MD delegation calls out CBS News on false reporting at GOP National Convention

By Ann Miller

Baltimore County Republican Examiner

Examiner.com

Danielle Nottingham, a reporter from CBS News, began her on-camera summary from the floor of the convention on the failures of Mitt Romney’s speech immediately upon commencement of the speech.

Under normal circumstances, perhaps this would be standard operating procedure for this reporter. But this time, she forgot her surroundings. She and her cameraman and crew were seated next to Maryland’s National Committeeman, Louis Pope. When Mr. Pope heard her false reporting about how Romney’s speech failed to make his case less than a minute into it, he asked her to listen to the speech first. She was saying, "He was supposed to make the case, but it doesn't look like he's going to make it tonight even though this is a partisan crowd and they support him."  As she continued, Mr. Pope exclaimed to her to “tell the truth!”

State Delegate Michael Smigiel had the wherewithal to take her picture. The cameraman responded by putting his camera in the delegate’s face to intimidate him, according to onlooker Delegate Michael Hough.  He said, "When Mike Smigiel started to take her picture so he could tell the story, they tried to intimidate him and put the camera on him and question him.  That's when I thought, this is ridiculous, these guys think they can bully people around and intimidate people.  So all I did was call the RNC Staff over and ask them to make them go away and that they were harassing us."

The confrontation ended only when RNC Security had to ask the news crew to leave the Maryland delegation alone.

See link to original Examiner.com article with comments here.

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Red Maryland Radio: 8/30/2012

Hope you caught another great episode of Red Maryland Radio last night on the Red Maryland Network.

We were live on the air from the Maryland Young Republicans Convention Party in Bowie.With special guest Heather Olsen and Andi Morony reporting live from the convention hall.

All that and more this week. Be sure to listen every Thursday night at 8, on the Red Maryland Network.......and don't forget that you can subscribe to the Red Maryland Network on iTunes. 

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Mitt Romney: A Credible Finish for the Last Day of the Republican National Convention

--Richard E Vatz

 

     It was going to be hard to top the Republican National Convention's next-to-last major day with the extraordinary speeches -- both in delivery and substance -- of Condoleezza Rice and Paul Ryan still in everyone's mind, and Mitt Romney was frankly not quite up to that Herculean task.  Not quite, but good enough.

 

     O.K., neither quite was Florida Senator Marco Rubio and, sad to say, Clint Eastwood gave Democrats another piece of non-substantive evidence to change the subject.

     No matter.  Gov. Romney gave a fine speech and hit a triple (and no, late Ann Richards aficionados, he was not conceded third base) to conclude an excellent, rousing convention with a head of steam which, it says here, will be part of the rhetorical gestalt which will propel Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan into the presidency and vice presidency, as votes from the unsure trend Romney’s way  in the final weeks of the campaign, as people realize that four more years of the last four years isn’t good enough for America.

     A few words about the speakers on the last night of Republican speeches:

n       Clint Eastwood: charisma gets you a pass in your very senior years, but most of us thought that judgment was the last thing to go.  The profane implication of President Barack Obama’s alleged disposition didn’t work at all.  The president’s weaknesses are not tasteless profanity, and Eastwood’s entire presentation seemed to be constructed mostly extemporaneously.  Biden is appropriate for a “grin with a body behind it,” but the rest fell flat. Still, Clint Eastwood is Clint Eastwood, and he’s a good symbol to have on the Republicans’ side.  The main problem is there is no little Hollywood bench to speak of: Jon Voight, Bruce Willis and there must be one or two more.

 

n       Marco Rubio would have seemed better without the great speeches by great speakers Ryan and Rice the day before.  His was a good introduction to Gov. Romney, and as a successful, attractive, articulate Cuban survivor, his symbolism was excellent.  Fair hits on Obama, but, as with all the main speakers, nothing ugly: “Hope and Change becomes Divide and Conquer” – fair enough.  The best, most resonating line was that Obama is not a bad person, just a bad president.  Faith in our Creator and Rubio’s personal story go well in this convention.  Overall:  B+ speech with a small bump.

