I like having divided government in Maryland. For the last eight years it restrained the Democrats who perennially control both the House of Delegates and the Senate from relentlessly raising taxes unchecked and launching new programs for every wild do-good idea that someone in PG or Montgomery County pitches to them. Those moderating tendencies are also what kept the whackjob MAGA wing of the Republican Party from taking over the state and installing a treason apologist in the governor’s office.
But here we are now with the Democratic Party controlling both houses of the General Assembly and the governor’s office. It feels like a sure bet that it’ll once again be the season to tax everything under the sun – up to and including the rain that falls upon our golden shores. Those revenues will inevitably flow towards the urbanized counties while western and southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore will be politely told to sit down, shut up, and keep our checkbooks out.
I agree with almost none of Wes Moore’s political philosophy. From taxation, to guns, to his “social justice” initiatives, our new governor will be carefully calibrated to hit all of the Democratic Party’s sweet spots. That’s a strong departure from former Governor Hogan, who regularly annoyed the extreme right wing of his own party while holding moderate policy positions across his tenure in office.
On his inauguration as 63rd Governor of Maryland (not inclusive of our great and illustrious proprietary and royal governors prior to 1776), I wish Mr. Moore joy of the day. I hope he leaves the state better when his term ends than it was when he found it… but I suspect what we’ll see is a growing tax burden, excessive and onerous legislation and regulation, and governmental policy designed more around making people feel good than achieving any objective real world goals.
Tag Archives: democratic party
Arizona independent…
I mean you’re not really surprised Krysten Sinema has left the Democratic Party, are you? Over the last two years, Sinema, along with Joe Manchin, built themselves into the powerbrokers of the Senate. That’s easy enough to do when you’re one of two critical votes giving the Democrats majority control. With the just finished election in Georgia giving the Democrats a true Senate majority, Sinema’s departure was the only real way to prop up her status as a Senate dealmaker or deal breaker in the next Congress.
I haven’t read any opinion pieces on it – and probably won’t at this point. Sure, it’s a blatantly self-serving tactic to preserve her power and influence, but that’s just politics. Democratic leaders in the Senate will still need to court her vote and give her voice an outsized hearing in the great debates to come. If anything, they’ll need to be even more solicitous as long as she keeps at least one foot outside the big tent of the Democratic Party.
I don’t expect a newly Independent Krysten Sinema changes all that much. It’s not as if she’s going to start suddenly voting in bloc with the Treason Wing of the Republican Party. She can, though, be a voice of restraint against any serious far left tomfoolery the progressive caucus in the Senate dreams up. Really, it leaves us more or less exactly where we have been – and honestly a Congress that’s busy tying itself in knots and not passing a metric shit ton of unnecessary new laws isn’t the worst thing I can think of at the moment. I mean an actual federal budget would be nice to have, but as long as they can stumble along and get the continuing resolutions passed on time, maybe that government is best that governs least.
A warm bucket of spit…
Let me put the bottom line up front: Regardless of your philosophy, neither the Democratic nor Republican Party are your friend. That couldn’t be any clearer than when, 15 minutes after the Supreme Court announced their decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, both parties had fired off fundraising emails to their every-person-whose-name-ever-ended-up-on-one-of-their-mailing-list lists. To be clear, when the country needed leadership, the response from both parties (and many of our individual politicians) was “Hey, send me $15.”
Republicans have, since 1973, stated often and loudly that their goal of undoing Roe v. Wade. The fact they did it once they had the power to do so shouldn’t be shocking. They’ve literally been saying it to anyone who would listen for 50 years. Over that half a century, though, I can’t remember one single serious effort by the Democratic Party to enshrine a woman’s right to choose or bodily autonomy into law. Instead, they relied on the judgement of the court and used Roe as a never-ending fundraising opportunity.
The Republican Party, stalwart defenders of the Second Amendment, have treated gun rights the same way. Given ample opportunity when controlling the presidency and having majorities in Congress, they inexplicably failed to legislate a national right to carry or even just to refine and expand the law to codify an individual right to self-defense. At every turn, though, Republican politicians have used supporters if the Second Amendment to fill their coffers.
In their own way Roe and the ambiguity of the Second Amendment were the gifts that kept on giving for politicians who never saw a dollar they didn’t want in their own campaign war chest. Maybe I’m too cynical, but it seems to me that our legacy political parties are far more invested in keeping these marquee issues alive as fundraising platforms than in making sure it doesn’t take just five votes to undo one, or all of our rights.
