Bloggers Beware! Big Brother Wants YOU
August 9, 2010 by Cato
Filed under Blogging, National, National Politics
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the blogosphere …
Politicians have egos. Let’s face it, you need a healthy ego to run for public office. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, when politicians conspire with the bureaucracy – and each other- to prevent average citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights, something is WRONG!
To that end, politicians are turning to campaign finance laws to prevent citizen bloggers from criticizing those self same politicians:
Sphere: Related ContentIn Ohio, for instance, Edmund Corsi runs GeaugaConstitutionalCouncil.org, a blog that praises and criticizes various local officials. Well, it turns out that some of those officials don’t like getting criticized. Rather than responding with their own speech, however, those pols got the Geauga Board of Elections to file a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission. They said that Corsi violated Ohio’s campaign finance laws because he failed to register, appoint a treasurer and file regular financial reports with the state before daring to speak.
After some legal wrangling, the Commission now reads the complaint to say that Corsi violated the law by not disclosing his name and home address on the website. But, as the Institute for Justice has repeatedly pointed out, mandatory disclosure laws cause far too many people to remain silent. Thankfully, an Ohio-based public interest law firm has come to Corsi’s defense and asked for these charges to be dismissed.
Is Christine O’Donnell Responsible Enough for the US Senate?
August 4, 2010 by Cato
Filed under Blogging, Delaware, Delaware Politics, Republican Campaigns
It’s my opinion that given a choice between a conservative and a not-so-conservative Republican candidate, you should go with the more conservative candidate. However, as with all things, the devil is in the details and there have to be a few caveats. Is the conservative electable? Are they a conservative in the Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley, Edmund Burke mold, or are they simply an ideologue? Are they responsible enough to hold the office to which they aspire?
Christine O’Donnell seems to be showing that she may not be responsible enough to sit in the US Senate. She certainly has proven herself unworthy of the endorsement of such conservative stalwarts as Mark Levin.
O’Donnell is spreading an unsubstantiated rumor that current Delaware Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) will flip to the dark side if elected – sans ANY evidence. RedState’s Erick Erickson, someone I have always respected, has even jumped on the bandwagon in an embarrassingly vehement way:
If Mike Castle becomes the next United States Senator from Delaware he is going to get sworn in, serve a bit, then become a Democrat, resign, and let Beau Biden get an appointment.
It’s a done deal. The deal has been made already. I’m hearing this not just from Christine O’Donnell people, but party regulars in Delaware, some of whom support Castle. It is insane.
It’s a done deal? Really Erick? Castle is going to go through an election just to resign and hand it over to Beau Biden? Really Erick? Where is your EVIDENCE?
Yes, we all know that Mike Castle won’t debate Christine O’Donnell. I wish he would. However, if I were running his campaign I would advise him not to as well. Do O’Donnell and Erickson really believe that telling lies about Castle will prod him into debating?
Sphere: Related ContentRed Kettle Drive Kicks Off, Let The Sniping Begin
Is it possible to sap the spirit of giving from Christmas? No, but some Easter Shore residents sure give it a go.
Yesterday the Salvation Army kicked off its annual “Red Kettle Drive” with a breakfast in Salisbury. These giving individuals, and many others, will spend countless hours during the Holiday season ringing a bell in the cold and collecting funds to help those less fortunate than themselves. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Not on the Lower Shore. Why? SbyNEWS publisher Joe Albero has the unmitigated gall to use Maryland and Delaware’s most popular blog to promote the Kettle Drive and encourage his readers to volunteer their time and money. Shame on you Joe!
Because Albero is none too popular with certain quarters of our community, some will actually encourage residents NOT to contribute. For those who live outside of the confines of our bizarre little “Peyton Place”, I’m quite serious.
Sphere: Related Content3rd Quarter Blog Rankings
The Delmarva blogosphere continues to grow. Back in August we published a few statistics about blogs based in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We promised to start doing a quarterly report. Here it is.
For each state we’ve listed a cross-section of blogs with their Alexa ranking and growth (or decline) in page views over the last 90 days. We have also included info on several newspapers in each state. Note that this listing is not comprehensive, but serves simply to give an overview. If you are interested in seeing the Alexa statistics about a particular site that is not listed here, simply go to Alexa and enter the site’s URL under “Site Info”. You can even compare up to four sites.
Here are the 3rd Quarter, 2009 Delmarva Blog Rankings:
Sphere: Related ContentWhen You Can’t Argue … Ridicule
September 7, 2009 by Cato
Filed under Blogging, Healthcare, Media, Virginia, Virginia Politics
If you live on the Northern Neck AND you oppose ObamaCare, you’re just dumber than a sack of hair. At least that’s the view of certain members of Virginia’s lefty blogosphere. Why not? The Obamamaniacs can’t win the argument on merit, so let’s ridicule the good voters in Virginia’s First District.