 

n  Presidential candidate Mitt Romney  began by accepting the Republican nomination – whew!  He didn’t try to out-speechify his vice presidential candidate, because, unlike some past presidential nominees, he is not threatened by excellence in that position.  His address was moving, appropriate, presidential and substantive. 

Many memorable and ingenuous lines: he wished President Obama had succeeded because he (Romney) wants America to succeed.  All previous presidents, said Romney, had brought America forward but for Jimmy Carter (reminds, of course, of the Gipper’s 1980 presidential debate great question regarding President Carter’s tenure as president, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”).  And the sub-text is that this is 1980 all over again.  All Obama knows of success is that he doesn’t appreciate it and wants to attack it.  America is built on risk, not (and I wish he had used this phrase) “prevent defense” – in domestic and foreign policy.  About Obama’s presidency: “You know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”

 

Romney detailed his own impressive success story and expressed incredulity that Democrats thought he should apologize for it.

 

He debunked the fraudulent charge that Republicans conduct a “War on Women:”  “My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, ‘Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?’

“I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.”

 

Romney included a five-step entrepreneurial-rich, success-oriented policy to get the country’s economic fix in order – there’s the beef.  He complimented Obama on getting bin Laden, but wondered why he has fallen asleep on foreign policy in general: Iran, Israel, China, Poland, China, etc.

  

     Gov. Romney came across as a secure, knowledgeable man ready to take the reins of the presidency with determination, but with malice towards none.

 

     Overall, a great convention for the likely next president and vice president of the United States.

Professor Vatz teaches political rhetoric at Towson University

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THE OTHER $100 MILLION

June Smith

 
Mitt Romney is now formally the GOP presidential candidate. I figured he’d accept the nomination, especially after all those swell things his wife said about him and saving that red dress he gave her on her birthday in April to wear for her convention speech. As they say, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”.
 
Each party gathering at their political pulpits and bringing their funny hats every four years has been an American tradition since 1832. I’ve been to a Republican and a Democratic National Convention. It’s quite a spectacle to see so many people committed to their party, experience their enthusiasm, and watch the hoopla. And conventions are an excellent source for finding great bumper stickers. I added “Wake Up and Go to Work: Millions of People on Welfare Are Counting on You!” to my collection. You can easily figure out which venue was selling that one.
 
But conventions are costly events, especially for taxpayers. The cost to fund the two 2012 conventions exceeds $136 million.
 
Over the past four years, an estimated 33 million taxpayers annually chose to tick the “Yes” box on their federal tax returns to donate $3 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF). That’s their money and their choice.
 
The PECF oversees the contributions and doles it out to both parties. This year, based on the $36.5 million taxpayer donations in the PECF piggy bank, each party received $18,248,300.
 
The other $100 million? That came from taxpayers.
 
That’s what Congress, defined by Fred Reed as “535 commoditized temple monkeys pawing through the ruins of America in search of bribes”, and what I call the Über Special Interest Group (ÜSIG)— “set aside” for security at each convention.
 
In 2008, the ÜSIG appropriated the funds (P.L. 110-16) to be given to the state and local law enforcement agencies “securing” the convention sites. At that time, the national debt was $9.6 trillion dollars.

 

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R, Oklahoma) said political conventions are ‘summertime parties’ and has called on Congress to end taxpayer subsidies for them, as have a handful of others in the Senate.

Referring to the $15.6 trillion debt, up a tad since his comments (according to Debt to the Penny —Daily History Search Application www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDL  —  at this moment, the debt is now $15,978,184,771,159.29), Coburn said “…eliminating taxpayer subsidies for political conventions will show strong leadership to getting our budget crisis in control”.

What a novel idea.
 
The Tampa Host Committee raised $55 million for the GOP convention and it’s well known that major corporations, unions, and industry and trade organizations donate to the Host Committees. Again, that’s their money and their choice.
 
But we won’t see those donor lists for a while. The Host Committees aren’t required to disclose their donor lists to the Federal Election Commission, the “U.S. independent regulatory agency created to administer and enforce the statute that governs the financing of federal elections” until December 15^th.  That’s one of the many laws the FEC created for themselves.
 