So, I wish everyone would spare me with all the posts about Democrats rallying to defend the right to choose or Republicans defending the right to carry. Neither party is “fighting for our rights.” They’re fighting for their own self-interest. Plenty of individuals who happen to be Democrats are rallying to the cause of some of our rights while ignoring plenty of others. Plenty of individuals who happen to be Republicans are fighting for some rights while likewise ignoring plenty of others.
As for me, I’ll stand where I always have – shoulder to shoulder with anyone who seeks to advance the cause of liberty. I’ll support all the rights, because I don’t want a single one of them ever left to the whims of mere, feckless politicians. Maybe that’s the difference between me and those who cling to their label as “Democrat” or “Republican.” Our rights, all of them, are wealth beyond value… and our legacy political parties increasingly prove that they’re not worth a warm bucket of spit.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Assessments. I made the mistake of opening my property tax assessment on Sunday morning. I was having a perfectly nice day up until that point. Look, I mean it’s great that the county thinks I’ve picked up that much equity over the last three years, but that in no way means I’m happy about throwing more money to the Cecil County executive and council to piss away buying up even more land for regional parks that seem to be accessioned specifically to provide a place for people to go overdose.
2. The new normal. I’m looking forward to getting started on the Biden presidency and the conclusion of the Trump impeachment trial. I, for one, am sick and tired of finding myself siding with things members of the Democratic Party are saying and look forward to getting back to opposing 60-70 % of their policy agenda. I’m tired of living in a world turned upside down.
3. Stats. If this week has taught me anything, it’s that my blog readers either a) don’t want to read about insurrection, politics, and all that or b) the zone is so flooded with posts that things aren’t getting through. Views are more than 50% off where I’d expect them to be in a normal week. This, of course, has been anything but a normal week. I’m going to keep doing what I do, even if it’s just me shouting into the void.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Apologists. Several times this week, I listened to the chattering classes on television solemnly opine that “America is no longer seen as a shining city.’” They’ve been trying to sell that story for so long now that I think they’re starting to believe their own hype. While it’s true that the United States isn’t the Guevaraist paradise they’d seem to like, there are still gobs of people knocking down the door to get here, so they can get the fuck out of here with that fuckery.
2. The popular vote. The national popular vote means exactly nothing when it comes to electing a President of the United States. The “abolish the Electoral College” crowd – including many so-called intellectuals who are certainly smart enough to understand the founder’s logic in removing the election of the nation’s chief magistrate from the hands of a simple majority – is out in force on Twitter this week. They’re joined, increasingly, by a sub-group who want to abolish the concept of having two senators for each state in favor of (if I understand their generally disjointed argument) allocating senators by population in the same way seats in the House of Representatives is allocated. Personally, I like the notion that the power of “the people’s representatives” in the House is checked by the interests of the states in the Senate, that together as a Congress, they check the power of the Executive Branch and the Courts, and that the Court checks the powers of the other two branches. That the machinery of government is complex is a feature, not a flaw. I have far more faith in the operational framework built during the Constitutional Convention than I do in whatever goofy “improvements” the collective brilliance a bunch Twitterers manage to come up with.
3. Pollsters. If we’re going to continue to report pre-election polling, we’re going to have to come up with a way to make the tale they’re telling more than a wild ass guess about what might happen. For months, the favored narrative was of a “blue wave” that would give Joe Biden a legendary victory and carry huge numbers of new Democrats into Congress. As I write this, it’s entirely possible that the former vice president may get his shot at the big chair, but his election doesn’t appear to come with coattails. His party is on track to lose seats in the House and while the Senate remains a toss-up. It’s entirely possible that Democrats will seize all the levers of power, but let’s not pretend it shows some kind of grand national realignment. If it happens, it’s more a blue dribble than a blue wave.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Getting in through the back door. Every time I hear one of the Democratic primary candidates wax philosophical about one of their wealth redistribution schemes by confiding to the camera that “it’s a tax on Wall Street,” I look around and wonder how many people really believe that. My reading on their collective plans is that this chimera of making the “big banks and hedge fund managers” pay is ultimately a tax on every working person who has a retirement account. Your 401k, 403b, IRA, or TSP can’t help but be taxed under these plans, because at heart these accounts are nothing more than fractional shares that get traded on a regular basis to keep the fund balanced… and these funds are the definition of big players in the financial market. The Democratic candidates know they’re going to have to tap into huge sources of capital for their plans. I just wish they had the stones to admit that getting it done is going to require levying this backdoor tax on every man and woman in America who’s bothered to make an effort to save for retirement and not just the guy in charge of running the fund.
