This is your Maryland Republican Party:
In fact, Bates didn’t even think that Trump needed to apologize:
Sen. Bates’s Facebook page also links to a rant from wingnut Allen West that blames tapegate on Hillary Clinton and the “crappy, liberal progressive media” and refers to President Obama as “the disaffected and disinterested boy king.”
So it’s full steam ahead on right-wing bubble conspiracy theories but time to move on from Trump’s constant abuse of women.
Kathy Szeliga is “appalled” by the Trump video but has confirmed that she still will vote for Trump. Interesting that this statement appeared on the Washington Post site but that Szeliga has kept it off her own Facebook, twitter, and web page–places where core Republicans might see it.
It’s getting on 24 hours since the unveiling of the Trump tape, which has apparently allowed some Republicans to connect the dots and abandon their horrible nominee. But the overwhelming reaction among Maryland Republicans is to go full ostrich and pretend that this event and Trump are going away.
Based on a quick examination of her web page, twitter feed, and Facebook page, Kathy Szeliga has neither condemned the latest evidence of Trump’s horrible behavior nor withdrawn her endorsement of the Republican nominee.
As the Baltimore Sun has pointed out, this is part of a long pattern for Szeliga:
With a record like that, it’s no surprise Ms. Szeliga supports Mr. Trump. When he attacked a Gold Star family, she was silent. When he suggested that “Second Amendment people” could take action against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, again, deafening silence. When Mr. Trump claimed that President Barack Obama is the founder of ISIS, she didn’t condemn his words.
So there is nothing Trump can do that would cause Gov. Larry Hogan’s chosen Senate candidate to dump Trump. Nothing from Larry Hogan about Szeliga’s judgment either even though Szeliga advertises Hogan’s support of her candidacy at every turn. Szeliga’s inevitable hard defeat will be a major blow for Hogan, as evidence that his personal support counts little.
Nothing on the web page, twitter or Facebook of the sole elected Maryland Republican at the federal level, Rep. Andy Harris, either. Like Szeliga, Harris has endorsed Trump:
I’m going to work for him. I’m going to help him try to win the electoral votes in the state of Maryland because in the presidential election, it’s always a selection between two individuals. No one is going to be perfect, any individual. But Mr. Trump will be a far better choice for this country than Mrs. (Hillary) Clinton.
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has been basking in the plaudits and polls for not supporting Trump. However, Hogan has not criticized Trump at all. He just said that he won’t vote for the guy and made this incredible statement:
“I’ve always been a blunt, straightforward guy, and whether you agree with me or not, you always know where I stand,” he said. “I’m not trying to convince anybody how to vote, anyway.”
But that’s simply untrue. Hogan had time to trot around the country to say nice things about Chris Christie, a bully who has now cozied up to Trump, and is a vociferous backer of Trump supporter Kathy Szeliga. In contrast, this self-proclaimed “blunt, straightforward guy” has nothing to say about any of his party’s standard bearer’s bad behavior. Not exactly #HoganStrong.
Term limits for the Montgomery County Council will be on the ballot next month. After losing in the Montgomery County Circuit Court, the No on B team appealed to the state’s highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals. Yesterday, the Court denied certiorari in Moore v. Montgomery County Board of Elections, meaning that they decided not to even hear the appeal.
The decision surprised the No on B team, as they believed that they had strong arguments. Moreover, the circuit court judge had been overturned twice before on cases involving major ballot initiatives. Attached is the brief written for No on B by Jonathan Shurberg, so you can assess the strength of the argument and whether the Court of Appeals made the right call.
By Adam Pagnucco.
Suppose you want to persuade an elected official to vote in a certain way. Which of the following tactics would you choose?
If you picked Tactic 3, congratulations! You could get hired by one of Maryland’s top PR firms to run the Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time!
What is this campaign, you ask? It involves a Battle of Developers in Downtown Bethesda. (Ring the bell, folks!) On one side is Clark Enterprises, one of the nation’s largest real estate and construction firms that is headquartered at Bethesda Metro Center. On the other side is Brookfield Properties, another giant real estate firm based in New York and Toronto, which bought 3 Bethesda Metro Center for $150 million in 2011. Brookfield would like to place a new high-rise on the concrete Bethesda Metro plaza and the Planning Board agreed to it in its proposal for the area’s new master plan. Clark, whose existing building would be right next door to Brookfield’s new building, opposes it.