But I digress.
 
This is about taxpayer money and we, the taxpayers, have no choice.
 
Many advocacy groups have expressed their outraged at the $100 million “set aside” but have gotten little, if any, media attention.
 
We should all be outraged.
 
Now that the Information Age and social media outlets have changed our world, there is no need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars for traditional four-day conventions (shortened to three days this time by the Republicans due to Isaac with the Democrats following suit) when the nominees have been chosen well in advance.
 
We’ve heard all of the promises before and know that few, if any, will ever come to fruition.
 
The rhetoric spouted by an assortment of State Governors, senate candidates, former senators and other nabobs and potentates is “déjà vu all over again", as Yogi Berra said.
 
Who cares what the talking heads have to say.
 
It’s time for conventions to be cut back to 24-hour televised events.
 
Save the money. Tweet the highlights…

 

June Smith is the widow of Ron Smith, WBAL Talk Show Host, Emmy® Award winner, and Baltimore Sun columnist, who was a media titan in Maryland area and beyond for almost forty years. Her tribute website, founded in his memory, is www.friendsofronsmith.com. She is working diligently to raise one million dollars for the Ron Smith Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund at Johns Hopkins. Her email is june@friendsofronsmith.com.

 

 

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Reminder: RMR on Location Tonight

Join Greg Kline, Mark Newgent (just added!) and I for another big episode of Red Maryland Radio coming at you tonight  at 8 PM only on the Red Maryland Network.

We will be live on location tonight at the Maryland Young Republicans Nomination Speech Viewing Party, coming to you from the Comfort Inn in Bowie starting at 8 PM.

We hope you can join us on location tonight. But if you can't, be sure to tune in tonight at 8, only on the Red Maryland Network.

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Republican National Convention’s Mostly Excellent Speechifying on Day Two: Paul Ryan, Condoleezza Rice, and Susana Martinez

 

--Richard E. Vatz

     What a difference four years makes in the substance and respect for the Republican National Convention Vice Presidential speaker.  More on that in a few paragraphs.

 

     I am not going to do a thorough analysis, particularly a content analysis, of any speech on Day Two but the Vice Presidential nominee’s, but first here are some quick impressions leading up to that:

 

-- Ohio Senator Rob Portman, Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were all elocutionary disappointments.  All of them had timing problems and their one-liners lacked punch for the most part.  The audience wasn’t engaged either, and that hurts. Huckabee, the best of the worst, got a little better as he went along.  I was a Pawlenty for Vice President rooter, but he would have to have spoken better than he did last night. I did like two of his lines, 1. that it is hard to say what Obama’s worst decision has been and particularly 2. the understanding the president deserves: “Barack Obama’s failed us. But look, it’s understandable. A lot of people fail at their first job.”

 

--  New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was very good – delivered her short speech well -- and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was exceptional.  Who knew what an excellent public speaker Dr. Rice is?  Martinez was smooth and proud of her overcoming difficulties to become a political leader without the self-pitying, anti-American bemoaning that characterizes Democratic self-congratulatory speakers.

 

     But Rice’s speech was scintillating – and the delivery was spellbinding.  Finally a speaker focusing on foreign policy, and she focused the attention in a rhetorically meaningful way: “”Where does America Stand” under the Obama Administration?  She repeated this devastating rhetorical question.  We cannot as the great military and moral centerpiece of the free world “lead from behind,” as the timorous Obama would have us do.

 

     And in one of the most moving personal notes, Dr. Rice talks of her overcoming odds, again, as Republicans do, not in a self-commiserating way as is the wont of Democrats who beat demographic odds, but in a way that celebrates individualism:  “And on a personal note, a little girl grows up in Jim Crow
Birmingham. The segregated city of the south where her parents
cannot take her to a movie theater or to restaurants, but they
have convinced that even if she cannot have it hamburger at
Woolworths, she can be the president of the United States if she
wanted to be, and she becomes the secretary of state.” 

