The Three “R’s” of Government Do Not Include Astroturf for Public Schools

 

Double Dog Cop Cars and Astroturf; Hell No!

 

This past week, the St. Mary’s Board of Commissioners, with the notable exception of Larry Jarboe, are just tongue tied.

This past week they sat down to make cuts to their budget after the State of Maryland knocked about $4 million out of what they were going to send to the county.

Commissioner Jarboe, both this past spring during the budget process, and last year during budget process, made strong arguments to cut frivolous spending, to adjust the budgets by consolidating departments and cutting the number of high paid directors who make over $100,000 a year, to not buy the Hayden Farm, to make a less expensive addition to the Leonardtown library, all designed to prevent a tax hike by adopting the constant yield and in the long run to prevent the firing of county employees.

But Krazy Kenny and the Taxocrats ignored him.

Taxing Tommy Mattingly even said last year that our local economy was fine, everything was peaches and cream and our revenue flow would be just great. What an idiot! At least Kenny Dement has the excuse of not really understanding anything, but Mattingly does have facts in front of him, but alas, if he only had a brain.

Jackie Russell, still walking and talking sideways like his crabs, is the best friend the developers ever had, he will surely have plenty of campaign money from them next year. He’s sure gonna need it, as folks are really hot over having their taxes raised while the value of their homes have plummeted.

So now, even Dan Raley can ponder, which tongue will do the talking?

Krazy Kenny and the Taxocrats actually think that you are as dumb as they are and won’t remember any of this, that you will be lulled off into a deep sleep and awaken next year on election day and run right out and send Dement and Russell right back into office.

Even this past week when trying to find ways to cut the budget, they didn’t even call it that, for fear that you might be paying attention. Krazy Kenny and the Taxocrats voted against Larry Jarboe’s proposal to cut $6 million from the budget. They wouldn’t even go along with one dime of what he suggested and now when the Governor pulls the rug out from under them, which most everyone knew would happen, they call what they did last Tuesday "budget amendments".

"Reductions" are being made by a hiring freeze, to the Sheriff’s Department, school board, mad money for the commissioner’s emergency reserve, bond refunding, and equipment replacement.

But even in the face of this critical fiscal situation some folks just don’t get it.

St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron says he has to have new vehicles for the K-9 dogs, so two dogs can be transported at the same time. That is dog crap. We haven’t had it before, we don’t need it now.

School Superintendent Mike Martirano says they are looking at Astroturf for athletic fields! More fantasyland from the board of education. Get real folks, grass fields have been fine and its all you are getting now.

These two examples of Alice in Wonderland government are indicative of how tough this is going to be. Both the K-9 vehicles and Astroturf are ridiculous even in a good economy but now in a near depression, these two gentlemen ought to consider if it was all worthwhile to have sporty new trucks with two dogs inside and spiffy new turf for 6 games a year on three different school fields while teachers and cops are laid off from their jobs.

No to both. Hell NO!

Steny Hoyer Owes Americans an Apology

... okay to burn the flag, but don’t yell at members of congress

 

Liars, Liars, Pants on Fire


The American people know when they have been lied to by their leaders, its happened a lot.
The Kennedy and LBJ Administrations lied to us about Viet Nam.
The Democrats inserted over a half million troops into Viet Nam and then refused to allow the military the decisions which could have won the war.
Richard Nixon was a real champ at lying and after his baloney, 35 years ago this week resigned as President. For all of Nixon’s faults, he was honest enough to quit, which is more than the present Liar-in-Chief is likely to do.
Jimmy Carter lied when he said America’s economic crisis would be solved if we all turned out the lights and lowered the thermostats. That was simply a solution he could understand. He went on to become America’s worst modern-day president.
Ronald Reagan didn’t have to lie, he was by trade an actor, so he knew enough to get his lines straight.
George H. W. Bush lied when he said read his lips, there would be no new taxes. Other than that lie, he was a pretty decent guy and a good president even if he didn’t know what a recession looked like. This newspaper told you to give up on him and vote for the nutcase Perot and in St. Mary’s County old Ross got 4500 votes and we all helped elect the next big liar, Bill Clinton.
Clinton should have told the dumbass Republicans to go to hell when they wanted to ask him questions about his sex life. But he didn’t, he just lied. Again, not a bad guy just was born a hundred years too late and should have been a Mississippi River boat gambler. And when you get a load of his wife, who can blame him for lying. But give him credit for trying to help Hillary win the White House. Too bad the left wing media was out to paint them as racists, which was another lie. The Clintons are not racists, but the lefties did us all a favor and exposed the accusation of being a ‘racist’ for what it has become, just silly mudslinging which is baseless. Overused and just another lie.
George W. Bush was lied to by our intelligence folks and then he lied to us about nukes still being in Iraq. Hell, that idiot Saddam either trucked them all out to Syria or was just lying about them existing in order to keep the crazy whack-jobs in Iran off his neck.
A guy who could have made a good liar was McCain who told the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about the economy and we were stuck with panic-stricken morons voting for an even bigger moron, Obama.
It’s like the smartest kid in eighth grade got elected President of the United States. But he is still an eighth grader.
The current crop of liars think that when you, the American people, get all you can take from these elitists that somehow your anger is ‘manufactured’. The fake stuff facing us all is the facelift which Nancy Pelosi has had done. The crime takes place each time Congress votes for a bill that they haven’t read.
The clunkers deal is just another example.
They mixed ideology over the environment with a plan that genuinely could have prevented the deep and serious recession we are currently mired down in. It is sheer lunacy to take perfectly good used cars out of the market place and destroy them. Many of those vehicles were in good running shape and could have been available to people of lower incomes who can’t qualify for a loan to buy a new car or truck.
But the liars in Washington all make pretty nice salaries at your expense and don’t know what the hell we are talking about.
You are really concerned about some government a—holes tinkering with your health care when they don’t consider very real consequences of their actions, don’t read the bills, take favorable mortgages from bankers while the country goes to hell in the handbag and when you tell them to keep their damn mitts off your health care, they accuse you of being a pawn of the Republicans and being part of an angry mob. Only Acorn and a bunch of commie Marxists are allowed to demonstrate, protest or speak out. The media, of course, goes right along with the Democrats in this charade.
Obama promised not to raise taxes but taxes are going up all the time as state and local governments raise taxes, like this week’s mail proved, to make up for a loss in federal funds. Obama simply told any lie he wanted in order to win the White House. It worked pretty good and now he is marching the country towards socialism with the Democrats leading the way.
We have had a really good congressman for a long time from this area, but this week, he blocked his own constituents from attending a health care seminar at Calvert Memorial Hospital. It was closed to the public. Shame on Steny Hoyer.
He can handle himself pretty good but he must have decided he didn’t have to answer questions from folks who don’t agree with him.
Changing health care is no job for The Joker.




St. Mary’s venturing into Another Real Estate Deal

The sale of the old Mobil station at the corner of Rt. 246 and Chancellors Run Road is yet another example of the failure of St. Mary’s County government at entering the real estate market and playing with your money, your tax money, even if that tax money is funneled through the State or Federal programs, it is still tax money.

Five years ago more than $100,000 was paid as an option to the owner of the property located on Tugali Place as Hambone McKay dreamt up a development plan to revitalize the corner of downtown Lexington Park across from the old main gate of the Naval Air Station, now known as Gate 2.

The deal was a failure, as are most government urban renewal programs.

Lets look at the history of government inspired revitalization in Lexington Park.

First the Schaefer Administration began a program with a large grant for downtown Lexington Park.

This effort continued through the administration of Gov. Parris Glendening and even with Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

What has taken place which could be deemed to have revitalized the area?

The U. S. Post Office was relocated from next to the movie theatres to the site of the old Lexington Park Hotel block which had turned into a crack motel inhabited by drug dealers and crack heads. This was a nice improvement. But it has been the only one in nearly 20 years of programs spearheaded by the collective governments.

It’s not a real big deal to reach into the treasury and hand out millions of dollars to developers and in fact, if the government had given some tax incentives and coherent guidelines which are not hampered by mindless bureaucrats in land use and growth management, private developers could pursue investments which would keep properties on the tax rolls and enhance the community at the same time.

But the tinker-toy mentality of the bozos who keep getting elected to office make them believe their own press releases and the property owners who have prospered by these purchases sure aren’t going to complain.

The old Hills Trailer Park was sold to the county for a million bucks and only a swimming pool is using part of the land. For some reason, the school board refuses to use the rest of the 19 acres for a middle school site. It could share parking lots and athletic fields with Great Mills High School and both schools could initiate swimming programs for all of the fat kids in the public school system, but no, the land sits vacant. And now, the county is going to buy the old gas station across the street.

Great Mills Road was rebuilt ten years ago and now more of your tax money is going to be used to rip up the pavement and install a center median with trees planted, so drunk drivers can mow them down.

Trees were planted along Tulagi Place ten years ago and five years later the same trees were cut down and new ones planted.

The Lexington Park library was closed and a new one built across from the county’s worst crack market on Shangri-la Drive. Hobos have set up a camp in woods next to the parking lot and the liquor board allowed two new liquor stores to be opened within walking distance of the Hobo Camp and the library.

A retail chain wanted to buy the old gas station on Great Mills Road, but couldn’t. The county required them to have more space for their store so now the county is going to buy it. The county could have given a waiver to the retailer, obtained a new private investment and kept the property on the tax rolls. Now they are going to use your money to bail out a developer. Again.

Be glad that two of the current commissioners can’t run again and two are destined to be tossed out on their ears.

Paid firefighters? Some might be;
but long term planning for fire and ems is needed

How could it be that a firefighter who has a county job would be allowed by his department to answer fire calls without taking leave while other volunteers leave their jobs without pay and respond to fires and wrecks?

That is a question raised by a reader and it’s a good one, as for decades, volunteer firefighters have been serving without pay and if its good for all others, it ought to be good for this guy too.

Therefore ST. MARY’S TODAY filed a public information request for all county employees who were allowed to respond to fires without taking leave, making them paid firefighters.

In the first time in nearly twenty years of making public information act requests from St. Mary’s County, an answer was provided the same day as the request was made.

Hurrah for this new and fresh approach to open government!

St. Mary’s Public Information Officer Karen Everett reports that not a single instance of a county employee being paid to respond to fire or rescue emergencies has taken place in the last year.

"The policy very clearly states that an employee must take either leave or flex time to respond to fire and rescue calls," Everett told ST. MARY’S TODAY. An official familiar with the background of the issue of employers giving employees time to respond to emergency calls said that the county’s policy conflicts with the advice it gives local employers.

While the county urges local business employers to allow workers to leave to respond to fire calls, its own policy doesn’t allow their own employees to do so unless they take leave.

The complaint made about a current employee allowed to have paid time to respond to fire calls involves an employee with significant political connections.

Any reader with further information is invited to provide that information to staff1@stmarystoday.com.

The complaint in question notes that the employee also is allowed a take home vehicle from his job with the county and uses that vehicle to respond to the firehouse from home for calls as well. Significant abuse of take home vehicles has taken place in recent years with dozens of vehicles, gassed up at county expense, used to ferry county employees home each night, with only frivolous justification for the assignment of overnight use of the vehicle.

At the same time, expensive out of town trips for county employees have continued while the real estate tax on local properties has soared as the commissioners, with the lone exception of Commissioner Larry Jarboe, have refused to lower the tax rate to make up for increased assessments, all while values of real estate have plummeted.

Some say that all is great and freestyle firefighting is okay; but the underlying problem of the busy calls for the major departments being too much to handle for the volunteer system exposed shows up all the time.

It would be wrong for one ‘special’ county employee to be able to be on a paid status to respond to fires. While one reader says that is taking place, the official response from the St. Mary’s government is that it is not. The truth must be known to those involved.

But for the county fire and ems folks and the county commissioners to all pretend that all is well and that everything is working fine is no substitute for planning on how to round the corner from the days when an all-volunteer system worked great to the days that career fire and medics must be added to provide proper and safe response times to emergency calls.

The danger to the community when there are not sufficient resources for the population comes not only to the public but to the firefighters themselves. Many firefighters across the nation have lost their lives serving the public and their loss is tragic to their families. But preventable loss of life that can be solved with good command structures, training and manpower are essential.

The system is working pretty good, but it isn’t working great. There are times when calls are scratched and some departments are way overworked. In the meantime, the boys get all their new toys all the time. It is outrageous for tax money to be spent on aquiring the latest bells and whistles which are being pushed at the Ocean City convention and are not needed when those funds could go to providing career firefighters available to answer daytime calls.

The old guys are worn out and tired of trying to tell the young boys to slow down on the spending. Professional chiefs are replaced by those with barely enough credentials to be serve and short on judgment, experience and wisdom. The volunteers holler like wounded coyotes that we could never afford a professional firefighting force but they don’t mind spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment which isn’t needed.