The Montgomery County Council has final say over all master plans, and so Clark paid for a grass-roots lobbying campaign. A website proclaiming a need to “Protect Bethesda Open Space” was registered in May and emails from constituents started arriving in council inboxes. While the emails varied a bit in content, the following two sentences appeared word-for-word in a great many of them.
“The County Council has sided with the developers one too many times here in our recent history.”
“After recent raises to our taxes and to your salaries, we ask that the same priority be given to the people who live and work in downtown Bethesda.”
Your author has worked for and with elected officials for a long time. There are many differences among them. But one thing absolutely every single one of them HATES is to be called a tool. The only thing worse is to get hundreds of their constituents to call them tools. You may as well burn down their houses, vandalize their cars, loot their bank accounts and then ask them to give you a vote. See how that works for you!
And on top of that, is it really wise for a campaign financed by a real estate company to encourage residents to criticize Council Members for siding with developers? What will those residents say the next time Clark wants to build something?
But Clark is only the client. They hired someone to run the campaign for them. One clue appears in this notice listing a certain Bassam Tarbush as a contact for the website. Tarbush is also named in the campaign’s response emails. According to his Linkedin profile, Tarbush is employed by KOFA Public Affairs, one of Maryland’s most prominent public relations firms. That is astounding for two reasons.
Clark Enterprises is a well-respected real estate firm that has other priorities here in addition to what happens at Bethesda Metro Center. Burning its bridges with the County Council through such a ham-handed lobbying campaign goes against its long-term interests. For its own sake, Clark should go back to the drawing board, figure out a different message, hire someone else to implement it and end The Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time.
By Adam Pagnucco.
Montgomery County is witnessing an historic craft beer renaissance. New small breweries are popping up all over the county offering an incredible array of IPAs, Belgian tripels, pilsners, ESBs, saisons, stouts and even rum rye. Politicians and customers alike are celebrating, even if they might be a wee bit late to work on the following day. But this renaissance has been caused by one factor that few so far are talking about.
These breweries are exempt from having to sell their products through the county’s Department of Liquor Control.
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and members of the County Council at a ribbon cutting for Brookeville Beer Farm. Photo courtesy of Delegate David Moon.
Until recently, there were three small breweries in MoCo: Growlers in Gaithersburg, Rock Bottom in Bethesda and Gordon Biersch in Rockville. The latter two are part of chains. While each establishment could sell to individual customers, they had to go through the Department of Liquor Control (DLC) to sell to restaurants and retailers. For the most part, it wasn’t worth the bother.
That changed in 2014 when a group of craft brewers wanted to open Denizens Brewing Company in Downtown Silver Spring. The condition they imposed was that the DLC must not be allowed to carry their beer. Denizens co-owner Julie Verratti told the Sentinel, “There’s no freaking way in hell I would ever trust my product to the Department of Liquor Control.” According to the article:
Veratti said the main reason she does not trust the DLC to deal with her product is because she believes the warehouse employees would not properly handle it.
“It’s not their product so they don’t give a sh**,” Veratti said. “They don’t care if it sits out and I doubt half the people in the warehouse have knowledge of how to handle beer.”
Paul Rinehart, founder of Baying Hound Aleworks, whose brewery had to go through the DLC prior to the change in law, called using the DLC as a distributor “not fantastic.”
Rinehart said when using the DLC his brewery “ran into issues where our product would get lost” and would often hear from clients that their product orders had been either delivered incorrectly or not delivered at all.
Despite the DLC upgrading their inventory system to Oracle, which rolled out on Feb. 1 and has its own problems, Rinehart said he has no plans to use the DLC to distribute again.
“I’m just afraid of my product getting lost again,” Rinehart said.
The result of Verratti’s advocacy was a 2014 state bill that allowed micro-breweries to bypass the DLC and sell craft beer directly to restaurants and retailers as well as on-site customers. This was the key reform that enabled Denizens to grow in MoCo. Once again, from the Sentinel:
Had it not been for the change in law that gave breweries the ability to deliver their product directly to their customers, Julie Veratti, co-owner and director of business outreach for Denizens, said her brewery would not have distributed inside the county at all and instead would have just distributed the product to Washington, D.C. Denizens opened for business after the change of law came into effect.