 

     What a great choice she would have been for Vice President, except for the excellent choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Davis Ryan.

 

      Rep. Ryan gave a brilliant speech, the first speech perhaps ever by a Vice Presidential nominee of either party at a national convention that was substantive, policy-driven, dignified  and not obsequious to the party’s presidential nominee. And did I say his delivery was perfect?  It was…

 

     Introduced by tapes of Gov. Romney and Ryan’s wife to rousing applause, Ryan focused in on the material reasons Mitt and he and the Republican Party should replace Obama and the Democrats:  the recovery that was explicitly promised is nowhere in sight, including 23 million unemployed or underemployed, and half of college graduates unable to get a job.

 

     Ryan’s devastating question followed: “Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?”

     The manifest failures of the stimulus, Solyndra, the paradoxical Obama-Democratic suborning of corporate welfare and cronyism as the Administration’s trial-and-error policies led more to error and the loss of an unrenewable resource—time, and the economic and government-controlled abomination of ObamaCare.  The downgrading of America’s credit, literally and figuratively, and the appointing of Commissions whose decently wise counsel was ignored – the Obama Administration needed, Ryan said powerfully, to be replaced by good and serious leadership.  You could hear the echoes of the last conservative Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, saying “We do not shrink from these responsibilities; we welcome them!”

 

     And Ryan hit on my personal rhetorical bête noire, a Democrat musing on his or her failings saying the problem was "I haven’t communicated enough."  That’s always the problem – not substantive, but that they need to communicate more and better.  As Ryan asked, “…that’s the whole problem here? He needs to talk more, and we need to be better listeners?”  He could only have added, “Gimme a break.”

     Perhaps his most impressive specifics were left to comment on the issue of the Obama Administration’s philosophic and policy war on small business and individualism.  Ryan said, “With tax fairness and regulatory reform, we’ll put government back on the side of the men and women who create jobs, and the men and women who need jobs.”

     “My Mom started a small business, and I’ve seen what it takes. Mom was 50 when my Dad died. She got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison. She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business. It wasn’t just a new livelihood. It was a new life. And it transformed my Mom from a widow in grief to a small businesswoman whose happiness wasn’t just in the past. Her work gave her hope. It made our family proud. And to this day, my Mom is my role model.”

     And in contrast to Obama’s “You didn’t build that” collectivist ethic, there was this tribute to American initiative: “Behind every small business, there’s a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores – these didn’t come out of nowhere. A lot of heart goes into each one. And if small businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them. After all that work, and in a bad economy, it sure doesn’t help to hear from their president that government gets the credit. What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that.”

     Ryan commandingly and forcefully promised “Let’s get this done.”

 

     No tricks, no ugliness; just a tremendous policy-centric speech by a man who could be president if necessary.

 

     And his praise for the Gov. Romney’s political acumen and almost unique success in a variety of areas, accompanied by his tweaking of the Governor’s anachronistic musical tastes seemed perfect rhetorically.

     Another great night of speechifying at the Republican National Convention.

Professor Vatz teaches political persuasion at Towson University and is author of The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion (Kendall Hunt, 2012, 2013)

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Red Maryland Radio Tonight: Live on Location in Bowie

Join Greg Kline and I for another big episode of Red Maryland Radio coming at you tonight  at 8 PM only on the Red Maryland Network.

We will be live on location tonight at the Maryland Young Republicans Nomination Speech Viewing Party, coming to you from the Comfort Inn in Bowie starting at 8 PM.

We hope you can join us on location tonight. But if you can't, be sure to tune in tonight at 8, only on the Red Maryland Network.

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Great Republican National Convention Day One of Speechifying: Vatzian Notes

--Richard E. Vatz

     Okay, it is a little egocentric to put the author’s name in the title, but I am taking my cue from Chris Christie, who thought his speech should focus on himself.  But I thought it was a great speech regardless, and here are some notes taken contemporaneously during just a few of the major speeches that were given Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention:

-- I love Mia Love…what confidence; what excellence by the Utah congressional candidate…she was spellbinding.  She knows that President Obama’s now-signature line, “You didn’t build that!”,  is contrary to the ethos of the individualism that undergirds the greatness of America: “The America I know is grounded in the determination found in patriots and pioneers, in small business owners with big ideas, in the farmers who work in the beauty of our landscape, in our heroic military and Olympians. It’s in every child who looks at the seemingly impossible and says, ‘I can do that.’ That is the America I know!...Mr. President I am here to tell you we are not buying what you are selling in 2012.”

