Category Archives: Government & Politics

Federal, State, and Local Government… Taxes, Social Programs, and International Affairs.

Exile to Scum Village…

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Setting aside the profound constitutional trouble we’d get into for depriving fellow citizens of several rights without some kind of due process, I think out friends in Holland are on to something. With a few tweaks around the margins I could get on board with Amsterdam’s proposal to round up “nuisance neighbours” and exile them into one location where they wouldn’t trouble neighbors who actually give a damn and where they could be constantly monitored by the police and social services. Admit it, you know you’ve secretly dreamed about having their neighbors hauled off for generally being bad at life as an adult.

Sure, there’s a bit of a problematic history of rounding up undesirables and throwing them in camps far away from polite society, but with a few checks and balances, I’m confident we can figure out a way to keep the system from being too abusive. Add a few claymores, a little concertina wire, and I think we can make folks very comfortable in their new shipping container homes… and if they’re not comfortable, well, at least they’ll be out of earshot so we won’t have to listen to them complaining about it.

General behavior…

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I’m legitimately sorry to see General Petraeus’ departure from the CIA. Whether he’s falling on his sword in a fit of honor, or whether his resignation is cover for something more sinister, remains to be seen. All I know beyond what the media has reported so far is that the United States has lost a tireless servant of the Republic and probably the best example in his generation of what it means to be a warrior scholar. Whatever sins he may or may not have committed in his personal life, we’re all the poorer for his now being on the outside looking in… and for the sake of the country I desperately hope that his resignation is simply a man of honor trying to make amends in the only way he knows how and not the tip of some other, darker iceberg.

Shameless stealing…

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I was going to blog some of my first thoughts about the election results this morning, but between the Natty Boh headache, the rare opportunity to make breakfast on a weekday, and The Belligerent Ginger already beating me to a cogent and thoughtful analysis of the situation, I’m just going to go on the record and say that he’s spot on. Nicely done, sir. I hope you’ll excuse me for shamelessly stealing your work.

Geek out…

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Like more than a few of you, I voted today. The polls are still open for about 90 minutes for many of us here on the East Coast and for a few hours more out west. The early results should start coming in sometime shortly after 7:00… Which means it’s now time to geek out in front of the TV and start prognosticating.

As usually, I’ll try to keep most of my witty banter off Facebook for fear of instigating a flame war on my own page, so if you’re interested in a blow by blow account from the bunker here in Cecil County, make sure you follow me on Twitter: @jdtharp

Stock up on bread and toilet paper, hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife… It’s going to be a long night. Let the games begin.

Bias Much?

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I was working in a FEMA office when the first reports of levees breaking in New Orleans came across the wires. Within minutes it seemed that the federal government was useless and the administration incompetent.

Today, five days after Sandy pummeled the East Coast, residents of New York and New Jersey are in almost exactly the same situation, but the media collectively don’t seem to be pounding the same drum.

I’ve certainly got my own view on why the two stories seem to be getting different treatment. I hope there are plenty of people out there in the blogosphere noticing the same thing. And above all, I hope there are readers from coast to coast wondering why one was the “story of the century” and the other doesn’t seem to be getting much more attention than a few “human interest” stories. It would be farcical if the result wasn’t so damned important.

Do as I do…

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I got my sample ballot in the mail last night and between the fevered runs to the liquor and grocery stores to prepare for the onrushing storm of the millennium, I thought I’d so something a little different this year and admit right our in public exactly how I intend to vote when I step up to the “electronic device”. And yes, I always fill out the sample ballot in advance and take it with me, so I can make sure it jives with the actual ballot and so I don’t have to spend alot of time holding up the line on the big day. I’m a conscientious voter like that.

On the right hand side of the sample ballot, you’ll see a pretty straight party line Republican vote. No surprises there and I think I’ve spent enough time here talking about why my on-again-off-again relationship with the Republican Party is back on this election year. The only gap in my ballot reflect a current lack of knowledge about the Maryland Court of Special Appeals continuance and for the local board of education candidates here in Ceciltucky. I’ll need to get my research on before coming down on those three candidates.

So now it’s down to what everyone is curious about… How Jeff breaks on the seven potential amendments to the state constitution. Not only will I tell you which way I’m going, but I’ll also give you a bit of explanation on my thinking for each one.

Question 1 & 2: No. If a justice of the United States Supreme Court doesn’t have to be a barred lawyer, what on earth makes anyone think that the PG and Baltimore County Orphan’s Court Judges must absolutely be practicing lawyers. There are plenty of smart people in the state who aren’t lawyers and would do fine in those positions and it does not rise to level of requiring an amendment to the state’s foundational document.

Question 3: Yes. If you’re elected to a position in government and are convicted of criminal action, I want you removed from office as quickly and expeditiously as humanly possible (consistant with your due process rights).

Question 4: No. I support in-state tuition rates for legal residents of Maryland. Those in the United States illegally should not be entitled to special discounts at citizen expense.

Question 5: No. The Congressional districts drawn by the state legislature would be a joke if their impact wasn’t so serious. Gerrymandering is wrong regardless of the party that’s doing it. District lines should be as simple as possible and not represent an effort to “carve out” a seat for one part or another.

Question 6: Yes. Straight, gay, animal, vegetable, or mineral, it’s none of my damned business who you want to marry. The government should issue a civil marriage license to any couple who otherwise meet the statutory requirements. Marriage licenses, like any other kind of state permit, are a revenue stream and I’m all for increasing the number being handed out (and the fees being paid).