Sure, the enthusiasm of the young members is critical but so is good judgment and its time that a career hybrid structure become the target of planning for the future of fire and ems in St. Mary’s and all through the region.

America has never been in worse peril, besieged by enemies from abroad and under attack by those who hate this nation from within
 

This insidious and daily assault on American values is chipping away at all manner of facets of our society and the worst that could have happened on the heels of eight years of Republican mismanagement was to elect Obama president. Obama is simply a clever fellow who had enough intellect to tell scared folks what they wanted to hear which was exactly what allowed Adolph Hitler to come to power in post WWI Germany.

Where Bush was well intentioned, he allowed his Republican pals to rape this nation of great wealth and squander a trillion dollars and four thousand of our soldiers on the Iraqi adventure.

Obama campaigned against the Iraq war but as soon as he took office ordered 31,000 new U. S. troops into Afghanistan. The far left who castigated Bush have been silent with Obama because they know he is bringing Marxism to America with each passing day. In the meantime, what is the mission and what are we going to accomplish?

But the American Republic has persevered for 233 years and will survive even Obama.

The American people survived that dolt Jimmy Carter, who this very day is even dumber than ever, like who in the world thought that was possible?

We are a tolerant people, that even makes a place for Teddy Kennedy even though he left a woman to drown in his wrecked car while he took nine hours to think up a good excuse to tell.

We parade our crooked politicians like Gov. Blago and freaky entertainers like Michael Jackson around on America’s stage as they revel in their weirdness and somehow we survive. You can buy tickets to any sideshow.

The reason we survive is that for more than 200 years God has shed his Grace on this nation, from sea to shining sea.

We have had major faults, such as slavery, which was ended long ago and finally, in 1964, only at the urging of Black leaders and almost universal support from religious leaders, full Civil Rights were given to all by an Act of Congress. The Civil Rights Act only passed due to the support of Republicans, a fact which today’s black leaders will not acknowledge and the Democrats would like to forget.

The reason the far-left wing socialists and Marxists go bonkers over prayers in school or religious displays in public areas or the Ten Commandments being displayed is that these acts and symbols threaten their heathen existence. True enough, those Americans who truly believe in the Divine Guidance do not need a publicly-owned city park to practice their free speech and to advance their religion. They can preach or listen to preaching in a Temple, Mosque or Church or hidden in their homes.

But it is the very embodiment of the First Amendment to take that religious symbol, whatever the religion, and take it to the beach and carve the Ten Commandments in the sand, to put up a Christmas Tree in the town square or to erect a Menorah and light candles for eight nights.

It is important that even after America was attacked by radical Islamic nutcases in 2001, that America be the land of freedom of worship of Muslims along with Appalachian snake handlers, fire eaters, holy rollers or Charismatic Catholics.

This is what we do.

And then when that preacher or priest gives a rip-snorting sermon, we have a local newspaper where coverage of that sermon can be either panned or praised or ignored.

That newspaper can and should also report on the shenanigans of our elected officials, how they waste tax money, go on overseas junkets which are incredibly wasteful in view of the electronic advances of the internet.

Has anyone ever heard of a Congressman telecommuting to a foreign land during a Congressional recess? We pay these bozos to go to Washington, not to travel around the world. It is right for them to have the taxpayers pick up the tab to go to DC, not to Paris.

While this newspaper thinks that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is a prince of a guy and a helluva Congressman, worthy of reelection, he ought to slow down the junket travel on his part, his staff and all of other Congressmen. This is the Great Recession and these yahoos need to be held accountable. We are hurting and they should knock off the wasteful spending.

That we can condemn the behavior of Congress is why the Supreme Court has ruled that the town square can have newspaper vending machines where the public can obtain copies of the newspaper.

A newspaper which tells you that Steny Hoyer voted in favor of a bill last week that could double your electric bill, one of the most incredibly horrific acts ever committed by the House of Representatives, is not perhaps what the Obama hordes want you to know.

Hoyer thinks taxing the living hell out of you for energy was a good idea but if by November your electric bill has doubled you might have a good idea how you will vote next year.

For his part, Hoyer is lucky as he has a truly untalented Republican preparing to run against him next year.

He also makes himself worthy of reelection due to being likely the most effective member of Congress ever to have been elected from the State of Maryland.

This newspaper often disagrees with him on various issues such as the phony climate bill, but overall, he is an Ace.

But that town square with a newspaper machine, the priest, the rabbi, the Christmas tree, the Menorah, the Ragheads with their Koran and the bloviating Congressman is a busy place.

It is a symbol of public property everywhere; sidewalks, parks, boulevards and places where the public gathers and Government cannot prohibit the First Amendment protected freedoms of religion, speech, free press or assembly.

Tin-horned mental midgets who often get elected like our Krazy Kenny and the Taxocrat Commissioners don’t like criticism.

Intelligent officials like Hoyer thrive on criticism and are unafraid to listen to views which oppose their own.

But for the most part, liberals seldom are very liberal, they are often the first to demand that views be censored.

Children need to be protected but not at the expense of having all of society being blocked from free speech. Parents need to coddle their kids while society needs not be treated like children.

Our Founding Fathers wouldn’t get too much support from today’s politically correct bozos of whom this area is over-populated. Fortunately, we have a Constitution and it will be dead if it is not understood, practiced and protected. Protecting it starts with you practicing those freedoms.

Go to the Town Square and view the Cross with the names of those who have died in wars to protect your freedoms. Go to Ocean City and stop to view the Ten Commandments carved in sand. Go to Church and Temple and thank God for letting Freedom ring in America.

Down-zoning unfair to property owners; Myrtle Point Theme Park

Aside from the incredibly unfair act of further devaluing property which has already been dramatically altered by the bursting bubble in real estate values which has taken place over the past two years, and the heaping of more taxes on those who own those properties, St. Mary’s County Commissioners are now considering steps to down-zone property.

The development district in Lexington Park was unwisely altered by adding a developer’s tract to it by this same board of commissioners.

Only Larry Jarboe has repeated opposed making the district larger and called for the county-owned Myrtle Point Park to be removed from the zone.

But if the board has no plans to develop the park into a large-scale residential or commercial project they should have no problem with down zoning the parkland to reflect its use.

The neighbors of Myrtle Point are about the dumbest folks around. They successfully opposed legitimate park improvements in order to keep visitors to the park on the low side and in doing so they have set themselves up for real shenanigans.

The best thing for the park and for the people who have paid for it, the citizens, is to develop it as a park and then it would never be tempting to sell it to an operation which could put in a conference center and theme park.

Now the nice folks who live near the park are out to get the undeveloped land in and near the park, as well as the park itself, removed from the development district, which should take place.

But for the developers who are the pals of the Taxocrats, don’t want to limit their opportunities and they will be pulling strings that the Myrtle Point neighbors won’t understand, as they don’t understand the Good Old Boy politics. These folks have limited participation in the county as evidenced by one such fellow at last week’s public hearing when he said he moved to St. Mary’s after retiring from working in DC. Now anyone knows that to move to Maryland to retire is suicidal given the tax-happy idiots who populate the General Assembly. The Myrtle Point neighbors generally get involved only in opposing something or supporting something like a new library which we can’t afford unless we raise taxes. These well-meaning folks are simply used and abused by the Good Old Boys and its hard not to be happy if they get the short end of the stick, as these folks never are shy about pushing for more services which call for more taxes but when it comes to their backyard, watch out. These committed activists will come out of the woodwork. They didn’t want to have common folks coming to Myrtle Point to play soccer or ball or fish or launch boats. They stopped a master plan for the park in its tracks and the Good Old Boys reversed the master plan which had been through a public hearing process and approved by the previous board of commissioners.

Now the Myrtle Point neighbors want to be able to remove the development district status from the Myrtle Point Park.

How ironic that the very actions they took before could have prevented them from the prospect of the property being converted to a really intense recreational use such as a theme park.

As for other sections of the development district being down-zoned and the village centers being whacked after the property owners have had to shoulder higher taxes for years due to that designation: Baloney. Leave these property owners and taxpayers alone. But you need to show up at the next hearing at Chopticon High School on July 13th to tell the planning commission how you feel.

Nuclear Power is Needed Here, Not in Iran
and Comrade Obama

Now that it is official that President Obama thinks its okay to trust a bunch of lunatics in Iran with nuclear energy, its high time for the lunatic left wing in America, who are Obama’s best friends, to stop their delaying tactics at blocking the third reactor at Calvert Cliffs as well as opposing every single nuclear power plant site in America.

These idiots don’t want to burn oil, they hate coal, they block electricity generation by wind turbines and they impose zoning restrictions on solar panels.

They are simply opposed to everything and its high time they go find some band of injuns out west somewhere and move into their sweat lodge with them where they can burn firewood to create steam and smoke their hemp as they contemplate a meal of berries and skunk cabbage.

This cocky guy Obama in the White House is a committed Marxist and is demonstrating every week, in fact, every day, he is not working to secure our nation’s best interests, that he apologizes for America every time he makes a trip abroad and has now ordered the nationalization of America’s largest auto makers and banks.

Even that tin-horn dictator Hugo Chavez laughs at Obama, calling him "Comrade" and says he is more to the left than he and Castro.

Ask your elected officials when the public hearing was for the decision to buy General Motors. Ask your elected representatives when and where were the congressional hearings as part of that process? Ask your elected officials why Obama is going to close Gitmo and are the terrorists being held there going to be released in America.

And ask your abortion funding elected officials why they scream bloody murder over the murder of a doctor who has made millions for performing late term abortions but they don’t say boo about a Muslim who gunned down an American soldier outside an Army recruiting station last week in Arkansas.

Obama is rapidly proving he is more dangerous than Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister that appeased Hitler and stood by while that madman marched across Europe. It is apparent that Obama is the most influential Marxist in the World. And like Hitler was during the economic depression of the 1930’s, crowds of people who all want more money just love him.

                  Fund Balances are Tax Surpluses

It is outrageous that the St. Mary’s Board of Commissioners allow their Finance Director to use the term "Fund Balance" in referring to money taken in excess of needs from taxpayers. Such funds are not "fund balances" but instead are the rightful monies of the citizens should be called what they are: a tax surplus.

Since the biggest portion of local taxes come from property taxes, this money taken in excess of needs by the commissioners, who have a lot of trouble counting and a lot of trouble telling the truth, needs to be given back to the taxpayers by maintaining the constant yield.

Last week the Finance Director couldn’t answer a simple question, that posed by Commissioner Jarboe who wanted to know what the annual debt service was on choosing the most expensive option of the providing a new Leonardtown library. She simply couldn’t say, or perhaps didn’t want to say. Instead of allowing her a moment to pull out a calculator, the Board simply continued without the question being answered. There may be a reason why she wouldn’t answer, or perhaps couldn’t.

Finance Director Elaine Kramer isn’t a dull person of limited capacity; in fact, she is usually able to pull obscure figures from thin air, when she wants to do so. One may have a temporary brain stall in a public meeting and surely she could be tired from the budget process, but she and the Board owes it to the public to honestly admit what the costs are of operating the county. When a county commissioner asks for reasonable information from a staffer at a budget work session, the information should be provided.

But with this Board of Commissioners, it appears, that with the lone exception of Larry Jarboe, they have one goal in mind: to spend more money and to raise taxes to fund that spending.

The Board has been consistently taking more money than it needs to operate county government and overestimating costs.

The time has come to replace Kramer along Commissioners Dement and Russell.

The Stubborn Krazy Kenny and the Taxocrats

The St. Mary’s Democrat commissioners and Krazy Kenny are hell-bent to raise taxes and no appeals from citizens will deter the Board.

From their fishy deals in buying property, their bailouts of developers or their special deals for their pals who have big paying jobs running the ‘non-profits’ who rake in big bucks in the Board’s budget, this Board had arrogance nailed down tight.

They, with the notable exception of Commissioner Larry Jarboe, find no fault with out-of-control spending, wild and extravagant travel to Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach and Paris, France for their staff to chill out at conferences and trade shows and now will raise your taxes once more, just as they have always done.

But the critical problem with raising taxes last year and this year is that the state assessment on property has been going up while property values went down and the only way to keep taxes from rising is to adjust the tax rate down to make up for the increased assessment. Thus the taxes are raised and it apparently doesn’t do any good to explain this simple fact to Jackie Russell and Kenny Dement.

A lot of folks thought it would be a good idea to have two commissioners such as these two fellows who knew the hardships of raising a family and living on a budget.

Who knew they would become big spending buffoons!

But with the clever way that Jackie Russell has turned his crabbing boat into a foundation and milked every angle shows that he is indeed ‘shovel ready’ and is clearly qualified for a high-level post with Obama. Maybe Russell could be put in charge of the federal fisheries where he could change the rules which inhibit local watermen. Kenny Dement could be Obama’s Secretary of Clarity. Secretary Dement could wisely interpret all the new laws of Congress and determine which ones are transparent. Dement could also help with deciding which projects get the shovel and which ones get the pitchfork or simply get a catcher.

