Well, maybe it's not such a hot tip. But I did see an article in the Daily Times today regarding the 2006 County Executive race. It's going to be interesting next year since that's a new office.
Instead of a body of seven elected officials representing various areas on Wicomico County, now one person, most likely from Salisbury or a close suburb, will make all the decisions, including budget submission. Obviously, both parties want their person in charge, and having the county executive be from the majority party (even if the County Council is split 4-3 in their favor) would give that party a hammerlock on county government.
So it's a bit surprising that no one has stepped forward to say officially, "I'm running." Perhaps the acrimony currently gripping the County Council over the Rewastico Road horse park fiasco has made potential candidates hesitate to take the slings and arrows certain to come from the opposition party.
Now the hat tips. This is from TheGoldwater's blog, the article today entitled, "A Warning to Elected Republicans":
If you think that you can run and win in 2006 by endorsing the "moderate" position of abandoning the tax cuts, restricting funding to operations in Iraq, abandoning our efforts to remove the death tax from our national burden, and increasing fees on the citizens of the United States-- thing (sic) again.
Conservatives will burn you-- in effigy, in the polls, in the voting booth, on the Sunday morning news shows-- wherever, whenever, and however we can. Now is not the time to go wobbly in furthering the Reagan Revolution. We need more tax cuts, more budget cuts, and more restraints on spending.
I would add that we also need to keep getting judges who realize that the be-all and end-all of American law is the United States Constitution.
Not the UN Charter.
Not a court in Great Britain, Nigeria, Japan, India, Canada, or anywhere else except here.
Not in the judge's gray matter that says life is unfair for the woman, minority, gay/lesbian, illegal immigrant, terrorist, or whoever is not a WASP male and he/she has to do something from the bench to fix it.
Now that we have that straight...
Hat tip number two goes to Duvafiles for today, for pointing out articles in Fortune Magazine regarding the contributions for Katrina relief made by Home Depot and lefty whipping boy Wal-Mart. Plus I liked the comments there about the differences between Democrats, Republicans, and southern Democrats.
As always, the private sector goes about doing its business in ways a bloated bureaucracy that looks out for the best ways to cover its ass cannot.
It goes in with my comments yesterday about divesting unneeded federal land. A large part and benefit of capitalism is that land eventually gravitates to its highest and best use. For all the complaints about urban sprawl and running out of room, I challenge you to take a drive around the lower Eastern Shore. I drove out Route 349 to Waterside and back along Route 352 and Pemberton Drive. There's a LOT of empty scrub land there that's not even farmed.
So the lot of the Eastern Shore is a mix of agriculture and tourism - agriculture being raising chickens and poultry in areas where the soil's not good for grain farming. Where I'm from in Ohio, the opposite occurs - miles and miles of cornfields and soybean plots. The land determines its best use. Places where water is plentiful underground and not at the surface become housing plots. Locations where water is plentiful at the surface become great grounds for fishing and hunting.
But tying into this and paramount above all else is the right to private property. Not the right to damage and destroy others' property values from misuse of your property, but also the freedom to keep your property until such time as you decide to dispose of it; or, for a PUBLIC good (not just additional tax revenue,) be fairly compensated for waiving your right to it.
So I close right back at my comment about judges. We need a judge that will take into account, "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." It's called the Fifth Amendment, and that, to me, is the ultimate stare decisis, not Kelo v. New London. And I can only count on a conservative to appoint a judge who sees things that way.