And so MoCo micro-breweries are now free of DLC entirely. Disasters like DLC’s week-long meltdown in last year’s holiday season do not affect them at all.
The result of all this is a BOOM in craft brewing. Since the DLC exemption was passed, Denizens (Silver Spring), 7 Locks (Rockville), Waredaca (Laytonsville) and Brookeville Beer Farm (Brookeville) have opened. A fifth brewery attempted to open in Rockville but encountered permitting and zoning issues with the city government and moved to Baltimore. The chart below shows all active licenses and permits pertaining to MoCo microbreweries. Fifteen of eighteen originated in 2014 or later.
The lesson to be learned here is that removal of the county’s liquor monopoly leads to economic growth and job creation. Those are important considerations for a county that has seen its private sector jobs base shrink between 2001 and 2014 and has just raised property taxes by 9 percent. The state’s Bureau of Revenue Estimates has found that the county could create more than 1,300 jobs and nearly $200 million in annual economic activity by tossing its liquor monopoly into the dustbin of Prohibition.
Will the county embrace economic prosperity and job creation? Or will politicians continue to defend the monopoly while cutting ribbons for breweries who are exempted from it?
This is a guest post by Terrill North:
Knocking on doors in District 20 will introduce you to national-level union bosses, campaigners for Nepal, law professors, and hundreds of professionals committed to social justice. Our community is lucky to have so many people who care, but unfortunately, they are not always people who know. They may not know D20 is home to the largest concentration of poverty in Montgomery County, or that the majority of children in public school qualify for free and reduced-price meals. They may know we’re diverse, but cannot name 10 Black or Brown people whose families form the majority of the population.
I can’t knock any of the names under consideration for our soon to be vacant Senate seat, I know most of them well and can say they legitimately care. Will Smith, however, has demonstrated the deepest connections to every corner of District 20. I first met Will while volunteering for IMPACT Silver Spring, where he worked with AmeriCorps connecting our most vulnerable neighbors with social services. He and I later chaired Montgomery County’s Community Development Advisory Committee, which decides how to allocate several million dollars of federal funding to organizations serving marginalized communities. Will has planted strong roots across populations that don’t always show up at the voting booth through long-term work with Gapbusters Learning Center and Gandhi Brigade.
And I don’t just mean to say that Will knows African-Americans, he started a scholarship fund for immigrant youth who did not qualify for most grants and scholarships because of their status. He is a natural problem solver who has taken his commitment to people at the margins from this community to the state legislature.
Will has already established himself as a leader in Annapolis. In fact, Delegate Smith passed more pieces of legislation last year than any other freshman legislator and was a strong supporter and leader in getting the Second Chance Act passed. He sponsored legislation creating tax incentives for employers who hire returning citizens (ex-offenders) and worked to create a reporting system for SWAT team deployments in communities of color.
As important, Will was appointed by the House Speaker to serve on two important working groups on justice reinvestment (think: reducing mass incarceration) and reforming the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (think: establishing civilian review of police misconduct). Will already has the confidence of leaders in Annapolis to represent the interests of people at the edge. Jamie Raskin always claimed the mantle of the effective progressive – he didn’t just talk a good game, he got things done for people that need advocates to get things done. Will has made building the necessary relationships to be effective a priority and will be the effective leader D20 needs in the State Senate.
It would be a big deal to send an African-American to the Senate from Montgomery because we have never done it before. But Will represents much more than that. I think people need to understand that Will is the first member of his family to graduate from college, a dream shared by many of the young D20 residents eating free lunch each day. His service as a Naval Officer and journey to Obama appointee and civil rights attorney is relatively unique, even in Montgomery County (where only half of high school grads attend college).
Half of arrests in MoCo are of black men, despite blacks making up roughly 19% of the population (34% in D20). Quite frankly, the American dream is at risk here as much as anywhere else. Will is unquestionably progressive and unquestionably qualified, but also brings a set of experiences that are unlike any other Senator from Montgomery. We need his voice at the table in the Senate and that is why I enthusiastically support Will Smith for Senate!
By Adam Pagnucco.