Whatever the future holds for these two twits, let’s just hope it doesn’t include another term in office as St. Mary’s Commissioners.

Bullies with Badges?

Unfortunately a reader has leveled allegations that several police officers conducted themselves in thuggish ways at the Tiki Bar boozefest last month.

The reader says that they are engaging an attorney.

Since the reader was neither arrested or injured by the police officers, they will likely simply fall victim to the attorney who will take their money and after a few months and some threatening letters to the police, tell them finally that they really don’t have a case.

And the very police officials that you must complain to about the behavior of the police officers are the commanders who set in motion the entire event and supervised them as they turned from Officer Friendly to our local storm troopers. The cops, namely Calvert Sheriff Mike Evans and St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron, who are responsible down to the last brown shirt they deploy at Solomon’s Island each year, are while responsible, still are not the ones who allow this baloney weekend to take place.

Sheriff Cameron said in response to the online posting of the complaint and this editorial, that his department takes allegations of misconduct very seriously and will undertake an honest investigation. He further says that he isn’t too happy about the position his officers are put in and may not deploy his officers at the event in the future.

Ultimately it is the fault of the Calvert liquor board to allow a bar to subjugate and hold hostage an entire village, use the resources of up to 100 law officers and let the Maryland State Police, the Calvert and St. Mary’s Sheriffs put themselves in the position of having to deal with a large crowd of drunks, not a pleasant business and always volitile.

If the cops don’t show up with enough force in advance, they would never be able to bring a crowd of 10,000 under control when things get out of hand, which they surely would. The bar doesn’t pay for any of this extra cost to the taxpayers and the cops give wise guys what they deserve, a push, a shove and if needed, a night in jail.

The spineless Calvert County Commissioners, who in the past, with the exception of Barbara Stinnet, enacted a bold initiative against fishermen fishing along the seawall. But they lack the willpower to enact an ordinance banning any bar from having a rock concert type gathering without paying in advance for the security, without posting a bond for damage to public and private property and without any type of limits on crowd size.

This is a riot waiting to happen and in the meantime the actions of the police in the way they clear the island are unconstitutional, there has been no marshal law declared and they lack the legal authority to clear the island in the manner in which they have been conducting themselves.

Since no one in Calvert seems able to bring a stop to the annual Redneck Mardis Gras, everyone deserves whatever happens to them in the future.

In the past when a Maryland State Police official actually used some brainpower and attempted to quell the size and scope of the event, various island bar owners who get the overflow screamed bloody murder.

Many of the local business owners only care about making a buck and to hell with public safety.

When mayhem breaks out, these merchants will be the first ones to blame the cops for not keeping order.

The truth is, 100 cops would not be able to contain a large crowd like this.

This event is not a nice time for all but only a nice payday for a few and you can bet the cops don’t mind the overtime either, although many say that they don’t get overtime for the event.

The fact that THREE DOZEN Drunk drivers were caught by cops on both sides of the river shows the continued arrogance of those who fail to make good decisions and are willing to kill you and others on their way home after a night out drinking.

Had Sheriff Cameron simply deployed his deputies in St. Mary’s County arresting drunk drivers there would have been little chance for any to be involved in snatching cameras or otherwise acting like thugs.

Until the Obama Marxists are successful in altering our Constitution it will remain a criminal act for a cop to take your camera or otherwise attempt to keep you from taking a photo. Cops that don’t like the rules can get a job running an ice cream truck.

While police officials quickly claimed that no such police mis-conduct took place at the Tiki Bar weekend, three Maryland State Troopers, again in violation of the First Amendment ordered a photographer for this newspaper to cease taking photos of a an arrest on Rt. 4 last week. The troopers involved attempted to intimidate the photographer and ordered the photographer to leave. Thugs and punks? You bet, but they had badges and this incident was just another in a long line of such incidents involving cops in Southern Maryland which is never too damn far from Nazi Germany. And the fault lies directly with the Sheriff’s of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s along with the Superintendent of the State Police. The State Police, to their credit, three years ago instituted in service training at the barrack level to make up for the incompetnece of the State Police Academy and this was the first such incident to take place since that special training.

Sieg Hiel to the blue-shirted storm troopers of the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department for the Tiki Bar action. It wouldn’t be the first time they behaved in unconstitutional actions, its just a real disappointment that Sheriff Cameron allowed his officers to be a part of this type of action.

He really is a top flight Sheriff but he sent old storm trooper Capt. Eddie Willenborg to run the show for him.

Is this the best reason for people to visit Solomon’s Island, to get drunk and puke in the parking lot before going home?

New Entrance on Rt. 235 with Traffic Signal is
Latest Giveaway to Developers

Taxpayers will foot the bill for this intersection to have a traffic light.

Obama Administration’s Insult of America’s Veterans
 Deserves a Presidential Apology

If there were an extra qualification required to hold office in America, that of having served a hitch in the National Guard or any of the Armed Services, we wouldn’t have such a bunch of lily-livered weak-kneed jerks perpetuating our policies such as the Homeland Security report issued last week that noted that returning service members from Iraq and Afghanistan could become domestic terrorists. With the notable exception of Timothy McVeigh, who was justly executed for his bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, the bombings of our public buildings have for the most part come from the left-wing loonies, with one of the most contemporary examples being that of ELF, the enviro-whackos who have been blowing up businesses and burning homes because they are just out of their minds.

But the media doesn’t like to focus on left wing nuts as they are committed to painting conservatives as radicals.

The honchos of the Obama Administration have nary a veteran among them and that is a shame. If they haven’t served America they just don’t have a well-rounded preparation for the important duties they must undertake. One would not find this incredible lack of service in the Nation of Israel where everyone participates and when government leaders put their soldiers in harms way it is not a theory as to the danger. They know.

President Obama can go to every nation in the world and apologize for America having bailed out the world from wars and famine but he is too childish to simply apologize for his own administration’s insult of our young men and women who have volunteered to serve their nation.

We saw Obama bend over so far he is lucky he didn’t keel over when he bowed to the dictator of Saudi Arabia, a "king" of the dessert and potentate of the oil fields. But he can’t apologize to our veterans.

Obama doesn’t seem to have any daily quota of words on any particular day and he ought to use a couple to say he is sorry that his team screwed up.

From Gen. George Washington to Andrew Jackson, Tyler, Polk, and Teddy Roosevelt, most of our presidents have served in the armed forces and none would ever allow an insult to our veterans from their underlings.

JFK was a PT boat commander and a genuine hero who saved the lives of his crew. LBJ was a Navy pilot as was George H. W. Bush, both in WWII. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Nixon was in the Navy in WWII, Reagan joined the Army Air Corps and due to his eyesight didn’t see combat but narrated training films.

Even that dumbass Jimmy Carter served the nation in the U. S. Navy and George W. Bush was in the National Guard.

The President could take a lesson from Harry Truman, who unlike Obama, did serve his nation in the armed services. Truman’s motto was ‘the buck stops here’. With Obama, he wants your buck and if his Administration’s policy is going to make someone look bad, its their problem, not his.

As for Obama’s service to our nation, he was a community organizer.

America Is a Christian Nation!

Since President Obama took it upon himself to declare that America is not a Christian nation, this newspaper, hereby, declares that it really doesn’t matter what this tin-horn numbskull former State Senator from the most corrupt state in the nation thinks about a religion that he says he practices but never listened to his preacher making hate filled and racist remarks.

All you have to do to know America is a Christian nation is to be able to count and to have graduated from high school prior to the seventies when burned out hippies all got jobs in the public schools and began teaching an anti-America version of history rooted in Socialism and Marxism.

Just count the number of churches in St. Mary’s County, Charles or Calvert. There are dozens and dozens of them of various Christian denominations. Many are Catholic, where Christianity began, and others are Protestant which developed as various people began to have strong beliefs not part of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Count the Jewish synagogues. There may now be two in all of Southern Maryland. There is one Muslim mosque.

Thus with this area pretty representative of America, its about 98 percent Christian to about 2 percent of others, making this an overwhelmingly Christian nation.

Those of non-Christian faith have been a strong part of what makes America great and many members of those faiths participated in the founding and settlement of America and have added to it over the last 375 years that Maryland was founded.

This nation declared itself in its founding statements that our powers are derived from God, not some silly sweat lodge ghost.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness".

Watch out that this phrase from our Declaration of Independence is not removed by the whackos running Congress and the White House.

But to call this a nation other than Christian is to deny reality.

For that to come from a nitwit that is so giddy when meeting the King of Saudi Arabia that he does a full body bow is outrageous. President Obama needs to get a grip and America needs to assert that we are indeed a capitalist Christian nation with a Constitution that protects every one’s freedom to worship in whatever religion that they please…or not.

Thus on Easter Sunday, 2009, it is hereby decreed by this publication that America began as a Christian nation and still is, and while embracing the rights of us all to practice our faith in the way we see fit, we do not have a dictator, just a very temporary resident of the White House.

Happy Easter and lets hope that this is not the last year that a Christian holiday such as Easter is marked by the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Mad Hatter Government

How The St. Mary’s Board Spends Your Money,

Raises Your Taxes and Other Hi-jinks

The current Board of Commissioners have now had more than two years to show what they can do to manage the resources of the county government in an intelligent fashion and to plan for the future while providing frugal management.

With the notable exception of Commissioner Larry Jarboe, the board has spent more money than ever, failed to lower the tax rate to balance out higher state assessment of real estate, given developers unprecedented new development authority without proper provision for transportation, public safety or education and have committed to buying even more land when they maintain an inventory of land already paid for by the taxpayers.

In addition, this Board has allowed it’s chairman, Jackie Russell, to issue arrogant and ignorant mandates to citizens to keep their remarks brief and to refrain from any applause at the very rare public forums allowed by the Board in it’s new $2.5 million public meeting room. The repeated condescending attitude by Russell can be dealt with by voters in next year’s election but the opportunity for one of the other commissioners to counter his anti-citizen hostility would be welcomed by the public which simply wants to have their say, and to applaud following remarks is an expression of free speech as well as far more polite than throwing rotten tomatoes or rose petals. Perhaps Russell has watched too many episodes of the HBO series "Rome" and thinks that he has become Caesar. In any event, he better hope that citizens don’t come to public forums with rotten crabs to throw at him when he makes his bone-headed remarks. Booing or applauding may be welcomed. In any event, it’s none of his business to be issuing conditions for speech at a public forum. Never has a citizen been required to be civil but apparently the High Commissioner needs to be less imperious.

The whole deal with the Hayden Farm stinks like a bushel of rotten crabs. Commissioner Dan Raley certainly can be foggy-headed from time to time. He really is a fine guy and has a big heart but on this issue, he simply didn’t understand that when his relative’s law firm was representing the Hayden family on the transaction that he should have walked out the room, not participated in the discussions, dealings, decisions or purchase in any way, shape or form. He truly doesn’t think there is any conflict and he may be entirely truthful, in fact, it should be assumed he is truthful as while he may be a confusing person to follow from time to time, he really is honest. While he says that he and his son-in-law did not discuss the Hayden Farm deal the appearance of a severe conflict of interest is present and for him to walk away from the deal clearly would not have affected the outcome except to make the deal have a little less stench.

As for the environmental report: the areas of the farm likely to have severe and expensive intrusion of chemicals and possibly be a hazardous waste clean up site were never inspected.

The price paid for the Hayden Farm is, by all reports from knowledgeable folks in the appraisal and real estate business, about twice the value.

Commissioner Tommy Mattingly’s role in this affair, from his secret meetings with the sellers to the final decision to buy the property made in a rushed meeting on Christmas Eve should make the public shudder the rest of the days this man is holding office and breath a deep sigh of relief the day he leaves. To say he is crooked would require more information than we have today, but he certainly is stupid.

The depths of Commissioner Kenny Dement’s complicity in arranging dropped criminal charges for his pals through the office of States Attorney Richard Fritz may never be known.

Dement’s role in raising taxes by $14.5 million last year and God knows how much this year is a testament to his inability to understand the most elementary parts of the county budget process and his unwillingness to listen to the voters that he had promised to consult. People threw out Joe Anderson because he raised taxes and down zoned property while enacting new regulations. While others of Dements age volunteer at the Office on Aging with Meals on Wheels, Dement simply helps himself with Deals on Wheels. Why has Dement voted for the developers at Valley Lee, the Beavans Tract and St. Mary’s Crossing? Ask him and see if he remembers.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe remains a sincere and dedicated public servant who keeps an eye on the future and tries to keep the county’s hands out of your pocket. But he is the only one.

Hayden Farm Deal Getting Worse

Valley Lee Fire Chief Should Be Sentenced

to 30 Years of Community Service

for Million Dollar Fish Scam

There is no doubt about the guilt of Tommy Crowder for violating federal and state laws regarding rockfish poaching as he pleaded guilty. While the fishing regulations are as arcane as the tax code, his plea was guilty, not one of misunderstanding the laws.