Question 7: Yes. I can play blackjack in Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Jersey all within a 90 minute drive of where I’m sitting to write this. Maryland has already opened the pandora’s box of gambling, so we might as well go all in… and try to draw some gamblers from Northern Virginia with a fancy new casino at National Harbor.

So there you have it. That’s how the 2012 election is going to look from my place in the cheap seats. And now that I’ve probably offered up something to piss off every friend, colleague, and member of the family, I think I’ll go turn my cell phone off to avoid the commentary that’s pretty much inevitable.

Master debaters…

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Tonight is the last of three scheduled presidential debates in this most important of election years. If you don’t tune in, you’re going to miss out on the two principle candidates for office bashing one another about their respective positions on U.S. foreign policy. If they don’t use up all available time calling one another names and making faces, we might just hear a few words about pressing international issues – Libya, Iran, and how America’s increasing sovereign debt limits our influence in the world jump to mind as items they may touch on over the course of 90 minutes.

If you plan on voting in the presidential election, please tune in at 9:00 PM (EDT) to the station of your choice and follow along. If you don’t plan on voting, or can’t be bothered with learning a little about the candidates or their position, then feel free to tune into to reruns of Honey Boo Boo, Jersey Shore, or Real Housewives for your daily dose of What’s Wrong with America.

This has been an unpaid public service announcement brought to you by http://www.jeffreytharp.com. I’m going to try to keep my snarky commentary off Facebook tonight, so make sure to keep up with @jdtharp on twitter. My name is Jeffrey Tharp and I approved this message.

That’s debatable…

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So the first presidential debate of 2012 is supposed to be held on Wednesday night. I’ll be tuned in for much the same reason that people watch auto racing… in the hope that someone screws up and generates a wreck of historic proportions. Let’s face it, if you’re the kind of person who watches televised presidential debates, there’s a pretty good chance that you already know who’s getting your vote and the best you can hope for is the other guy might just flub a line and commit electoral suicide right there on the stage. It doesn’t happen often when you get to this level, but when they do, watching a presidential candidate self destruct on live television is absolutely something to see… assuming of course that it’s not your candidate who’s doing the imploding.

More than likely nothing that dramatic will happen Wednesday night. At best we might get some zingers and traded barbs. At worst neither of the candidates will stray from the talking points that they spent three days rehearsing before the big show. In that case, the debate is just the nationally televised beauty contest catering to our collective short attention span. They set the bar that low because it’s what we’ve come to expect from our presidential debates… and that’s the pity.

Once upon a time in America, men with big ideas stood toe-to-toe with one another explaining their beliefs and position before asking the people for their vote. They actually talked about an issue based on its relative merits rather than on fine tuned, ready for television sound bites based on what the poling sample said their opinions should be. The problem with debates today is that we go into them expecting Lincoln and Douglas, but we walk away having watched Tom and Jerry.

Inside the margins…

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It feels like it happened back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but there was a time that I was an aspiring political scientist. The research methods class we had to take for the major spent what felt like an inordinate amount of time talking about polling, bias, and sampling error. It didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time and I remember learning that most reputable polls have a margin of error “sweet spot” of +/- 2-4%.

Since I tend to watch and listen to more news than the average Nielson family, I’ve been noticing something slightly disturbing about the polls that both sides are using to claim imminent victory – some of them have a margin of error of +/- 9-12%. That doesn’t seem like a big deal… unless you’re locked in a race where the candidates are consistently within a handful of percentage points of one another. One of the polls I saw Sunday night had the presidential candidates within five percentage points of one another, but had a margin of error of 11%. Sure that was in the fine print and no one is really supposed to pay attention to that kind of thing, but there it was right at the bottom of the chart. 11%. In case you’re having trouble keeping up, just know that 11% allows for a polling error big enough to drive a train through.

So what’s my point? Absolutely nothing, other than with 40-odd days to go this election is way, way too close to call. Well, that and the fact that just because you see something on television doesn’t make it true. Before you decide to accept something the news readers tell you, don’t forget to check their sources and do a little of your own research. You’d be surprised what you can find out without going to too much trouble… and really that’s not too much to expect when we’re electing a leader of the free world.

Slow News Day or: Here Come the Democrats…

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I’m a registered Republican and have been for most of my adult life. By the same token, I’m a Maryland Republican, which loosely translates into belonging to a fairly moderate strain of the party. I suspect that’s largely because the Democrats who perennially control the state house and governor’s mansion tend to subscribe to the west coast definition of what it means to be liberal. The result is a Republican party that tends, largely, to be pretty middle of the road when compared to our red state brethren in someplace like Wyoming. Sure, we have plenty of our own wackadoodle right wing nut jobs too, but they don’t tend to grow quite as thickly around here as they do in other parts of the country.

Usually I don’t think too much about the labels of politics, if only because I don’t find myself fitting nicely into any of them… but with tonight’s kickoff of the Democratic National Convention, I find myself glaring at the television and trying not to give in to the temptation to yell in its direction. To be honest, nominating conventions aren’t for guys like me. We made up our minds back during the primaries. Conventions are about rallying the faithful ahead of the long, hard slog to November. Well, that and maybe, just maybe reaching one or two percent of the undecided voters out there occupying the middle ground.

The only thing I’m going to gain from watching this convention is (re)learning that in a head-to-head comparison, I disagree more with the Democrats than I disagree with the Republicans. I should probably go ahead and switch over to a rerun of Big Bang Theory so my blood pressure doesn’t shoot into the stratosphere at some point this evening.