-- Ann Romney’s paean to her husband stands in stark contrast to “The Kiss,” the last rhetorical effort to demonstrate that a major candidate was less stodgy than he appeared to be.  This effort, as Henry Kissinger might say, had the advantage of reflecting true feelings and perceptions. 

     Mrs. Romney pointed out with pride that she and Mitt have had real struggles with medical problems and other obstacles, but that rather than “A storybook marriage…[W]hat Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage.”

     Mrs. Romney also confronted, as did virtually all the speakers, the theme contradicting the President’s anti-individualism “You didn’t build that” with the pride of a spouse’s admiration for Mitt’s building his own success.  Mitt’s father, she pointed out, lacked the education that Mitt acquired, but became governor of Michigan, and she herself  is “the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines.” 

 

     Mitt’s own work ethic is exemplary, and she is proud of his success.  She is astonished that he is attacked for his success, and to summarize his character, “He built it!”

  And he wants to use his success to help America:  “Under Mitt, Massachusetts's schools were the best in the nation. The best. He started the John and Abigail Adams scholarships, which give the top 25% of high school graduates a four-year tuition-free scholarship.”

 

     A great scholarship, that one, based on meritocratic values.

 

     Just a great speech by a woman who loves her husband for his values and personality – he “makes her laugh” – still. Okay, not you or me, but let’s give a wife a little slack.

 

     And finally, It has been 47 years since that tall, kind of charming young man brought me home from our first dance. Not every day since has been easy…This is our country.  This is our future.  These are our children and grandchildren.  You can trust Mitt.  He loves America…He will take us to a better place, just as he took me home safely from that dance.”

 

     A great speech…not as great a follow-up kiss as the Gores’ “The Kiss,” but sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.

 

-- Chris Christie’s wrap-up speech of the evening was a smidgeon too self-referential – whom are we nominating again? – but is was a rousing stem-winder, emphasizing the differences in philosophies between the President, and the Republican party and Mitt.  Gov. Christie emphasized that mature presidents don’t  do what is momentarily popular to the long-term detriment of the country.

 

     He argued that leadership requires telling Americans that we need to be adults and say “no” – recall President Ronald Reagan anyone?  Real leadership is not pandering and coddling to delay the consequences of extravagant, wrong-headed policies until further elections.

 

     Perhaps the best line of the speech was “You see, Mr. President – real leaders don’t follow polls. Real leaders change polls.”  This combined the Democratic propensity to choose economic policies that make people feel good despite condemning future generations to pay the bill.

 

     He confronted the  need to be honest with the American People (hard to believe now, but at one time Democratic presidential aspirant Adlai Stevenson said “It’s time to talk sense to the American people”): “We believe in telling seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements.”  He referenced the terrible burden of the deficit and the debt and characterized the Democrats’ strategy as “Win elections and damn  the country:”  “Their plan: whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power.”

 

     One of the key arguments is that the free ride sustained by more and more spending doesn’t mean that no one will eventually have to pay the bill: “What will our children and grandchildren say of us? Will they say we buried our heads in the sand, we assuaged ourselves with the creature comforts we’ve acquired, that our problems were too big and we were too small, that someone else should make a difference because we can’t?...I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my children and grandchildren to have to read in a history book what it was like to live in an American Century.  I don’t want their only inheritance to be an enormous government that has overtaxed, overspent and over-borrowed a great people into second-class citizenship.”  Christie was on a roll.

 

     A great night of speech-making, focused on the two pre-eminent issues: who is better to lead our country, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, and what is to be done about economic leadership.

 

     A good first night of speeches by the more responsible party vying for the presidency.

