Harford County Tea Party Call to Arms!

from The Dagger

Letter from Tony Passaro:

Citizens of Harford County –

While I was distracted by the shenanigans in Washington D.C. this week by the Turn Coat RINOs selling us out in the SALT treaty, I almost missed the following action occurring right here in our own Harford County.

It is almost impossible to imagine it but the Harford County Board of Education (HCBOE) and Superintendent Tomback would even think about giving raises in next year’s budget request, let alone actually formally ask for them!

However, under the cover of darkness Superintendent TOMBACK has asked to give the all HCBOE employees (all 5,000) a pay raise that will come out of the pockets of the already over taxed Harford County Tax Payers…..all the while we are in a raging recession and suffering under an unemployment rate that hovers around 9%….

Let us rise up and put the BOE in its place. We need a groundswell of TEA PARTY folks to speak out on this arrogance and point out the insanity to the H.C.B.O.E. What cave has HCBOE they been living in for the past 3 years anyway???? We are fighting to keep people employed and services at a sustainable level and the BOE want to give a pay raises and increase their spending by 6.3%….All the while unemployment rages at 9% and our taxes are already as high as we can tolerate…….this increased spending can not be allowed to pass.

Spread the word.

The school board will hold work sessions and accept public comment on the budget on January 10 and January 15, before adopting a budget recommendation to County Executive David Craig on January 18, 2011.

We stopped the Town of Bel Air Pension increase, now we will need the help of the TEA PARTY to stop the rape of the Harford Tax Payer by the sacred, untouchable, arrogant, and unsupervised HCBOE…..

It is time to “Hit the Bricks”. Bring your thoughts and indignation to the next BOE meeting. We must swarm the meeting room, like we did in the town of Bel Air, and tell the BOE NO MORE SPENDING OF OUR DOLLARS……PERIOD.

Tony Passaro
Bel Air Tea Party Patriots
Alliance of American Patriots

The Case for Small government

Hey Hey Hey!

from the Baltimore Sun

Comedian, actor and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby comes to Baltimore next month in a new role: political fundraiser.

Cosby will be the star attraction Jan. 11 at a $4,000-a-plate dinner at the Tremont Grand on North Charles Street to benefit Otis Rolley, a former city housing and planning official who is challenging Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in the Democratic primary for mayor.

There also will be a $500-a-head reception and a $75 stand-up performance.

“He typically doesn’t get involved in this kind of stuff,” Rolley, who was Sheila Dixon's chief of staff during her first year as mayor, told me Wednesday.

But The Cos agreed to do it after talking with Rolley over the phone recently.

That phone conversation took place at the behest of Karen Miller, who was Rolley’s director of budget and human resources when he headed the city planning department, and now serves as his fundraiser. Miller had arranged for Cosby to come to town twice, for a Park Heights block party in 2008 and for Black History Month in 2009, when she worked for then-Mayor Dixon.

“I really would like you to talk to this person,” Miller recalled telling Cosby. “I think he’s a rock star.”

Cosby’s reply, according to Miller: “What do you need me for if he’s a rock star?”

“OK,” she conceded, “he’s not a rock star.”

But Rolley is, she said, someone who shares Cosby’s passion for “what’s happening in urban cities and what’s not happening.”

Cosby agreed to give Rolley 20 minutes. They wound up talking for 40.

During that time, Rolley said he talked about both his master’s degree in planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his poor childhood in Jersey City, New Jersey, where Rolley said he was physically and sexually abused.

“I do have a degree from MIT,” Rolley recalled telling Cosby. “I also have a PhD from the school of hard knocks.”

My call to Cosby’s publicist was not immediately returned, so all I have is Rolley’s account of the conversation. Rolley said it ended abruptly.

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Rolley said. “He just hung up. ‘Oh, gosh. Did I say the wrong thing?’”

Two hours later, Miller called to say Cosby wanted to endorse him, do a fundraiser and eventually go door-knocking with him.

The fundraiser will come at a critical time for Rolley, whose first campaign finance report is due Jan. 20.

“Word on the street is, ‘Otis is good. He would be great, but there’s no way he can raise money,’” Rolley said. "If I have a strong showing on the 20th, then that conversation will change.”

Mooney to Chair MD GOP

from the Baltimore Sun

Departing state Sen. Alex X. Mooney has been elected chairman of the Maryland Republican Party after a contested election. He edged out Mary Kane, who ran for lieutenant governor this year.

We will have updates with the vote count and additional details right here.

Mooney can look forward to a season of change: Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will be redrawing legislative and congressional districts, term limits mean the next gubernatorial race will be for an open seat and, for the first time since 1998, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is unlikely to be the party's nominee for governor.

"The party is on the brink of making a change of some sort," Chris Cavey, a former chairman of the Baltimore County Republican Party said in a story published today. "It is at the crux of change. and [Saturday] is Day One."

Ehrlich's 14.5-percentage point loss to O'Malley last month in a year that was good for Republicans elsewhere has stirred debate within the Maryland GOP, with some saying the party should focus more on local elections than on the top of the ticket, while others want to aggressively recruit new members from Democratic strongholds such as Baltimore.

Rogue Republicans Wanted....???

from the Baltimore Sun

Richard Cross, a former speechwriter for Bob Ehrlich who became a vocal critic of "strategic missteps" made by his campaign four years ago and again this year, is ready for a revolution.

"[A] bunch of us will be celebrating the rising renegade movement in Maryland GOP politics by hosting a 'Renegades Room' at the state Republican convention on the evening of December 10, 2010 at the Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis," Cross writes on his politics and pop culture blog, Cross Purposes.

Cross writes that he has reserved a hotel suite for "free-thinking" Maryland Republicans who are ready to shake up the party.

"[P]lease keep in mind that the organizers of the event reserve the right to control access to the room," he writes. "In other words, legitimate renegades are welcome, but those who foment trouble simply for self-serving reasons are not."

O'Malley Crowned DGA Chairman

from the Baltimore Sun

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue spilled the news: as expected, Martin O'Malley was picked* today to be the next chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

(*While the organization already has announced O'Malley's election in a press release, and Perdue described him in her speech as the chairman, the actual vote is happening right now.)

** UPDATE: O'Malley has now, officially, been selected chair via a unanimous vote, says spokesman Rick Abbruzzese. **

O'Malley is currently emceeing an association lunch at the St. Regis Washington hotel. He spoke briefly, giving a somewhat nationalized version of his stump speech.

As DGA chairman, O'Malley now has the opportunity to expand his Rolodex with Democratic donors from other states, deepen relationships with a network of emerging Democratic leaders and recruit new faces to the party.

The position proved a stepping-stone for former President Bill Clinton, current Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, among others.

"It is an important leadership position," Nathan Gonzales, the political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, said Tuesday, before the vote. "If it is O'Malley, it will put him on a larger stage than just being the governor of Maryland."

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi showed the way during the 2010 election campaign, when he made the Republican Governors Association a major fundraising resource for GOP candidates — and kept his own name in the national media.

But the job does not necessarily translate into national stardom.

"You don't get this huge national profile unless you seek it out and work it," said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Cook Political Report.