The only part of his crime left in doubt is his sentence.

The Federal Judge should take Crowder’s actions in conspiracy with the other parties very serious as the significant rebound in the Rockfish population is due to the voluntary compliance with the restrictions against fishing for striped bass 15 years ago. For commercial fishermen and seafood dealers to conspire to remove huge catches from the Chesapeake and the Potomac is indeed criminal.

The interest of justice in the case of Tommy Crowder would be well served, not by the taxpayers hosting him in prison and not by his immediate resignation as Fire Chief of the Second District Volunteer Fire Department.

The Judge should instead sentence him to community service and give him credit for time served. As he has served approximately 20 years as a volunteer firefighter, he should be sentenced to a minimum of ten more years serving the community. His expertise, commitment and training in the post in which he holds is outstanding and he is a first-class first-responder who has saved lives and property, a position that the Federal Judge should sentence him to continue to hold.

While the Judge has authority to have him forfeit his truck and his boat, if his livelihood is taken from him, how will he pay the fines to which the court should sentence him to pay?

The Judge should consider the wisdom of letting this man earn a legal catch every day with a portion of his profit to be assigned to pay off his fines at a basis which make sense and is in proportion to his income and expenses.

Thus with fines paid made in a payment plan over time and community service which is meaningful, not picking up trash or making license plates, his offence to the people of the State of Maryland will be repaid.

All those who have seen Chief Crowder at work saving lives and property over the years have an opportunity to write to the Federal District Court Judge Messitte in Greenbelt U. S. District Courthouse and act as a character witness and request the judge to give him credit for time served and retain the tools of making a living and pay appropriate fines.

Obama: the Pride of Blacks and

the Great White Hope
 

Shame on all the phony left-wing loonies who have trampled over poor George Bush for the past 8 years, they never got over the 2000 election which went down for the Democrats when they couldn’t win either Arkansas or Tennessee, the home states of the outgoing President and Vice-President. The razor thin margin of 2000 evolved into the thumping that Bush gave Kerry in 2004 and in return the thumping that Democrats gave the GOP in 2006 and again in 2008.

Now that Barack Obama will become the 44th President on January 20th, chosen by the voters of this nation by a considerable margin, the foam-at-the-mouth liberals will have to decide if their lunatic tendencies will be restrained.

Blacks in America have now finally found equality, even though it took a depression of historic proportions settling down upon the nation to panic whites into voting for a Black candidate.

All the who-shot-John of the election is now behind us and the whining of the far left will undoubtedly continue. The victim-clad language of reparations is out the door as no one can now claim that anyone is shutting the door on blacks.

The only color that matters now is not white or black but green.

President Bush has done the impossible: he kept America safe from attack by the most radical and crazy fanatics in history, the militant Islamists. These animals have set up rockets in schools, homes and Mosques and fired rockets at the Israelis, knowing full well that children would eventually die as Israel responds to the daily barrage fired from Gaza.

These same idiots hijacked four of our airliners and murdered more than 3,000 people in their attack on Nov. 11, 2001. Say what you will for Bush’s ill-though invasion in Iraq but he was right to take any means necessary to question terrorists to prevent another attack on this nation.

President Obama will be the first to learn why Bush acted on important issues the way he did and it will be up to conservative and moderate Americans to support Obama the same way they supported Bush. Don’t think for one minute that the left-wing loonies will support Obama when he acts in America’s best interests, as he surely will. Obama will learn that America and only America will lead the cause for freedom in the world and only America will act to protect this nation from hostile forces. There will be no foreign power that will come to the aid of this nation.

But the left-wingers, the really nasty, silly, stupid left-wingers, don’t really like too much about America and for some reason they don’t leave even though they threaten to do so.

Black Americans need to drop the hyphenated label and simply become Americans and line up behind President Obama as he tries his level best to straighten out the problems of this nation.

Blacks need to stop the bellyaching and whining and along with the whites, Hispanics, Asian and other ethnic group in this country and get to work. All of the "entitled" class needs to be a part of this country, not a part of another country left behind long ago on another continent.

No one is entitled to anything.

The Declaration of Independence doesn’t say that a person is entitled to health care, a house, a job or a new car…not even a bailout. That document states that a person is entitled only to the PURSUIT of happiness, not to catch it.

President Obama is indeed the Great White Hope. With all of the calamities that have fallen on this nation, even as inherently strong that it may be, it will take a lot of work, luck and blessings from God to be able once again return to peace and prosperity. To the extent that Obama can achieve this, Godspeed to him and every American should support him. But don’t expect too much from the far left. They are just nuts.

Bring on the broads, we’ve had enough

of the Good Old Boys

The action of the St. Mary’s Commissioners, on a 4-1 vote, on Christmas Eve to pay far more for a farm on the edge of Leonardtown than a builder was willing to pay a year and a half ago, stinks of corruption. The only other possible cause would be mass stupidity on the part of Commissioners Russell, Raley, Mattingly and Dement. While proof of crooked politics is needed to make the presumption of corruption, it is pretty clear that the four are guilty of rampant ridiculousness.

What in the world would make the Hayden Farm soar in value by more than $1.5 million when property values here and across the nation are going down.

The commissioner’s decision ignores the many fine parcels of land already owned by the county which could be used to build new schools, if and when they are really needed. New library buildings? Hogwash. This is the digital age and its time to put a halt to senseless expansion of libraries and instead embrace technology.

The St. Mary’s Board, also on a 4-1 vote, has given the go-ahead to the county staff to increase spending by 5 percent.

These guys just don’t get it. The taxpayers don’t have any more to give and yet in order to fund spending increases, the Board also voted on a 4-1 vote, to increase real estate taxes once again.

Russell and Dement will be eligible to run for office again next year. The voters are going to have fun with their candidacies. Raley and Mattingly can’t run and again and as a result they have become the most dangerous commissioners in the modern history of St. Mary’s County.

Its a shame, too, as Dan Raley had the opportunity to be a real leader and to mind the store for the people of the county. Just as Congressman Hoyer preaches in his column today on this page, fiscal responsibility is the most important part of being a lawmaker and a leader.

Raley and Mattingly prove that they only listen to the bats in the belfry.

Only Commissioner Larry Jarboe stands up to the spendthrifts, the big-government gurus and the self-serving left-wing groups who demand further raping of the already raped taxpayers.

Woe unto those who pursue this policy which will result in the treasury of the county being looted once more to pay for nonsense. This policy will cause teachers and county staff to be laid off from their jobs and Kenny Dement will walk around telling people that he just didn’t know, that he listened to Raley and Mattingly and he just didn’t know that higher taxes and wild spending would actually be a bad thing.

Russell will try to make amends by imitating a turkey, telling stories about arsters and once again proving that he is the best friend of the developers while duping the anti-growth crowd and playing footsie with the left-wing whackos.

We sure have gotten a fine dose of bad government by stupid white guys.

Surely Elfreda Mathis wouldn’t have been as bad or as dumb as Kenny Dement. She now says she doesn’t favor tax hikes, hells bells, Kenny Dement has now voted to raise taxes twice and is spending money in such a fashion on land we don’t need that will make us search for a money trail for the next ten years.

Elfreda Mathis and Mary Washington are said to be interested in running . These smart but quirky black women could never be as bad or as tricky as the Good Old Boys we have in office now.

The women would never have a sneaky public meeting on Christmas Eve. They would be too busy baking cookies and wrapping presents to scheme and plot a deal for their friends and to line their own pockets.

Bring on the next election.

Public Hearing on Christmas Eve? The Public be Damned

This coming week, on Christmas Eve, with only a week’s advance notice, the St. Mary’s Board of Commissioners are holding a public hearing at 9 am to put the legal stamp of approval of having met the requirements for a public hearing as they go ahead with the purchase of 250 acres of land at the edge of Leonardtown. Just 18 months ago there was a deal on the table for this land at $3.5 million. How did this land gain value when all other land in this area and across America is sinking in value? Corruption is the only answer. It stinks of graft.

Expected to attend the "public hearing" will be a crowd of people who want the county to spend the money for this land so that their interests will be served. Library supporters will show up so they will have a place to put a new library. This is the digital age and the library should be adding computers not buildings of brick with expensive atriums.

School board members will show up so they will have room for a new school site.

Will the Sheriff show up so that he may have room for a new regional jail, to share with Charles and Calvert Counties? If he doesn’t show up will the commissioners cut his budget?

The truth of the matter is that St. Mary’s County already has enough land in its inventory and the mental midgets running the county over the years have squandered several good school sites.

The developer of Wildewood gave the county a school site on the condition that the county use it. The dopes running the school system never wanted to build a school in the development for fear that they would be seen as favoring that neighborhood, which was silly. It should have been built, but it wasn’t. So the developer took the land back. Then 15 years later the county spent a million bucks for a school site…at Wildewood.

That’s right, the school board and the county commissioners blew a free school site and then the morons spent your money to buy a school site in the same area.

The school board will shake their heads and say that they weren’t the ones who did that. Those bozos have moved on. But the same crap is still happening to the same taxpayers who haven’t moved on and are just getting poorer.

In 1996 the county acquired the Myrtle Point site with the help of the State and the Open Space program. There could be an adjustment to the agreement to allow the county to build a three-school complex oriented towards environmental education given the location of Myrtle Point on 192 acres of waterfront. This could be the only park and school complex in Maryland which could teach children to explore the environment right where they go to school from kindergarten through high school. Imagine the help to the environment to not have to bus kids down to the Elms Property each year so they can look at a frog, hike through a marsh or watch blue herons walk along the shore. Defense contractors could sponsor classrooms to spur students on to finding solutions to environmental problems. The possibilities are endless.

The Leonardtown High school complex includes sufficient unused land for another school. That property is already off the tax rolls and available for use as a school site; will they use it? No.

The old Hills Trailer park which was purchased ten years ago by the Board and is located next to Great Mills High School and the county aquatic center with an Olympic size pool, goes unused. This land cost the county another million dollars to buy the closed up trailer park so the owner wouldn’t reopen it and put it more trailers. So instead of planting a new school at this site to share athletic fields, parking and the swimming pool, nothing is there but weeds. This site has sewer, water and proper zoning, is located in the development district and makes sense, which is likely why the fools running the county won’t use it. It’s too black at Great Mills High and God forbid another school should be located next to this one. But the school officials will never admit that race has anything to do with their shunning this property.

It smacks of political corruption of the first order to use public money to buy the land of friends for uses the public doesn’t need.

Why else would a public hearing be held at a time at which it is unlikely the public would attend such as Christmas Eve. More deference would be given to Valentines Day.

We can imagine School Board members saying that they would catch hell if they skipped a dinner out with their spouse on Valentines Day for a public hearing that could be held another time. Are they going to tell their families that they will be missing on Christmas Eve so they go help out with pulling the wool over the eyes of the public.

The public can be assured that we will report on all those who attend this pre-arranged sham and violation of the spirit and intent of the law.

Any school board members who show up at this fraudulent and ridiculous spectacle are not on the side of the public and should be marked for political extinction.

The arrogant and elite, such as former school board president John Parlett who said that the county needs a benevolent dictator as he tried to push through charter government last year, all bemoan their widely held view that "good people" won’t run for office due to the coverage of the media.

The media in this county are trained puppies and pompous lapdogs, and hardly exist at all. The "good people" are usually too busy trying to arrange a sweet deal at the taxpayer’s expense for themselves and they shun public scrutiny of the politicians and their cronies for good reason. Many of them are crooks.

This week the St. Mary’s Board failed to support the motion of Commissioner Larry Jarboe to set budget goals which would avoid a tax hike and instead have set a course of action which will increase taxes once more as America and St. Mary’s County bleeds.

Fortunately, two of the commissioners cannot run again (Mattingly and Raley), two should be marked for electoral defeat (Russell and Dement) and only Larry Jarboe does his level best to provide responsible and frugal leadership for St. Mary’s County.

It remains to be seen which school board members adopt the attitude ‘the public be dammed’.

Any school board member who shows up at this hearing should be marked with the scarlet letter "A" and it won’t stand for adultery. They will also get a "D" for the disdain that they have for the public. This isn’t a matter of opinion. This is a matter of acting in the best fiduciary interests of the public, to guard the tax dollars of the citizens from waste, fraud or abuse. Money which is wasted on land that is unneeded is money that will never be available for teacher’s pay checks.

Think about how the St. Mary’s Commissioners waste your money on out of county travel, professional associations, buying up land from their cronies, allowing dozens and dozens of county employees to take their vehicles home at night, no matter what the cost of gas, and hand out enormous salaries for top officials of a staff which is top heavy with officials.

The trouble here is not whether good people will run for office its a matter of whether smart people will run.

Bailout Detroit; But Get Sales Going with Vouchers


Obama plan for public works is an ACE!

There really isn’t any choice but to bail out the big three automakers, lets get to it and put in requirements for paybacks of this loan.  But limit the loans to the $15 billion needed to keep the automakers afloat.