 

Professor Vatz teaches Political Rhetoric at Towson University and is author of The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion (Kendall Hunt, 2012, 2013)

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In Maryland if you plan to be a drunken public servant be sure to be a Democrat

Go ahead and take a deep breath. No, a really deep breath. I’ll wait… there, did you smell it? No, not that – that’s Annapolis, where the stink of incompetence hangs most heavily from January to April (and over every special session in between).
This stench - this vile bouquet – is the nauseating odor of hypocrisy, practiced by both political parties but perfected – especially in this state – by the Democrats. And it is that double standard that has been parading about in full plumage since Republican Delegate Don Dwyer was implicated in a boating accidentthat – through the delegate’s own admission – involved a copious amount of ingested alcohol.
“He failed seven out of eight measures in a ‘walk-and-turn’ assessment,” a police incident report read, including being unable to maintain balance and walk in a straight line. The same report noted that he also failed four out of four measures in a ‘‘one-leg stand” assessment, all of which point to someone who is obviously inebriated.
Got it? Good, because the just-quoted police report was not one pertaining to the arrest of Don Dwyer, but to the DWI and DUI charges assessed to Delegate Kumar Barve – the Democrat Majority Leader of the House of Delegates – back in 2007.
“Police said the driver was detained because the motor vehicle was being operated in an erratic manner.” This report also noted that a series of field sobriety tests were administered and the operator failed a number of them. A breath test was not administered, police said, because there was confusion over a phone call which allowed the two-hour time limit for the test to elapse.
Dwyer? Nope, it was T. Eloise Foster, Maryland’s Secretary of Budget & Management who wasarrested in 2007 for driving while impaired by alcohol.
Now would probably be a good time to note that both Barve and Foster are still on the job, and both Democratic Gov. O’Malley (a spokesman said at the time that the outcome of the case would not affect Foster’s employment status) and Democratic House Speaker Michael Busch (who said that Barve was “as human as everyone else, and sometimes we all make mistakes") didn’t think the infractions warranted dismissal from their positions.
Curiously, a search of the archives didn’t reveal any editorials scribed by The Baltimore Sun-Democrat calling for either the Secretary or the Majority Leader to “amplify a message of responsibility by resigning from office” – which is just what they pontificated in an opinion pieceabout Del. Dwyer that appeared in their August 24 edition.
Even more remarkable was the absence of news regarding both Foster’s and Barve’s arrests in the half-dozen articles The Sun-Democrat has published since Dwyer’s boating accident – an accident that resulted in numerous injuries and gave the Sun’s editorial charlatans the opportunity to sermonize on both boating fatalities and Coast Guard statistics.
Sadly, no such preaching on highway deaths and Department of Transportation stats accompanied Foster’s and Barve’s dangerous behavior.
You see, Republican missteps are greeted with a veiled level of glee, not only obvious in headlines such as “Boat crash could have deep impact on Dwyer’s career”, but also in opening paragraphs of editorials that state “disagreements with the delegate on numerous matters of law and social justice.”
Comparatively, Foster’s arrest was a teachable moment, accompanied by a headline that read, “T. Eloise Foster receives probation for driving while impaired, judge orders counseling.”
Foster, the 2007 article explains, serves on numerous boards and committees for the state, including the Governor's Executive Council and the State Employees' Health Insurance Advisory Council. She has also worked as assistant dean for Program Development and Business Affairs at the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine.
Dwyer, according to the August 25 piece, “is best known in Annapolis for his vocal opposition to same sex marriage.”
Nah, no agenda to see here, folks…. Now move along…
Dwyer, an article from August 24 tells us, is also “a strong supporter of gun rights,” as if his championing of the Second Amendment has anything to do with operating a boat while ‘faced.Sun-Democrat reporters went out of their way to mention the delegate’s religious convictions, conservative pedigree, the articles of impeachment he initiated against Attorney General Douglas Gansler and the alleged kicking of a puppy when he was in elementary school.
Just kidding about that last one.
There are numerous differences in how all three of these criminal activities were reported but the point is clear: the conservative gun-lover who thumps his Bible and hates gays needs to disappear from public view faster than Senate Minority Leader Rob Garagiola’s alleged ethics violations. The two Democrats, on the other hand, were simply victims of bad decision making that couldn’t possibly affect their work on behalf of the good citizens of Maryland.
Well, at least Don Dwyer “manned-up” and apologized for his actions and asked the public for forgiveness. Kumar Bavre didn’t “care to comment” on his arrest and referred reporters to his attorney, fellow delegate Luis R.S. Simmons. T. Eloise Foster said she was “incredibly embarrassed,” and had her attorney issue a statement that said the Secretary was “suffering from a lack of sleep when the incident occurred.”
Hey, say what you want about Democrats, but they really step up to the plate when it comes to taking responsibility for their actions, huh?
Was Delegate Dwyer at fault? You betcha. Is he damn lucky he didn’t kill someone? So much so that he should now spend his days holding on to that four-leaf clover and rubbing the hair off his rabbit’s foot. Should he be punished? Absolutely, but let’s keep in mind that Foster was sentenced to unsupervised probation, ordered to undergo alcohol counseling, complete 10 hours of community service and pay a $200 fine. Oh, and she was ordered to abstain from alcohol for one year.
Kumar Barve copped a plea, received unsupervised probation, paid a $200 fine (and court costs), and was ordered to abstain from alcohol use for a year and attend a meeting of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
But for Don Dwyer, well, his actions should most certainly mark the end of his political career.
And that’s the best thing about the smell of liberal hypocrisy in the morning – you may especially enjoy it at sunrise, but rest assured; the sanctimonious stench will remain with you for the balance of the day.