It seems that Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) had a town hall meeting in Warsaw. It appears that most of the overflow crowd was opposed to ObamaCare. According to some probable “come here” on the Daily Kos (and repeated on Fred2Blue), these were just about the dumbest folk he’s ever come across:
Unbelievable. My first exposure to true lunacy.
People who live in glass houses …
Were there a few people there who were a little misinformed? Probably, but no more than you would find at your local Democrat committee meeting. Sure, I’m a little dismayed when people take everything that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or even Mark Levin say and treat it as gospel. Unfortunately, that’s the way of world. As an example, when Democrats attempt to argue that the “public option” isn’t a form of socialized medicine they are either lying, deluded, or simply parroting (the vast majority) what they have been told. Yet, it would be rude for us to call them stupid.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Schizophrenic Salisbury Grinch
I don’t like kicking a guy when’s he down, but few people deserve it more than Jonathan Taylor, house blogger of Salisbury’s Barrie Comegys party. Still facing criminal charges after being slapped with a judicial order related to his harassment of local resident Donna Ennis, Taylor just can’t shut up and let things blow over.
Taylor is infamous for promising to stop some of his nastier behavior and then simply doubling down. C’mon, when you go after people’s kids (as he has done with the children of Salisbury councilwomen Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen) we have moved from bad taste to pathology.
Since being slapped by a judge last week, Taylor has since promised that his site would be going “invitation only” (a means of libeling decent folk without them being able to see it) to reneging on that claim and promising that his comments would no longer be moderated and that anonymous comments would no longer be permitted.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Joke That Is Salisbury’s Tapegate
September 2, 2009 by Cato
Filed under Crime, Maryland, Media, Public Safety, Salisbury Politics
On days like this I am reminded of a comment made by my friend and Red Maryland colleague Brian Griffiths. It was something to the effect that more things appear to be written about Salisbury town government than most cities 10 times its size. He’s right. I’m one of many culprits; but at least I can be thankful that I’m not in the idiot pen with the Tilghman Times and the Barrie Comegys crowd. Case in point – TAPEGATE.
The Story -
It all began in early July. Salisbury police chief Allan Webster thought that the town’s new mayor, Jim Ireton, might send him packing. Fair assumption given Webster’s record and the city’s less than stellar crime statistics. Ireton had made both an issue during the recent mayoral campaign and Webster attacked Ireton in the Tilghman Times on multiple occasions.
To save his job, and reportedly to pad his pension, Webster went on the offensive by publicly attacking Ireton’s two allies on council – Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen. Unfortunately, Ireton’s bungling of the matter appeared to make Webster and his cronies even more brazen.
To date, Webster has asserted (on several occasions in collusion with the Tilghman Times) that his rights were violated, that city personnel policy was circumvented, that the Salisbury taxpayers should foot all of his potential legal bills, … and that he was was somehow being persecuted as a “whistleblower”. What makes this so amusing is that it was either Webster or someone acting on his behalf that provided copies of the documents (which Webster claims are damaging to his reputation) to both the Tilghman Times and to the house blog of the Barrie Comegys party.
Webster’s claim of “whistleblower” status is based (if one can call it that) on a purported investigation of Councilwoman Campbell. Webster claims that Campbell has possession of police surveillance footage supposedly taped about 12 years ago when Mrs. Campbell was the founding Executive Director of Salisbury Neighborhood Housing Service. TAPEGATE!
Sphere: Related ContentVirginia’s Lefty Blogosphere Simply Can’t Learn From Its Mistakes
August 21, 2009 by Cato
Filed under Blogging, Virginia, Virginia Politics
Certain members of Virginia’s “Blue” blogosphere remind me of my youngest son. It’s bad enough not to learn from mistakes made a few years ago, but a week?
First, some (not all) blue bloggers went after GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell claiming that his campaign had displayed a Confederate battle flag in its booth during the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show. Not only was it untrue, the more responsible members of Virginia’s Democrat blogosphere denounced them for it.
It didn’t matter. The damage was done as the campaign of Democrat candidate Creigh Deeds lost what little focus it had dealing with this foolishness.
With their candidate trailing in the polls by double digits, the lefty blogosphere either can’t learn from its mistakes or is simply going for broke. There latest ridiculous attack – Bob McDonnell is championing eugenics!
According to Blue Virginia and Fred2Blue, McDonnell sponsored a bill in the 2002 legislative session requesting the Virginia Board of Education to include the American Citizen’s Handbook in the state’s curricula for primary school children. Based on a blurb from a review of the book, these two bastions of Virginia’s left-wing community claim that McDonnell is promoting eugenics. They even provide a “definition”, assumedly because their readership doesn’t know what the word means and evidently don’t own dictionaries.
Here is the FULL REVIEW so that you can see what the reviewer really thought of the book (it’s short):
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Sphere: Related ContentSorry for the Hold Up
Our servers were down this morning. Sorry for any inconvenience.
This is the first time our new hosting company, BueHost, has had such a problem since we signed on. Therefore, I really can’t complain. Even the mighty Google’s Blogger service hiccups on a fairly regular basis.
New posts will be following directly.
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