Vouchers needed to spur consumer spending are the answer to really make factories hum instead of simply propping up dying companies.

Congress should immediately restore tax deductions for sales tax on new cars and truck, eliminate any luxury tax on pricey vehicles, restore interest deductions on car and truck loans, and add a $5,000 voucher for the purchase of any new car or truck as long as it is built in any American factory, regardless of if the vehicle is a big 3 product or foreign, as long as its built in America.

The only way out of this depression is by way of consumer spending which results in American jobs and the spending cycle will revolve as it always has in the past.

The Obama Administration plan to rebuild and expand the nation’s infrastructure is so damn solid a plan that the nitwits in Washington will undoubtedly find a way to sink it, fill it with corruption and jobs for their brother-in-laws and make sure that the only contractors allowed to get government contracts are unqualified in any way except for that of having the right race.

Environmental roadblocks to construction projects need to be eliminated and the years of delay in implementing a national infrastructure rebuild short-circuited, so new bridges over the Potomac, the Patuxent and the Chesapeake Bay, along with commuter rail into the Southern Maryland region can be built.

Obama sure didn’t advance anything solid in the election but this plan he has put forth now bears the wisdom of the ages as it mirrors what took place in the 30s and let’s just hope that it isn’t topped off with a war, such as took place in the 40s.

We have had plenty of lackluster efforts from both parties as they have traded control of Congress in the past 15 years.  Now it is time for Congress to do something and get Americans working again.

Put the consumers to work buying vehicles and the factories will all be busy.

35 million new vehicle vouchers will cost $17 billion.  That money is better spent being provided for the purchase of a new vehicle than just handing it over to the suits running the automakers.

Larry Jarboe Was Right; Cut Spending to

Avoid Layoffs of County Employees

This past spring during the last few months of the budget process, St. Mary’s Commissioner Larry Jarboe offered to his fellow board members a plan to consolidate county departments to save on top level directors. Jarboe proposed that the board maintain the constant yield and not raise taxes. He got no support from fellow Republican Kenny Dement and Democrat Tommy Mattingly, as if he were smoking dope in an Indian sweat lodge for a week, pronounced our local economy as good, our financial house in order and the Naval Air Station to be insulated from any possible cutbacks.

We now know how profoundly stupid Mattingly’s remarks were even if he doesn’t. His fellow Democrat Dan Raley argued forcefully that our economy was precarious, but then typically, turned around and voted with Mattingly, Russell and Dement to raise taxes. Perhaps Dan was smoking the same whacky tobaccy.

This past month, at the start of the current fiscal year, Jarboe has once again requested that the board take immediate action to consolidate the number of county departments and select the best directors to run the new operation. He has proposed hiring freezes, cuts in merit pay for those making super salaries.

The cuts should not end there.

This past year this newspaper took one solitary proposed expense item that the board contemplated and was included in the budget for Recreation and Parks. After weekly publicity on a plan to buy a $130,000 portable stage, complete with wheels, hitch, lighting system and sound system, this stage would have allowed the pompous politicians to have this mobile throne room to be towed around the county so each time they cut a ribbon or gave a speech, they would be elevated above all of the citizens, their voices projected at great volume and special effects and lighting shining upon their images so as to present them to the public in the very best light.

Clearly, the public got a gander at this goofy idea and told these bozos what they thought of it and the proposed mobile Throne Room was deleted from the budget.

But lots of other nonsense was still included.

Why does the county use tax dollars to fund the private lobbying efforts of the Navy Alliance, give tax dollars so those who want to enjoy summer concerts at St. Mary’s College can do so without paying admission?

These are not functions of government or a legitimate use of tax dollars but they are just symbolic of massive amounts of wasteful spending in county government, money that is being spent on all manner of items.

The River Concert Series is a fine program and anyone who enjoys music of all types should go and pay their own way.

Do the folks who would rather go see a horror film or the latest James Bond movie get a free ticket courtesy of the county treasury? No. The movie goers pay for themselves, they don’t hit up the abused taxpayers.

Do those who want stay home and pay for view of events such as wrestling go get a free ticket from the County Treasurer?

Do the County Commissioners drop by their house and lay a check for $49.99 on them so they can order entertainment from Cable TV?

No, they do not, because that is not a function of government.

The bozo commissioners list their own names, as the commissioners, in the program at the college as the donors. The program doesn’t say the $10,000 came from the taxpayers of St. Mary’s County, the people who put up the bucks, it says ‘The Commissioners’.

Non-profit groups have been besieging the Board for money for all types of projects that are not the function of government. Government should be paying teachers, paying for heat and lights for schools, fixing roads, paying for law enforcement and cutting out the silly things.

About 5 years ago, a new 911 communications center was built in the Governmental Center at Leonard Hall. Okay, an up-to-date facility was needed.

The old 911 center, originally built during the Cold War as an underground bunker for politicians to run to hide in case the Russians nuked us, while everyone else was left above ground to face a nuclear winter, sat as a tempting target for the brainless boobs running things in Leonardtown.

The Board decided to allow the bureaucrats to update the old underground control center with new equipment as a "backup" in case something happened to the new center.

At the same time this new center, a solid brick building, had hurricane shutters added, making it a fortress. They even spent $5,000 on a weather station in case the TVs inside tuned to the weather channel, the direct lines to the weather office on the base or just sticking their lame necks outside couldn’t discern the status of the weather to them.

Short and simple, the Democrats on the St. Mary’s Board and the lame Kenny Dement better damn well listen to Jarboe now and cut costs in order to avoid yet another tax hike.

Mattingly has a pension from the phone company and will actually get a retirement from the taxpayers and the fire service, so he really doesn’t give a hoot what you think. Who knows what motivates Raley but thank God neither can run again.

Russell and Dement are loons if they think for one minute they can run for another term, they both need to be replaced.

Should they have an ounce of concern for the well being of the county and truly want to avoid a large layoff of county employees, they need to cut the wasteful spending.

While last year Raley lied to the county workers and said no cuts would happen here, the county employees can all see for themselves, layoffs of government staff is taking place across the country.

Cutting silly spending might save their jobs.

Great Expectations for Obama and Thank God for Hoyer

(Note: Several calls from readers have come in about this week's front page.  The remarks indicated that the callers only looked at the graphic on the front page and did not read the following editorial.  The callers all questioned why we would place such a graphic about Obama on the front page, showing him in a barn and holding a handle to what could be a pitchfork. One caller said it looked like we made Obama out to be a Mississippi slave.  While there is nothing inherently racist about farming, the callers were asked if they had ever read Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and clearly they had never heard of Charles Dickens.  One caller asked why we were treating Obama like 'Sambo', which would be a character not of 18th century England but of the old South. Clearly these callers were robbed of an education by the Great Society and never were subjected to English literature, but they do know how to dial a phone! This newspaper is not here to promote your self-esteem or to act as fan club for Chief Obama. Therefore, to the ignorant callers, please stop reading this newspaper, we are not used to have folks as dumb as yourselves reading this rag. This is our literacy test, as should be required to be able to vote. Our readers are of a much higher socio-economic status, have real brainpower and some even have a sense of humor.  PS: the graphic on the front page is of actor John Mills starring in the 1941 Oscar winning movie version of "Great Expectations". Of course, for Mills it was off with his head with Obama's head planted in its place. We know Mills won't mind, he's dead. Obama has far worse things to worry about but should he not deliver on his campaign promises you can expect to see us stretch his nose out to Pinocchio proportions, but that's another story. One final word about graphics, here is a rendition of Sambo, which you can see, is far different from our Pip Obama.
 

There is little comfort for the family which has experienced a sudden loss of income due to a layoff, reduction in revenue to their small business or other factors such as stock market losses which alter your well being.

But voting for someone who promises that by taxing the small businesses and corporations will provide him with money to put in your pocket is absurd. Its silly and just untrue.

Corporations don’t pay any taxes. That’s right, Obama can raise taxes all he wants and only the small businesses will be hurt. Corporations treat taxes just like they do the electric bill, payroll or interest payments to the bank, they pass them on to their customers as a cost of doing business.

So every time you buy gas, buy dog food or go see a movie, you will pay Obama’s tax hikes.

Think about it. Do you really need to pay more for everyday services, groceries, electric just so the bureaucrats in Washington have more money to spend on their favorite programs like Acorn, welfare and social spending, and ultra liberal groups, most of which detest your average lifestyle and values?

These far-leftists generally are disgusted by the working man that they pitch when they are trying to win an election.

We have far-left liberals in this area. They run our local government, St. Mary’s College, populate many of the state government positions, have big federal jobs and live high on the hog. You don’t get invited to their fancy parties or go on vacation with them in the south of France because they really don’t like you, they just like your money which they take from you in the form of taxes and dole out to themselves in the form of grants, special programs and government contracts to firms they control.

The left wing hippies and bomb-toting kooks like Bill Ayers now have crew cuts and drive BMWs. And they still don’t like the smell of average Joe the Plumber Americans. They control the media, at least most of it and they are out to bamboozle you out of your vote. Don’t give it to them. Vote for McCain and let Palin be a real pain to them, she is tough and will really get to them.

With more than 1400 readers taking part in a poll question about raising taxes, which the St. Mary’s County Commissioners did this past spring, with the exception of Commissioner Larry Jarboe who voted against, more than 95 percent said taxes are high enough and should not be raised.

Just last month the same commissioners who raised the taxes, Mattingly, Raley, Dement and Russell, defended the recent $14.5 million tax hike as being a legitimate and necessary action.

They even promised that taxes would go up again this coming year and said that there were no cuts that they could make.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe was again the lone vote against a $750,000 bailout of a developer for land the county says they will use as a park.

Does anyone believe for a second that Republicans, Democrats and independents could unite in a landslide of 95 percent in favor of anything? The five percent who proclaim that they want to pay higher taxes should appear at a county commissioners meeting with the money and hand it over to the treasurer, unless of course they are simply lying oafs, which is a distinct possibility, as these cats often want others to pay more, not themselves.

This nation is facing a watershed election where a Socialist-Marxist has gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, due more to hard economic times and sexism in the Democratic Party. Clearly Hillary Clinton won the most votes but the party bosses had their hearts set on making history with a black guy and the Wall Street bankers let their uncontrolled greed wreck the economy, setting up a possible victory for the Marxist Obama.

This is the election when the voters should toss out the Republicans who have proven to be incompetent jackasses in so many ways.

But to install a phony like Obama would be a bigger tragedy and with McCain in the White House, would likely result in most of the GOP administration being thrown out the door anyway.

The people do deserve a change but this nation was not made great by "spreading the wealth" and taking money away from small business owners who work like crazy to put together enough capital to hire a few employees and fulfill a need in the market place for their industriousness.

The Democrats have been bribing blacks for their votes for years and what has it got them? There is a large black middle class now that exists but the truth of the matter is that the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act passed only when Republicans supplied the votes in the U. S. Senate to break the filibuster of Democrats opposed to the bill. Imagine the Democrats lying to the blacks about this important part of history and imagine the stupidity of blacks who believe them.

Sure, black Americans have as much right to have one of their own in office, just as Irish, Italians and other ethnic groups have done over the years.

But blacks ought to take a lesson from the ‘Joe the Plumber’ exchange and imagine Obama saying to them that they must give up some of their wealth they have worked so hard to obtain so he can spread the wealth around to those who don’t work as hard as them.

All Americans ought to wonder why Germany elected Hitler as Chancellor due to tough economic times.

The excesses of greedy bankers who speculate and Democrats who have legislated granted mortgages to those who didn’t qualify have led to this dramatic recession but it is the workers in our economy, the shopkeepers in our stores and those who keep our economy going that are paying the price. But switching to Marxism is hardly the solution as it sure didn’t do Russia and China much good, they switched to capitalism.

With Obama in the White House will America begin to look like Cuba over the past 50 years?

John McCain gets it about America and he is strong enough to get the job done right. Vote for McCain.

The silly St. Mary’s Commissioners, with the exception of Commissioner Larry Jarboe, who had the good sense to be the only one to vote against the $14.5 million increase in property taxes, not only failed to make cuts to their current budget but have put county employees in jeopardy.

This past spring, seeing the looming recession, Jarboe pleaded with his fellow commissioners to not raise taxes, to make cuts in discretionary spending and to not purchase yet another large parcel of land for a county park, thereby removing more property from the tax rolls.

Two of the dangerous big spending Democrats, Dan Raley and Tommy Mattingly cannot run for another term in office. The other two who failed to cut spending in order to avoid a tax hike are Republican Kenny Dement and Democrat Jackie Russell.

Neither man has a grip on reality and Dement’s sad attempts to explain to people that his vote against Jarboe’s motion to cut the tax rate in order to avoid higher taxes due to state assessment increases shows that Dement just isn’t cut out for such an important job.

His and Russell’s deal making for Bubbas and developers makes them both even more dangerous.

