Call this a buried lede:
Delegate David Fraser-Hidalgo, D-Montgomery, is sponsoring the Protect Our Health and Communities Bill that would delay hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Western Maryland for the next eight years in order to provide more time to investigate health and environmental ramifications.
Eight years. How droll.
Moe Lane
PS: I dunno if the legislature can override Hogan’s inevitable veto… :click click click: …Maybe? Ask me again after we see how far this bill gets.
Give you an idea of the way the county handles school closings: when I woke up this morning to check I was aggravated that there wasn’t an email from the county indicating that today was a regular school day. And I spent five minutes wondering why they didn’t email us about that, until it occurred to me that this was an absolutely ludicrous thing to want to have happen. I blame the lack of coffee. Actually, no, I blame the fact that I live in the suburban corner of a county that is mostly semi-rural and not set up to handle black ice on the roads, but that doesn’t sound as pithy.
Whine whine, moan moan, complain complain. And pray that the snow tomorrow doesn’t start until mid-day.
So I get asked:
@moelane You seen this? http://t.co/w1jIwLIa3C
— BC (@BrCo1981) January 28, 2015
Regarding the recent Maryland Governor’s race – specifically, the Democratic primary- well, I don’t know if I’d go that far...
The decorated Army veteran and sitting lieutenant governor paled in many voters’ eyes next to a relatively inexperienced and unknown state delegate, Heather Mizeur. While Mr. Brown was racking up endorsements from virtually every corner of Maryland’s Democratic hierarchy, Ms. Mizeur’s unapologetically progressive, issue-oriented campaign was electrifying an increasingly significant segment of the electorate who are motivated by specific causes, not party affiliation. She was as detailed as she was passionate in the expression of her ideas, and she tapped into a liberal dissatisfaction with the Democratic establishment that is generally suppressed but is no less fervent than the conservative one. (Actually, a surprising number of conservative voters said they were attracted to her candidacy as well, for the simple fact that she actually appeared to believe what she was saying.)
Continue reading The Baltimore Sun’s interesting analysis of the Maryland-GOV race.
I think that you have to look on the bright side when it comes to situations like these… OK, the text is hard to excerpt. Basically, Maryland Assistant Attorney General (Consumer Protection) Karen Straughn is going around telling people to watch out for carjackers who strike via putting $100 bills under windshield wipers, despite the fact that she knows that it’s not actually happening (it’s an urban legend). Reason waxed sarcastically wroth; most wondrously sarcastically wroth over this, and understandably so. Because of AAG Straughn, something like this is ever so slightly more likely to happen, and never mind that the basic idea is absurd; copycats are not always fueled by – ha! – reason.
But here’s the bright side. New Attorney General (Democrat, sure) – and, hey, new Governor (Republican*). Maybe we can actually get AAG Straughn back into the private sector. Which sounds crazy, but then: so did electing a Republican governor of Maryland. When greater miracles have transpired, surely a lesser one is possible**…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*…I KNOW, RIGHT?
**You may be feeling a strange sensation right now; an emotional state best described as the lack of the awareness that the worst possible result for a particular situation will of course also be the inevitable result. Our researchers here at the VRWC have tentatively named this emotional state as ‘hope:’ to the best of our knowledge, it has no lasting long-term ill effects.
I simply cannot.
“Great news, Moe: We’re already getting reports in from Maryland, and it looks like a lot of your friends and neighbors are voting.”
…APPARENTLY SO.
OK, let’s set the scene:
[Lynne] Messinger said she spoke to a clerk at the desk, and explained that she had a California driver’s license. She has houses in both California and Texas and goes back and forth between the two, but decided several years ago to switch her voting residency to Texas.
The clerk left for a few minutes, then told her to take a seat. At that point, Messinger said, a state trooper summoned her into his back office, saying he needed to speak to her. Once inside his office, Messinger said the trooper insisted on seeing all the documentation she had brought, and demanded to know where she lives and pays taxes. He even told her she could be jailed for driving with a California license.* It is illegal to drive in Texas on another state’s driver’s license 90 days after moving into the state.
I should note that I have no personal knowledge that this is going on…
A Maryland Congressman says subpoenas are being issued in a federal investigation into Maryland’s health exchange. He believes there was fraud in the system that cost taxpayers millions but didn’t work right at the start.
[snip]
Congressman Andy Harris says there appears to be evidence of fraud. He is Maryland’s only Republican in Congress and has fought Obamacare. But this investigation—if it’s happening—is being conducted by what is supposed to be a non-political government agency.
And oh, my, but Maryland Democrat Lt. Governor Anthony Brown is. This is the first ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan:
If you need a primer on why Lt. Governor Brown is incompetent, one can be found here. Executive summary: the Maryland Obamacare exchange was an utter disaster. And I don’t use the term ‘utter disaster’ lightly: we’re talking about almost $126 million being spent on a state exchange that didn’t work and had to be replaced. And, in case you’re wondering: the replacement is scheduled to cost at least $43 million more dollars of my tax money. Three guesses if that project is going to come in under budget, and the first two don’t count. Continue reading ‘Anthony Brown – The Most Incompetent Man in Maryland.’
Because the Democrats are on-track to nominate the guy most responsible for utterly wrecking their state Obamacare exchange.
Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown has strengthened his lead in the fiercely contested Democratic primary for governor and enters the campaign’s final two weeks with a 2-1 advantage over his closest competitor, according to a new poll for The Baltimore Sun.
In the Republican race, businessman and activist Larry Hogan is running well ahead of his three opponents, the poll found.
Continue reading Well, it looks like #Obamacare will at least be an issue in the Maryland-GOV race.
