said this to a room full of donkeys.