Kenny is a nice guy but the taxpayers would be better off if he got a job in the recreation department where he could be a community organizer like Obama was in Chicago instead of voting to give away the farm to developers. His votes to raise taxes have cost a lot of citizens a lot of money, they get it and Kenny doesn’t. Russell should stay out culling arsters.

The real losers in this saga of two-faced politics practiced by Raley and Mattingly are the county employees. At a time when the county should have been cutting back by 15 percent on spending, it instead raised taxes and hired even more employees in the human resources department and instead of following Jarboe’s proposal to consolidate department directors, they blew even more money.

What will take place this coming budget session will be a demand on county funds that has never before taken place. The Governor this week announced a half billion in cuts to state spending and those cuts will translate into cuts for education, roads, and public safety in St. Mary’s County.

The fools at the commissioners table were warned to cut spending, keep a lid on taxes and plan for the next budget cycle but instead they raised taxes, increased spending and acted like drunken sailors on liberty. They aren’t through spending.

Raley thinks he is clever and last week he trotted out a lady who guides girls lacrosse programs. It is wonderful that 300 girls participate in this program and it would be even better if the open farmland at Myrtle Point Park were cleared of the brush and set up as lacrosse fields immediately, at little cost.

Instead, a multi-million dollar adventure will proceed at the Beaven property where Raley and his diminutive minded fellow morons have bailed out another developer. They could have waited about six months when the property may have come up for a tax sale. This developer took over controlling Russell since McKay left the board and now we have the spectacle of more county funds going down a rat hole when we can afford it the least.

The surplus the county is sitting on will evaporate quickly if the county has to fund the cost of teachers pensions and pay for other costs currently paid for by the State of Maryland.

But when the commissioners sit at their public hearings next spring and lay out a plan where perhaps dozens of county employees are laid off, just like is happening at state and local governments across the nation, the county employees need to realize that the Board is composed of simple minded twits who frittered away the treasury and endangered the jobs of hard working county workers.

It may not seem fair, but with Russell, Raley, Mattingly and Dement, the voters got exactly what they paid for. Not much.

Larry Jarboe’s efforts to keep the county on the right track are to be commended but serving with these fools, he is just a voice in the wilderness.

The treatment of the press and the left-wingers of women in politics this year is amazing. These groups of enlightened liberals have been lecturing all of the rest of us for years on equal opportunity for women but their actions this year show that what they really want are special opportunities for blacks, as long as they are men.

The attacks on Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have had little to do with their views and more to do with their sex.

Hillary showed that she could fight with the best of them and her campaign didn’t get revved up until the Super Delegates had decided to fall in line with what the Democrat good old boys had cooked up with Brother Obama. Sister Hillary could take a powder even though she won every large state in the primary season and gained the votes of 18 million Democrats.

The arrogant and the obnoxious have now decided that Gov. Palin is too much of a threat to their socialist agenda and for the past five weeks they have attacked Palin, her daughter, her husband and before its all over they will find a way to attack her infant son.

It is no small wonder that the American people have turned away from the mainstream media in a big way and that the snobs who run the nation’s biggest news operations are cutting jobs by the thousands as their circulation falls and ad revenue evaporates.

The people of this nation were able to see the debate this past week between Palin and Sen. Biden and make up their own minds about the results, and do not have to depend on a bunch of talking heads to tell them what they saw and heard.

With the five guys running things in St. Mary’s, it is time to return a woman to the county commissioner board. We have had interesting women commissioners in the past, one was scary, another was bossy and at least one of them was pretty darn smart.

The presence of a woman commissioner might have brought some common sense to the decision to raise real estate taxes by $14.5 million this year at the same time that property values dropped like a rock.

Former Commissioner Frances Eagan is back at home in the county and would make a great commissioner president. Patty Robrecht is being encouraged to run. Mary Washington is always talking about running and Elfreda Mathis would not have been brazen enough to raise taxes as much as Kenny Dement did. Other women would make better commissioners than four of the bozos we have now.

Only Commissioner Larry Jarboe voted against raising your taxes. He wouldn’t have dared to raise taxes at the time when you can least afford to pay more, as his mother raised him better than that.

After seeing the debate this past week, our readers are reminded that this newspaper endorsed Sen. John McCain for President. It is now time to endorse Gov. Sarah Palin for Vice President.

Surely if she went hunting with a lawyer she wouldn’t have just winged him.

This woman is great and is reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan. She has good intellect, she ain’t from Washington DC and that wicked crowd and she knows how to communicate with Americans.

How great it would be to have her around to annoy the liberal media for the next eight years.

While Americans wonder what kind of gamble our leaders will make with our tax money over the mortgage meltdown which caused the Wall Street crisis, and the two political parties trade barbs over who is responsible, Maryland has another gamble on the table. It’s called a referendum on slot machines on the November 4th election ballot.

Southern Maryland has a long and sordid history with slot machines, with the events of the last year more proof of the hypocrisy, graft and greed associated with the infernal devices.

We had the spectacle of slot machine whores such as Walden Sierra and the Little Flower School ignoring the horrible addiction, crime and underage participation in slot machines as they quickly soaked up the crooked money from illegal slot machines. These slot machine operators were not accountable to anyone, no one was in charge or keeping honest records and the whorehouse money went to bribe otherwise honest people into supporting a crooked enterprise.

Under the proposal on the ballot, the slot machines which will be at 5 undisclosed locations, will be under the purview of the legislators, many of whom have proven to be crooks, that we regularly elect to the Maryland General Assembly with the funds supervised by the Maryland Lottery, an agency which has earned a modicum of trust for the efficient way they have been operating.

Corruption was in play in the sixties as Senators around the State accepted bribes for voting to allow slot machines to stay in the four Southern Maryland counties which had them legally since a law was passed in 1947 establishing the slot business.

Slots were king in those days and most families have legendary tales of how much trouble and consternation they were in those days.

Now we have the experience of 37 states around the nation which have allowed slot machines and almost all of it is bad. The casinos allow minors to gamble, become addicted to gambling which leads to young people committing all manner of crimes to support their new addiction, as if drugs weren’t enough.

Consider that Walden was taking illegal slot machine money at the same time they were running gambling addiction counseling. Someone in that joint has their head where the sun doesn’t shine.

But lets consider more good points about slot machines. The casinos which host them are targets for organized crime organizing labor unions, strong-arming contracts for services and setting up new operations for their illegal narcotics. This is full-time sin business, from start to finish and the mob is not a nice group of people to have come to town. They make our homegrown hoodlums look like a Sunday school class.

Folks supporting slot machines now include the firefighters, cops and teachers of Maryland. One cannot blame them for their support of O’Malley’s proposal which passed the General Assembly last year. After all, they were told that if they didn’t want to have their jobs cut they better get on board and support slots.

The taxpayers have been promised that taxes will go up if slots don’t pass.

The rational for supporting slots is that West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware all have them and Marylanders take their money and go to those places and play and the revenue all goes out of Maryland, taxes being paid to those other states which could go here.

Underlying all of this is the inability of Maryland government to control spending. This is a welfare state of the first order where Baltimore City is a cesspool of crime, fueled by drugs and corruption and everyone is entitled to a check without working very hard, if at all.

Contracts for roads, public works and even to plant oysters in the Bay are padded with corruption, if it moves, breathes or has a pulse in Maryland, corruption is flowing through its veins.

It takes a lot of money to pay lazy and entitled people to not work to give them housing they did not earn, to buy them food and clothing and give them free medical care and to pay teachers to babysit them in the schools, for cops to herd them on the streets and for firefighters to put out the arson fires they set. But the Democratic Party in Maryland prospers from the many votes that this entitled class have available, thus more money is needed even if involves getting in bed with the Devil to ante up another bet.

Vote for slot machines in Maryland, it really couldn’t get any worse.

Health officials: what is the reason for

bullying farmers over eggs?

 

When more than fifty persons were sickened by a food-borne illness at a chain restaurant in Lexington Park in 1993, it took the St. Mary’s Health Department more than two months to finally close the popular eating establishment.

The cause of the outbreak at the restaurant was finally blamed on salmonella spread by eggs, the handling of eggs and the failure to fully cook the eggs. The eggs were delivered to the chain restaurant by a leading restaurant supply house on refrigerated trucks and placed in a walk-in refrigerator, in the Health Department approved and licensed facility on Rt. 235.

First, when the initial reports came to ST. MARY’S TODAY about the sick customers, the Health Department told us they were doing everything by the book and had the situation under control. They may have been operating by the book but they didn’t have it under control. Dozens more people became sick and only after the restaurant was shut down did the news of the outbreak become published.

Cooperating with the health department only assured that more people got sick and the next time we learned of a outbreak, this time at the Outback located on Rt. 301 in Waldorf, we reported the story even though the restaurant lied about their customers being given Hepatitis. Dozens of their customers were infected by a food prep person who failed to wash his hands after taking a bowel movement.

Another such outbreak occurred in St. Mary’s and in Solomon’s with the three restaurants which were involved all closing up or being sold after customers stayed away in droves.

Depending on the management of restaurants to supervise their help in safe food handling and sanitary practices is not easy for operators given the level of desire of some of their staff to listen to any instructions on any matter.

But in the past few weeks the Health Department, which demonstrated to the public that their strict supervision of egg handling at a chain operation in Lexington Park only allowed even more people to become sick after refrigerated eggs passed on deadly germs, has struck out on new turf.

Now the Health officials have gone after the egg merchants among the Amish and Mennonite roadside stands. Where farmers have had their fresh eggs in cartoons available on counters, kept cool in the shade but not refrigerated, kept that way for decades, at one stand, the same way for 48 years, they now have to keep their eggs in a refrigerator.

In addition to the eggs being sent to the Frigidaire, which is likely an antique, new standards are being set up by the geniuses in Annapolis of the O’Malley Administration to cover how the local food purveyors make home-made relishes.

In the case of the Outback Outbreak of hepatitis, the state health department did everything they could to prevent the name of the restaurant from being confirmed and thereby their customers to be warned that they could be attributing symptoms of a deadly disease to the standard flu. The officials kept this information from the public, made no announcement and only after we broke the news, did they finally admit that the workers had been also working at other locations in the area.

But while these officials wither from their duties when it comes to big national chains, they intimidate, bully and push around simple farmers and their wives who bake bread, make cookies and raised hens for fresh eggs.

Has there been any incidents of illness from eggs being kept on the counter in St. Mary’s County? We asked and never heard from the health department.

We know that more than 600 people got sick from improper cooking and handling of stuffed hams at a church supper in Chaptico and the health department did a fine job of defining the problem and training folks on how to prevent the disaster from taking place again.

But as for relish and eggs, where is the problem? Will the farmers have to keep their hens under refrigeration too?

If the health department can’t keep people safe from refrigerated eggs in the chain restaurant on Rt. 235 in Lexington Park, why are the picking on the local farmers?

Two Black Boys Became Very Different Black Men

The story of the long effort of the newly minted nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States runs parallel in time but different in direction with that of a young black man in St. Mary’s County, a man who is but 5 years younger than the candidate who is but one election away from returning to the U. S. Senate next January or taking the oath of office as President.

Barak Obama worked long and hard growing up and into adulthood to get an education, earn a living and expand his network of contacts to take advantage of an eagerness for inclusion for young blacks at Harvard and turn it into a springboard into civic action and politics in Chicago.

His fate took a turn to legislative service in Illinois and election to the U. S. Senate in 2004.

In contrast to this sharp minded and lean father of two who may become president, is the story of Wendell Ford, who also was given a free public education and had every opportunity to achieve and live the American Dream.

But for Ford, who grew up with the same temptations of drugs and street action as did Obama, it was easier to make money off of selling cocaine than it was to read books, take tests and learn. Ford did learn, he learned the lessons of being a community organizer, just like Obama did in Chicago. On the mean streets of Lexington Park, Ford organized street corner drug dealers to take his product and turn it for a profit, selling cocaine to white folks who would drive through the hood, make a buy and go back to their nice homes and jobs.

While Obama learned how to get housing and job opportunities for the out-of-work and unemployed, Ford only worried about his own housing and profit opportunities.

Both of these young men are black and yet their attitudes reflect on America in starkly different ways. Ford’s parents worked hard and he was an only child and never suffered for new shoes or good clothes. He was dragged to church and told to do his homework.

But for Ford, the temptation to organize a cocaine cartel in St. Mary’s County, to import his product from sources in New Jersey, North Carolina and other locations showed that he had the skills to be a businessman of the first degree. Indeed, Ford was able to become an investor in real estate and bought and sold cars and with his wife ran a successful small business.

But the temptation for quick money and to enrich himself illegally while contributing to the deterioration of the community by spreading more narcotics was too much for Ford.

This newspaper took the side of Ford when police officers broke the law and stole from police property storage areas, property of Ford which had been secured by a court order. This newspaper requested the State Prosecutor to investigate and the assistant to then Sheriff Richard Voorhaar was suspended and eventually retired at full pay in order to keep from being fired. Others involved escaped punishment for their actions in the Loot Scandal.

