Well, hopefully my online won't go on the fritz tonight. I had a very nice blog post all set to go last night, made a minor edit, and bam! lost the server. Goodbye blog post. Figures they take out the "recover post" feature.
Oh well, the highlight was a rant about a bill in CA I sent in an item to the Federalist about. It's a bill in the California Senate to enable divorced servicemen to have a hearing and get their child support adjusted if they ship out overseas. Sounds like fairness to me. Plus the thing about Peter Angelos and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asking the Justice Department to look into allegations where doctors admitted they would certify during trial that a patient was diseased from asbestos - in most cases the patients were not. Something like 90% of the time X-rays in the trial were termed as being from sufferers but outside of court the same X-rays were from sufferers 5% of the time. And Peter Angelos got involved because a) he's an ambulance chaser from way back who's now looking for Vioxx patients for a class-action suit that he'll probably get 2/3 of; b) he gave $2.7 million to Democrat candidates and causes over the last 5 years, and c) really pissed me off with his sweetheart deal with MLB (I believe if he ever sells the Orioles he would receive over $300 million, regardless of actual amount MLB would make up the difference) and the fact that I can't watch the Nats because when they played Atlanta on a night the Orioles were idle it was blacked out here! Flipped around to TBS and was greeted with a black screen. So I'm stuck watching the Blorioles, it's made me an instant Nats fan. Baltimore seems to have two of the biggest asshole owners in sports...Angelos and Art Modell, who ripped Cleveland's heart out by moving the Browns and stomped on it by winning the Super Bowl with the Ravens.
Anyway, that's a synopsis of the post the other night. I guess brevity is the soul of wit.
Now, tonight, I sat down and put pixels to flat screen to write to Governor Ehrlich about being strong and vetoing the Wal-Mart bill and the minimum wage. That was until I saw a 700 character limit on submittals and knew there was no way I could make an argument in 700 characters on two separate issues I have a passion about. So he gets an old-fashioned "snail mail" letter from a constituent who didn't even vote for him. Not only did I state my case for vetoing the bills, I put in my two cents about the land divestment issue. Hey, I was at the end of a page anyway. If I'm going to two pages, I may as well make them count. So here's what I wrote:
April 14, 2005
Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.
100 State Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401-1925
Re: Fair Share Health Care Act and minimum wage bill vetoes
Dear Governor Ehrlich:
While reading the online edition of the Baltimore Sun, I came across an appeal by certain Democrats to contact you regarding their support of both the so-called "Fair Share Health Care Act"; and the bill raising Maryland’s minimum wage (SB 89/HB391).
I am a recent arrival in Maryland, having been downsized out of a job in Ohio by a number of factors. Possibly the main one was an anti-business attitude exhibited by those in local and county government at the behest of the local labor unions. But Maryland in general and the Eastern Shore in particular enamored me enough to immediately accept my new position upon being offered, over similar positions in Arizona and Nevada. This despite never having set foot in Maryland prior to my interview.
Having seen the problems encountered when government temporarily "empowers" workers at the expense of their employers, I am urging you to stand strong and veto both bills, even in the face of a legislative override. Perhaps the passage of time until the General Assembly reconvenes in January will give the bills’ proponents time to reconsider their stance in the face of evidence that what is bad for business eventually is bad for their employees as well.
Further, I feel it is terrible policy to write legislation that goes out of the way to punish a successful business simply because of failure to meet an artificial target set by a certain special interest group, especially an employer who is interested in adding hundreds of full-time jobs to an economically challenged area of the lower Eastern Shore. (I refer to the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center in Somerset County).
At the proper time, I will ask that my local representatives from Wicomico County reconsider their support of the bills, if they haven’t already expressed their opposition. But first things first, please use the veto pen on these ill-conceived bills.
Additionally, I would like to comment on efforts to place regulation on the sale of state land to private interests. I stated in a letter to the Daily Times here in Salisbury that I was in favor of any "surplus" land that the state owned being sold to private interests, this because it would add to the local tax rolls and make the taxation burden on the rest of us just that much less.
While the provisions currently under consideration would give voters a say in the matter, I feel that a matter like the sale of surplus state property is more properly handled through the executive branch of state government than in the legislative branch. To me, making the sale of property dependent on legislation encourages corruption and self-serving deals by a local politician at the expense of the greater good of Marylanders.
I appreciate your time in reading this and hope that this independent show of support helps you in your decision on these matters.
Sincerely,
Michael Swartz
So that was my contribution to better government for the day. When I was doing a search for the pertinent bill numbers being sourced someplace online, I sure saw a lot of anti-Wal-Mart websites, mostly ran by union local thugs. Boy, were they ecstatic about sticking it to a successful business. Wonder how they'll feel when GM says, "Boys, we're going to have to stop paying for all your health care because otherwise we're going out of business. You need to tell your DNC brethren in the environmental area to quit bitching about ANWR drilling, because without any new oil, we're not selling any Tahoes or Hummers. And you know as much as we do that those big SUV's are the most profitable things we have going...and they ain't going to fly out of showrooms with $3 a gallon gas. Sure, Saturns and Cobalts are nice, but we don't make a whole lot on them...not enough to pay for every doctor visit for every hangnail you have or month's supply of Viagra you want."
It's interesting that no one puts a gun to your head to work at Wal-Mart (which most would consider a menial job), but if you work the line at GM (pretty much a menial job as well) there's no choice but to join the union. And you certainly can't tell them not to use your union dues for political purposes (though it's legal to), that's a ticket to blackballing and intimidation.
The sooner we get rid of the bad parts of union influence the better. As far as negotiating wages and such, that's not such a bad thing. But absolute power over a group of workers corrupts absolutely. And when it's united with a political party that craves absolute power over the individual, it's doubly dangerous.