2. When you can’t even half ass the work. I worked on three things today. Simultaneously. All were a priority of effort… at least to someone. What that really means, of course, is each of them got exactly the level of effort and attention you’d think they got. Instead of half assed efforts, the very best they could hope for was being third assed. It’s a hell of a way to run a railroad. You’d think after 17 years I’d have started to get use to the idea that most days good enough just has to be good enough. Then again some days don’t even rise to that paltry standard.
3. Facebook memories. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to disable Facebook Memories, because every morning I open the damned app I’m met with the picture of a bulldog doing something alternately ridiculous or endearing. Jorah has done quite a lot in the last six months to patch up the sucking chest wound Winston left behind, but those pictures every morning still catch me directly in the feels. Despite the myriad of issues, vet bills, and costs, I don’t think I’ll ever really get to a place where I don’t miss such a good dog.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Politics in 2019. Someone told me this week that I should be “open minded” and read up on the ten or so leading Democratic primary candidates, suggesting that I might even like what I found there. Hey, I’m all for open mindedness and considering a wide variety of information in my decision making process, but the simple fact remains that as long as whoever is ultimately the Democratic candidate for president is once the primaries shake out is standing on a platform that supports massive tax increases to support “free” stuff for everyone, unchecked creeping socialism, abrogation of the Second Amendment, unchecked illegal immigration, and hollowing out the national defense establishment, there’s just not much in a candidate left for me to get behind. I’m not about to give up one four decades of slightly right of center positions because “orange man bad” is the best argument you’ve presented.
2. Failure to sleep deeply. Over the last few months I’ve gotten attuned to waking up at the first sound of a dog peeing in a crate a few steps away from my bed. It hasn’t been a regular occurrence, but has happened often enough that my brain has apparently gotten attuned to it. Under normal circumstances, I can sleep through a small war taking place in the next room. I have a feeling that this new skill of mine, along with what I can only presume is a much lighter sleep, is directly responsible for my increasing level of what can probably best be described as “hostile lethargy.”
Other than linear thought. I admit it, I’m a linear thinker. I think and express myself best in neatly ordered, structured parts and pieces. It’s the systematic way of doing things. The problems arise when I bang directly up against systems that were not designed – or at least don’t behave in – a linear manner… let us just say for instance, a web-based tracking tool that arbitrarily changed the numbers it assigns to each task it’s tracking, which makes using the basic search function of the site nothing more than a roll of the dice. I’m sure it was a good idea to someone somewhere, but it’s the kind of tinkering that takes an already pretty inelegent system and makes it downright unpleasant.
Jefferson-Jackson Day…
A few weeks ago the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s hosted it’s annual dinner. The only reason anyone outside of New Hampshire payed attention to it is because Alec Baldwin was the keynote speaker and offered up a firebrand soundbite that said in part, “we need to overthrow the government.” I’m utterly indifferent to Alec Baldwin and his speech isn’t what really caught my attention in the article from the Union Leader.
The thing I found interesting was the trouble New Hampshire Democrats seem to have at leaving the “name” of their dinner alone. Once upon a time it was known as the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.” Of course the Democratic Party no longer celebrates Jefferson or Jackson, despite their being lions of the young Democratic Party. In 2016 it became the Kennedy-Clinton Dinner. By 2018 throwing over Jefferson and Jackson for two of the 20th century’s noted philanderer presidents suddenly felt like a bad idea too. So this year they settled on hosting their first annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner. She’s at least a (mostly) non-controversial figure in Democratic circles.
I only note this because I’ve been watching the great upswell over the last several years that tells us we’re supposed to be embarrassed by our history – that we should hide it, hide from it, and only dare speak of it in hushed tones. Well, I suppose Democrats in New Hampshire are free to be embarrassed by whatever ruffles their garters. If men like Jefferson and Jackson are no longer welcome in their pantheon of heroes, they’re surely welcome to find a home in mine.
Strange new world…
This presidential election can’t seem to help itself from turning into a shitshow on the global stage. As if to add an exclamation point to the idea that neither of our two major parties has their act together, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee is being forced to resign due to emails pillaged from a not-nearly-secure-enough server and published online. If I were the candidate of that party, knowing that my own emails are susceptible to the same treatment, my pucker factor would be ratcheting up pretty significantly right now.
I can’t be alone in seeing the grand irony of leaked email being the thing that so bedevils the Democratic Party, can I? Like others, I assumed emails would be the undoing of the candidate instead of the party boss. That may or may not still be true, of course, especially now with rumors rampant that a foreign power was involved in making these specific emails public in an effort to influence an American election.
Each day the world becomes a less certain place. The old rules continue to hold less of a grip. All I know for sure is that it’s a long way to November. I won’t even try to guess what real and fictitious information may come to light between now and then. It’s a strange new world.
Slow News Day or: Here Come the Democrats…
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.
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