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Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Radio

The boys return tonight with another episode of VRWC. Anne Arundel County Central Committee Member, Scott Shaffer, join us with his thoughts on whatever we talk about, which includes:

The convention kicks off tonight. Why it is a perfectly good waste of money, esepcially in these dire times.

Hurricane Isaac and its racist ways.

Fantasy football and beer.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/redmaryland/2012/08/29/the-vast-right-wing-conspiracy-radio

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/red-maryland-network

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The Broadside 8-27-12

Hope you caught the latest episode of The Broadside.

Andrew joined the show live from Tampa, FL at the Republican National Convention to give us his observations.

We talked  about the life and legacy of Neil Armstrong.

Why Michael Steele is the forgotten man at the RNC Convention.

Why did the RNC pick Tampa to host the convention, and the effect of Hurricane Isaac.

The Broadside and all Red Maryland Network programs are available on Itunes.

Listen to internet radio with redmaryland on Blog Talk Radio

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The Broadside Tonight, 7pm

Tonight on The Broadside at 7pm. 

Andrew joins the show live from Tampa, FL at the Republican National Convention to give us his observations.

Safe Home Neil Armstrong. We'll talk about the life and legacy of the first man on the moon.

Michael Steele is the forgotten man at the RNC Convention.

Why did the RNC pick Tampa to host the convention?

Listen live on The Red Maryland Network or watch the enhanced video podcast on the Red Maryland Network Ustream Channel.

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Red Maryland Radio: 8/23/2012

Hope you caught another great episode of Red Maryland Radio last night on the Red Maryland Network.

Listen to internet radio with redmaryland on Blog Talk Radio

On last night's show:

• We start off with a brief conversation regarding the boating accident of Delegate Don Dwyer;
• Anne Arundel County Councilman Jerry Walker joins us to discuss the gambling bill and its impact on Anne Arundel County, as well as the 15 Charter Amendments voters will get to vote on here in the county.
• The Blogger Roundtable finally comes to Red Maryland Radio, as Greg and I are joined by Matthew Newman and Jeff Quinton to discuss the referenda and the 2014 gubernatorial election;
• And we finish up by discussing the broader picture of the national political scene.

All that and more this week. Be sure to listen every Thursday night at 8, on the Red Maryland Network.......and don't forget that you can subscribe to the Red Maryland Network on iTunes. 

More below the fold.