Politician X is a happy man. His advocacy for Issues A, B and C is wildly popular. His constituents adore him. He basks in praise every single day, with only a few complaining misanthropes – likely from the other political party – who can be safely ignored. He can do no wrong and is a lock for reelection.
How does he know this? Because he has a few dozen friends on Facebook who tell him so!
Politician Y is a happy woman. Her advocacy AGAINST issues A, B and C – the very things X is promoting – is also wildly popular. Her constituents shower praise on her every ten minutes and there is no way she can lose. Higher office surely beckons.
How does she know this? Because her Facebook friends are just as adoring as X’s friends.
X’s world is just as real – and just as unreal – as Y’s world. Look at two examples.
In Montgomery County, Robin Ficker’s term limits charter amendment is a hot local issue. Those County Council Members who criticize it are lionized by the huge majority of their Facebook friends who weigh in. Judging by their comments, there is no way that term limits will pass. But go to Robin Ficker’s page and the world changes. He is surrounded by dozens of people – sometimes much more when he runs ads – who encourage him to keep it up. Judging by what is said on Ficker’s page, the voters will surely approve term limits by an overwhelming margin.
It happened again at the state level when Governor Larry Hogan issued an Executive Order mandating that public schools start after Labor Day. Critics of the order who based their opposition primarily on educational considerations were egged on by three-quarters or more of their Facebook friends who commented. But the Facebook pages of Hogan and the policy’s original architect, Comptroller Peter Franchot, swarmed with supporters who celebrated the order. Each side is convinced they’re right. Each side is convinced they will be vindicated – both on the policy merits and politically – in the end. And each side is backed up by enthusiastic supporters, so how can either of them be wrong?
Why does this happen?
Social media is a great tool for political communications, but it is subject to two forms of bias that can mislead politicians.
Politicians’ Facebook pages almost never contain representative samples of the public. For the most part, Facebook friends or fans are personal friends and acquaintances mixed with people who are inclined to support the politician. Those who are indifferent or hostile to the politician, but still vote, are much less likely to enroll on the politician’s page. The effect is akin to an elementary school play, in which the audience is comprised of parents and relatives of the children who are performing. Those children can do no wrong! Friend bias can be overcome to an extent by running ads from a fan page, as this will attract viewers who do not have a relationship with the politician. But don’t run an ad unless you’re prepared for what the outside world thinks!
While a relatively small number of loud voices tend to dominate social media, the vast majority of folks don’t like to fight in public. So when Politician Y puts up a political statement, those who agree will say “Yes!” and those who don’t will be more likely to stay silent. The latter people simply don’t want to be flamed and drawn into name-calling, shaming or other nastiness. Some of them may have another matter before the politician and don’t want to risk retaliation. The combination of friend bias and comment bias creates a powerful illusion of mass approval even when it’s not there.
This is high-tech tribalism. Every politician leads a tribe – the few dozen (or for the higher-ranking ones, several hundred) people who publicly agree with them on almost everything. This tribalism is so rigid that disagreeing tribes are barely acknowledged to exist. When they are, they are depicted as misguided and inferior. Politicians who lap up public adulation like cats who lap up milk love it. And some are deceived by it.
There’s a lesson to be learned here. Social media is a valuable political, communication and organizing tool that is still evolving. If you can use it to get a couple thousand people to support your cause – and there are examples out there – good for you. But if it results in the same group of a few dozen people always saying Yes to what you’re proposing, don’t believe that it represents genuine public opinion. If you do, then you’re vulnerable to REAL public opinion catching up with you!
Attorney Jonathan Shurberg made the argument for No on B–the group fighting term limits–but the judge wasn’t inclined to buy because (1) he doesn’t think he’ll rule that the Board of Elections improperly validated the signatures, and (2) they didn’t have enough evidence to support their case.
No on B has over the weekend to continue to hone their argument and put together their evidence. But I’d expect council term limits to go to the voters. Meanwhile, Bethesda Beat reports that Attorney Robin Ficker is still Robin Ficker:
Ficker, who fought for and won the right to be a defendant in the case Wednesday, arrived nearly two hours after the hearing started. He told Greenberg he needed to leave at 3 p.m. to be at CNN studios in Washington where he was taping “Nancy Grace.”
This is after Ficker fought to become a co-defendant in the case. He’s laser focused on press attention. Not so much on the case.