But actions of Ford in operating a drug ring were uncovered and provided to investigators and finally Ford was convicted and is now serving time in prison.

With all of Ford’s intellect, skills and ability, he could easily be a Maryland example of the life of Barack Obama. But Ford was not discriminated against, he did not lack opportunity or guidance from his parents. He simply lacked the will to work hard, to be honest and to have pride in himself. He will have plenty of time to reflect on his decisions.

Whether or not one agrees with Sen. Obama or intends to vote for him, all of us have to take pride in his achievements and hope that he can be the role model for young boys of all races in Southern Maryland instead of Ford.

This fall we will have an election to determine who will be our representative in Congress for another two years and who will be the President for four years.

There is no contest that Steny Hoyer should be re-elected. Congressman Hoyer is about as clean-cut a choice for Congress as is possible. That his GOP opponent should step up to the plate to offer voters a choice is commendable but the idea that we should toss out an experienced veteran of Congress to replace him with a local school board member borders on the absurd.

The chance to replace Hoyer with Collins Bailey of Charles County is an opportunity that should be put alongside intentionally getting stomach flu or poison ivy and makes about as much sense as voting for Sen. Obama.

The comparison between the two elections is clear.

Sen. John McCain had the guts to take an unpopular position on the Iraq War, one which even this newspaper said was silly, and supported the surge of troops in Iraq, which at this writing has worked. Obama won’t say it worked and all he can do is try to find a path to defeat when what we need is for there to be victory over the terrorists, wherever they may be. Bush fooled around in Iraq wasting money and lives but finally listened to McCain on how to win and did.

Steny Hoyer and John McCain are more alike than they may realize, and for the voters of the Southern Maryland region, they are the leaders most likely to be able to work towards solutions and put aside the rhetoric of the right or the left.

Steny Hoyer has done a masterful job of representing this area in Congress and he should be given another two-year term.

With a weak Governor in Annapolis, we need the power and pull of a skilled legislative leader more than ever, especially in bringing commuter rail to this region and following up with funding for a new bridge over the Patuxent River.

Steny Hoyer has been bringing home the bacon to the defense installations at Pax River, Indian Head and St. Inigoes with key missions vital to our nation’s defense being developed and tested, providing employment for thousands of area residents.

Hoyer has proven himself and is more likely to be part of solutions to our nation’s economic problems, diverting our use of foreign oil to domestic energy and keeping our enemies in check.

At this point, it is clear that the choice between a Marxist like Obama or an independent thinker like McCain is an easy one to make. McCain is right on far more issues than Obama and, by the way, who ever heard of Obama just two years ago. The last time we hired a dark horse for the job of president we ended up with Jimmy Carter who was the worst president we have ever had.

Obama is a politically correct choice for people who ignore his elitist and arrogant views, bestow great gifts upon his intellect that experience does not reveal is justified and are entranced with his skin color. These are just bad reasons to pick a president.

Our readers are encouraged to support the re-election of Congressman Steny Hoyer and to vote for John McCain for president.

Every four years the voters of St. Mary’s County thoroughly enjoy the process of kicking the tires of the politicians and selecting a set of five to be county commissioners. Some, such as John K. Parlett, think that the county needs a ‘benevolent dictator’ to run the county. Others, such as Parlett’s developer buddies manipulate, arrange and finagle to elect those who will play the games of government in their favor, passing out zoning rules, approving sewer lines in key places to give value to their land and rearrange the number of classrooms in the county to allow development where they want it to be and to hell with the rules.

But each time the voters select the board of commissioners, the good old boys go to work to line up their votes.

It was kind of tough for the powers that be to manipulate the 1994 Board of Republicans as that bunch of yahoos really had no idea how to get to Leonardtown much less how to run the county government. But they were quick learners and the only half-way dependable votes for the good old boys were Babs and Crazy Paul. Even Francie Eagan, with her being appointed to the board of directors of the old 1st National Bank still had enough of the 9-5 working stiff in her to be skeptical of back room dealing.

The 1998 Randall Board was easy prey for the good old boys as Joe Anderson and Shelby Guazzo were happy to cut deals in the back room with the boys and then march out with their goody too shoes gold stars and play the role of public officials. Randall was a curious soul but Mattingly and Raley were and are more than happy to play lets make a deal.

The McKay board was a concoction of Tommy’s soulless sense of adventure as proven by his lies over his faked diploma and trying to blame the whole affair on a county secretary. McKay’s sordid back room deals on the Hackerman site, which would have taken state forest land and turned it into homes without any public purview or legislative review was a load of laughs. McKay’s stewardship of county government seemed to be right out of a Long Hot Summer and anyone that can keep up with the tracks of bedroom jaunting needs a yellow legal pad and a whole pack of pencils in order to keep score. Senator John Edwards could learn a little in Leonardtown. But that’s what most of us like about the land of pleasant living. Its never boring.

The Jackie Russell Board is proving the most ridiculous. When the nation’s economy stalled and people are suffering the most, this board raised taxes. Except for Larry Jarboe, the lone authentic Republican. Kenny Dement, who is about ready to be thrown out of the GOP, only changed his party label in 2002 because he couldn’t win an election as a Democrat. Russell is a clever guy, hiding behind an exterior of a waterman. But anyone who knows a waterman knows that they are anything but dumb. There are no more crafty critters around than a guy who can fish, crab and oyster and make a living at it.

Russell ran for office by being opposed to development and once elected has sold his vote to developers and performed the most suspect votes yet on the St. Andrews Road expansion of the Lexington Park Development District and the St. George’s Peninsula vote which will have the ultimate effect of expanding the Piney Point sewer line to being wide open for anyone along Rt. 249. What a clever guy. He got the anti-growth votes to win election and then sold out to the developers.

This past spring the St. Mary’s Board voted to pass a text amendment to allow those who have older trailers and double wide homes to upgrade their homes. This came about due to the plight of Ms. Marguerite Barnes and others who need to have homes that they can afford. Ms. Barnes went on bended knee to the jerks on the Board of Appeals and she paid $600 to ask for a variance. They told her too bad.

The St. Mary’s Commissioners changed the law to let Ms. Barnes and others be able to upgrade their homes. She asked not for a handout but for government to simply get out of the way. A builder last year put up a half million house across the street from her 1960s single wide trailer and her new home she wanted was just about one room too big to fit the law. Now the law fits her new home, at least the home she wants.

The law was changed last April but in spite of the fact that Ms. Barnes had an application in to be able to upgrade her home, no one in the county’s land use department bothered to call her. One had better believe that Director Denis Canavan has John K. Parlett and Sonny Burch on speed dial. But Marquerite Barnes was never called to tell her to come get her permit.

Commissioners Raley and Jarboe who promoted the change in the law were shocked but sadly, not surprised to learn from this newspaper that the Land Use office never told Ms. Barnes the good news. Now will these arrogant twits who run the county’s land use office let this nice little old lady in her seventies, that still works for a living, know that she can get her dream house? Lets hope so.

This past week the Congress of the United States, by orders of the Democratic majority, of which our own Congressman Steny Hoyer is the leader, went on vacation for five weeks instead of staying in Washington to face a vote on drilling on the continental shelf offshore.

The Chinese are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and only 40 miles from our shores while the Democrats in Congress refuse to allow American oil companies to drill.

The Members of Congress make you pay for their gas, so does Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. The Democrats just give you the bill while your eyes spin when you fill up your tank.

There are hard-working people skipping lunch in order to put gas in their tanks and their electric bills get higher all the time. God only knows how people are going to pay their heating bills this winter. Last winter had many folks shivering under layers of blankets in an attempt to keep warm and it wasn’t even a typical cold winter.

Where do members of Congress go on summer vacation?

They go to dozens of countries around the world on fact finding trips. Those junkets use even more fuel for government airplanes and government vehicles to drive them around once they land.

Back here in Maryland, local officials stream to the beach each August, at the Maryland Association of Counties convention. These elected and appointed officials will give the taxpayers the bill for their frolicking at the beach. They will attend countless crab feasts, cocktail parties and golf outings and to put on a good front, they will sit around in their beach clothes at about an hour long panel discussion on some new way to run local government. Just ask Tommy Mattingly. He seriously goes to this beach party every year and has been doing so since 1999. He ought to have it memorized. Doesn’t he have any sense of conscience over billing the taxpayers for his vacation? The tab for Tommy Mattingly to go to MACO’s beach bash, to stay in a oceanfront luxury suite and you’d better believe he makes you pay for his gas, usually runs about $1,200 for a four day stay. Commissioner Jackie Russell usually tags along so he can find some new way to say ‘arster’. Raley, Jarboe and Dement usually don’t go and when Jarboe did go one year he camped out in a tent and had his photo taken playing a guitar at the campground while his fellow commissioners stayed at the grand hotel.

Has Governor Martin O’Malley filled up, at his own expense, a gas tank one time since becoming governor? We might guess that he hasn’t, but he did turn down a wind turbine farm on top of a Western Maryland farm in a state forest, perhaps because he didn’t want to disturb any moonshiners or bears.

How about Senators Mikulski and Cardin. Do they pay for their own gas? No, they get an expense account, which they vote for themselves, and you pay the bill. They just don’t know what the hell they are talking about when they say they won’t allow any offshore drilling.

The Republicans are about as inept as the Democrats but at least they want to drill for oil.

This nation needs to drill even if it is in the middle of the National Mall, Penny Beasley says she has oil at Budds Creek and we ought to drill there too. We have a nuclear power plant site on the Chesapeake Bay at the Elms Property and it was bought over 30 years ago for the explicit purpose of avoiding the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome and is authorized for a nuclear power plant site. We ought to build a nuclear plant at the Elms property and put real restrictions on the emissions from the Chalk Point and Morgantown power plants which are contaminating our rivers and lakes with mercury.

The St. Mary’s County Commissioners can lead the way to energy independence by authorizing a property tax credit of $1,000 for every homeowner to erect a wind turbine on their property, on farms, on piers, on rooftops and they ought to pass such an authorization without ‘studying’ the issue for any longer than 3 months.

The Ragheads overseas sitting on the oil aren’t really the enemy. It is us. And the Democrats are really full of crap.

The Democrats hollow refrain of ‘we can’t drill our way out of this energy crisis’ shows the real danger of continuing to elect Democrats.

The left-wing loonies who have taken over the Democratic Party are about as an elitist bunch of no-nothing snobs as can exist in this land and about the only more dangerous folks to walk on two legs were the old Communists.

Governor Martin O’Malley, who was elected with such promise, has shown himself incapable of keeping his promises to bring commuter rail to Southern Maryland.

His hypocrisy on energy is pathetic.

O’Malley recently refused to approve a turbine wind farm on top of mountains in state forestland in Western Maryland where the only folks around are a bunch of moon-shining hillbillies chasing bears and deer through the woods.

But O’Malley supports wind turbine farms in the ocean off of Delaware. Actually, the wind turbines belong in both places and if anyone is offended by the giant windmills on the horizon, they can damn well turn their blasted heads and look in another direction.

While the idiots in Congress are driveling on about not drilling, the Chinese, the Canadians, the Russians and every other nation is drilling to beat the band.

But the liberal left-wing Democrats are raising taxes on the one hand and on the other are telling folks they have to pay far more for gas and heat this year than they did last year.

The people couldn’t afford their energy bills last year and they can’t afford to pay any more now.

There are people now who cannot afford lunch when they go to work because their lunch money has gone into their gas tanks. People are hurting and hurting bad. Good, productive people are hurting.

The leftwing enviro-whackos say that folks need to conserve, they need to get used to paying more because other countries pay more, and they can get smaller cars.

Who in the hell is going to buy a smaller car for these folks who can’t afford their gas, their groceries which have soared in cost and their utility bills. Who is going to buy their old trucks and SUVs, who is going to finance all this "adjustment" to the new realities of energy?

Obama is nothing but O’Baloney.

That’s the trouble with no-it-all liberals, they always know what to do with other people’s money when what they ought to do is keep their hands in their own pockets. The liberals always say no to nuclear, no to oil drilling, no to wind turbines, no to anything but yes to taxes.

The damned liberals of Maryland have raised the taxes to unprecedented levels and failed to make any significant cuts in the social welfare spending, the wasteful spending and the lavish perks’ spread across the bureaucracy.

They take your tax dollars and spread it out among millionaires in the form of agricultural preservation funds, giving as much as $4 million to Dr. Norton Dodge and $1.9 million to John K. Parlett’s family in Mechanicsville, and to the King of Junk, Walter Meinhart. These guys aren’t real farmers, they are the landed gentry and they were never going to ‘develop’ their land and even if they had, the critical area laws would have put major restrictions on what could have been developed. They didn’t need to bilk the taxpayers for a fortune.

This was just another fraud perpetrated by the wealthy and the left-wing to lay off another boondoggle on the taxpayers and stick the little guy with the bill.

Until this newspaper revealed the story about the ag preservation funds misuse, the St. Mary’s Commissioners were prepared to levy yet another $40 tax on every household to replenish this fund so more millionaires could prosper.

The upper crust always comes out on top because they are smart, have money for big time lawyers and have a lot of time to sit around to conjure up more ways to screw the middle class.

The non-working population provides the votes to the liberals and the productive folks get stuck with the bill for all the rest.

Now the Democrats want to put the screws to the middle class even more, making them pay more for utilities to heat their homes, more for gas to go to work, more taxes too.

The three Democrats and Dement on the St. Mary’s Commissioner board raised your taxes thru the roof, with only Republican Larry Jarboe voting no.

Its about time for all those who work for a living to tell the Democratic Party to go straight to hell, and if they are leaving from a jump-off point in Southern Maryland, they won’t be able to take the train to get there.

Congressman Steny Hoyer said this week that he gets the message loud and clear and he favors drilling and he said he will work hard to put trains on our tracks. Hoyer needs to know we are all running out of time and money. It’s high time he gets the job done.

For many, many years, violent juveniles have been cast back into the community instead of being sent to be incarcerated pending disposition by the juvenile court. This past week, a violent gang of thugs, at least two of them, there is one still at large and his age is unknown, were caught and quickly released.

It is quite understandable for kids who shoplift or commit petty acts to be dealt with leniently by the courts and hopefully given a chance to straighten up and fly right.

But for vicious heathens who attack a couple leaving a movie theatre, rob them and beat them with brass knuckles there can only be one answer: prison.

Bail is set by a judge for adults based on the severity of the crime of the accused and the likelihood that the person will appear for trial.

Maryland’s weird laws for juveniles assures the public of two things: that there is no protection for the public from violent juvenile offenders and that these punks will quickly be set free in order to prey on more victims.

The criminal underclass in this area is hard core, especially the infestation of cockroaches which has set in at the Missouri Ave. townhouses in Lexington Park. The drug dealing, shootings, stabbings and other criminal activity in this cesspool shows that this is the shallow end of the gene pool and there is little that this crew is not capable of, except of course, becoming productive members of society. Terminex appears to be the most viable solution for these varmints.

The St. Mary’s Commissioners and their public policy to approve any proposal for townhouses by developers in the past ten years has led to an explosion of section 8 housing filled by arriving scum from Prince George’s County. These hardened elements have become big problems in the school system and are derived from a very dangerous part of the worst elements of society, very different from the indigenous population.

This past week saw several incidents of gang actions at Missouri Ave., violence between bums in the Hobo City in the woods in Lexington Park, the Movie Theatre Attack in Lexington Park and a fatal outcome to a broad daylight robbery in Leonardtown.

At least when the police capture violent criminals, even if they are juveniles, there should be high standards set for release, not simply setting them loose.

State bureaucrats working in the juvenile services must be identified, be held accountable to the public for their actions and made to feel as uncomfortable as the general public for letting violent offenders free.

With St. Mary’s Circuit Court Judge Karen Abrams recent action in allowing a convicted sex offender to be given work release, where he once again molested a little girl, one has to wonder, what in the world was in the Judge’s mind. This Judge has no children of her own, she never went through the years of nurturing a child and learning how precious they are, perhaps this lack of real world experience causes her to be so goofy.

Maryland has been the playground of liberal Democrats for so long that there is little resemblance of the place this used to be prior to the takeover of these nitwits.

The Maryland General Assembly is rife with corruption, left-wing socialists and morons.

There is little hope for any sanity to ever prevail. Since that group of twits write the laws of the state, there is little hope that laws can be changed to shift protection to the victim.

Roberta Roper worked for at least 15 years to bring about rights for crime victims and had to fight the liberal yahoos every step of the way.

Her daughter was kidnapped in Brandywine and brought to St. Mary’s County by two young thugs who tortured, raped and murdered her in the woods near Sandgates.

Why is it that the liberals never care about the rights of the average citizen, never oppose raising taxes and always want to reduce the civil liberties of the public while giving away the farm to illegal aliens and coddling violent criminals?

Who do the liberals really care about the most? Not you.

Fire companies need greater scrutiny as

day rapidly approaches of paid firefighters

The volunteer service in Southern Maryland has been a proud tradition which is about ready to go the way of raising tobacco. Like tobacco, the days and ways of fighting fires have to adjust to the realities of today.

Young people no longer desire to volunteer in any meaningful way as firefighters while the same skills that they use in fighting fires as a volunteer can earn them a good living by driving to the metro area where career jobs are available.

The old time tradition of volunteering to help your community, which has carried the American Legion, the Optimists and the Lions, along with the volunteer fire departments, is suffering a serious decline due to many factors.

The old stalwarts of the fire companies are dying off and the newer generations have more complicated lives than their parents and grandparents and many of them are simply spoiled and don’t want to give as much as their families have in the past. The newer residents of the area come from other parts of the country where paid departments exist and the new residents don’t bother to lift a finger to help in their communities, they fail to support their fire companies raise money and their lives revolve only around schools and forget that the other aspects of life in Southern Maryland are important too.

Recently St. Mary’s County, for the first time in the history of the Advanced Life Support medic teams, had to hire paid medics in order to fill the needs of the community.

Charles is paying for rescue squad coverage and it won’t be long before a hybrid system of combining paid daytime firefighters and rescue squads are prevalent in all three counties.

Each of the counties are doing good things, some in different ways. But more accountability for how tax money is spent by these volunteer fire departments is called for along with scrutiny of the conduct of fire fighters.

Bay District needs live-in firefighters and as part of the deal the young firefighters don’t have to pay rent, they are given a free place to stay but taxpayers shouldn’t have to pick up the tab to have a maid service come in to clean the dormitory area for the firefighters, they should be able to clean up themselves.

Bel Alton shouldn’t allow firefighters to bring in underage girls to be passed around as party favors as lawsuits filed by parents might end up snagging the taxpayers.

It is expected that spirited activities by the younger members of the fire departments would be challenging from time to time and this is something that many local fire and rescue companies have to deal with.

St. Leonard and Waldorf both wrecked $750,000 heavy squad units on the same day recently. Both toppled due to the drivers going too fast and both were severely damaged. Hot rod drivers should go to Budds Creek on Friday nights and should not be behind the wheel of expensive fire and rescue equipment.

The politicians are shirking their jobs of providing oversight due to not wanting to risk the ire of the firefighters and the firefighters aren’t shy about boasting of their political power.

Some elected officials are shunned due to daring to stand up to boisterous bullies of Bay District and a recent turn down of a fire tax for a St. Mary’s County company came after the failure of the company to have complete plans on how they would spend a requested tax increase.

New buildings are built when they aren’t needed. The Golden Beach firehouse is an example where the Mechanicsville company has a hard time staffing it. Bay District spent the money on a new firehouse only because the money was there and over the years the fire tax should have been lowered, not raised.

But the chief trouble is for rescue where worn out volunteers are tested all the time by ever rising calls for service and fewer folks willing to give of their time.

The public truly understands that the Heroes of the fire and rescue service do a good job and are appreciated but they are not sacred cows. As the day approaches that this area needs to switch over to paid fire and rescue new controls and new self-control needs to be instituted.

St. Mary’s County last week had the Board of Commissioners put its stamp of final approval on the huge tax hike which was set up by last winter’s increase on property assessments. The St. Mary’s Board of Commissioners could have lowered the tax rate to negate the tax hike but the three Democrats on the board, along with Republican in name only, Kenny Dement, said no to keeping the tax rate level and instead boosted taxes by $14.5 million.

The Board lowered the rate of the energy tax, a tax which hits the poor the worst, and just took a small swipe out of it instead of eliminating it altogether.

But the Board kept up spending on dozens of non-essential items such as improvements in areas such as the Three Notch Trail, Chancellors Run Park, Piney Point Lighthouse, Tennis Courts, more spending in the Lexington Park old downtown, Streetscape project on Great Mills Road and building a farmers market area for farmers in the south end of St. Mary’s County.

When the county is facing severe economic downturn is the very time to reexamine the spending of the county government.

What St. Mary’s County did this year was to make a lot of noise, blow a lot of smoke and prop up mirrors all around to make it look like they were doing something. Dan Raley’s bellowing about the bad economy and then his motion to spend more money minutes later was a charade of which P T. Barnum would have been proud as Raley clearly demonstrates that he believes that the citizens are suckers to believe his baloney.

Tommy Mattingly’s statement that the economy in the county is in pretty good shape shows he is simply a fool. He is too smart a guy to think that the public believes the economy is in ‘pretty good shape’, here or nationally.

Kenny Dement’s act as a commissioner last week was an embarrassment. He voted in favor of the new budget and his only objection was that it didn’t spend enough money. It is time for Kenny to retire.

Jackie Russell sat on his hands and voted along with Raley and Mattingly to spend more money than is needed, failing to make significant cuts in a bloated bureaucracy and doled out tax dollars to non-profit, non-government groups. Worse yet, the Three Musketeers banded together with Dement and added new county employees at a time at which we likely will see county employees laid off next year.

This was the year to start making cuts in spending in order to be better prepared for next year and Dan Raley should have stepped up to the plate to provide the leadership but he didn’t. He gave in to the left wing losers of the Democratic Party and ignored all he ever learned about running a business, which is what he always said was what he brought to the Board, his experience. Dan Raley blew it in a big way.

Next year, with a continually eroding and diminishing economy, revenues will be down dramatically and the only way to balance the budget will be to fire county employees.

Those who lose their jobs can think about how Dan Raley passed out tax money to the St. Mary’s River Concert Series, to the Three Oaks Center, to pay for the salary of the Lexington Park development director who can’t manage to accomplish anything in Lexington Park, to Walden Center to bring clients for the county facility from Prince Georges County and the Baltimore area and finance the activities of the agency with the tax dollars of St. Mary’s County taxpayers.

More money comes from the county treasury to pay for the St. Mary’s Airport while the county hands over half the rent taken in from the place to the operator instead of collecting the rent. St. Mary’s County continues to run the airport as a yacht club for the aeronautically inclined and in spite of building a $4 million terminal, still fails to have any scheduled flights.

While gasoline prices go through the roof, the county still allows dozens of non-essential county employees to take vehicles home. In Public Works there are two dozen, when about 4 or 5 should be using tax-payer provided vehicles.

The Sheriff’s Department should immediately start charging for gas for cruisers when filled up when officers are not working. That would be the best way to limit officers sitting for hours while working off duty at private security jobs and leaving their engines running.

Only Commissioner Larry Jarboe took his responsibility seriously and voted to lower the tax rate to make up for the obscene hike in the assessment.

For Dement and the three Democrats, this year’s budget process was a cruel joke on the taxpayers and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The county employees who will get the axe next year should remember that when this board had a chance to save money and cut spending, only Larry Jarboe was front and center.

Two years ago Governor Martin O’Malley, while campaigning for office, appeared with Congressman Hoyer, Senators Mac Middleton and Roy Dyson, and Delegates John Bohanan and Sally Jameson, and stood in the middle of the CSX railroad tracks in Waldorf to demonstrate his support of bringing commuter rail to Southern Maryland.

Maryland has the MARC train system, its nothing new, and it serves most of the state, in fact, all of the state except the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland.

The clodhoppers O’Malley appointed to run his Department of Transportation now want to run the MARC trains into Virginia, which is likely a good idea and a good use of trains that now end in Washington’s Union Station, another 5 miles and Maryland commuters could go by rail to Alexandria. MARC trains already start each day in Martinsburg, West Virginia and makes several stops in that state before entering Maryland and winding down through the state to D.C. MARC trains should connect to Delaware.

But how about Governor O’Malley keeping his pledge to bring commuter rail to Southern Maryland?

We already have CSX tracks and they are surely strong tracks indeed, as they carry the heavy loads of coal each day to the Morgantown Pepco (Mirant) Generating Plant on the Potomac River.

The railroad wants indemnification and double tracking and Maryland can accomplish these requirements but it takes state transporatation officials who understand railroads, understand $4 a gallon gas (those who have the taxpayers pick up their own tab for gas can’t understand this issue) and are smart enough to realize that the issue isn’t about generating growth for the region, but managing what is already here.

Making the rail link for Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert via the CSX tracks which lead from Morgantown, up through Newburg, La Plata, White Plains, Waldorf, Pinefield, Brandywine, Croom, Upper Marlboro and connecting at Bowie to the main line of Amtrak and MARC and shuttle buses to Metro would connect thousands of motorists with their destinations and lessen the use of gasoline by having these commuters parking at the stations instead of spending their time on our traffic arteries.

The tracks and rail system is in place, surplus locomotives and passenger cars are available. All it takes is some brainpower in Annapolis. The Republicans couldn’t do it and the Democrats said they could, now its time to put some trains on the track or we will know all we got was yet another lame promise from a politician only concerned with Baltimore.