CHEAP SHOTS: 2022 Preview and Favorites of the Past; Part One

CHEAP SHOTS

2022 Preview and Favorites of the Past

Mike-Hewitt-lectures-citizen-for-sidewalk-for-handicapped-spouse

It just wouldn’t be Halloween without recalling the St. Mary’s County Commissioners Meeting in 1995 when the county commissioners came to their regular weekly meeting wearing Halloween costumes.

Babs becomes President of the St. Mary’s Commissioners and knows how to keep the Board in the dark.

Most memorable was Babs. For those who weren’t yet born, born again, or arrived yet in the Mother County of Maryland, ‘Babs’ was Commissioner President Barbara Thompson. Babs was the first female president of the St. Mary’s Commissioner and led the two-commissioner liberal Republican caucus of the first all GOP Board of Commissioners in St. Mary’s County since the 1930s.  The three conservatives were Commissioner Larry Jarboe, Chris Brugman, and Frances Eagan.  When one contemplates the vision of Babs dressed as a witch for that commissioner’s meeting, then one can easily understand how often editorial cartoons in ST. MARY’S TODAY featured her in her witch garb.  It was a natural. Babs was always trying to bewitch the conservative mandate that the voters decided to install in the county government to get rid of the Good Old Boys corruption, tendency to raise taxes, and general all-around goofy government.

The fifth commissioner on the 1994 Board of Commissioners was Crazy Paul Chesser. Chesser was so goofy he would vote against his own motions and ramble on about finding used female underwear discarded at the Piney Point boat ramp.  He made Joe Biden look like a Rhodes Scholar.  Babs would hang him out to dry, and get Crazy Paul to make a motion and then vote against him.

Fortunately, Paul slept through a lot of meetings, just like John Lancaster did when elected to the 1986 and 1990 Boards.  And, just as Sleepy John Lancaster lost in 1994 mostly due to the photo of him sleeping at meetings posted often on the front page of ST. MARY’S TODAY, so did the photos of Chesser napping at board meetings have an effect on his chances at winning a second term in 1998.

 The voters went for a stone Communist in Commie Joe Anderson over Chesser in 1998, but came back to their senses in 2002 when they got rid of Commie Joe and elected Kenny Dement. Dement’s campaign slogan was: ‘I might be dumb but I ain’t no Commie’ and he sent the bearded big spender Anderson packing. Anderson lost his first bid in 1994 when he tried to beat Brugman, attempting to demean him by calling him a “paperboy” as if there is no dignity to honest work. That’s the way it always is with a leftist.  Anderson initiated the first $100 a plate breakfast fundraiser in 1994 and had all the fat cat developers show up to support their favorite member of the Planning Commission. Quid Pro Joe.

The St. Mary’s Commissioner Board elected in 1990 did have two Republicans on it, Babs and Howdy Buddy Loffler.  Loffler was appointed to the board in 1987 when GOP President Joe O’Dell resigned as mobsters chased him for a gambling debt.  O’Dell had won in 1986 when he beat Commissioner President George Aud (Democrat) as Aud had won renomination by his party in the Democratic Primary while he was serving a thirty-day sentence in jail for tax evasion. 

Loffler’s seven years as Commissioner President was a blessing to cartoonists and political commentator assassins everywhere. What wasn’t there to like? Loffler worked a deal with a developer to have the county buy the developer’s property and in turn, the developer loaned Loffler a couple of hundred grand for his No-Tell Motel project which evolved into the Hampton Inn at the North Gate of Patuxent NAS. 

No bank would touch Loffler with a loan due to the financial wreckage of his business and even spending time in jail over a beef with a boat supplier.  They have a special suite at the Hotel St. Mary’s for the St. Mary’s Commissioner President and that may be why John O’Connor suddenly decided to pull out of his effort to knock off Randy Guy for the post and run instead for the current seat that he holds.

No Cakewalk for O’Connor

O’Connor has a committed conservative Republican, Dawn Marie Murphy, of Avenue who has filed for the seat that represents the northern area from the Seventh to Chaptico and over to Mechanicsville areas of St. Mary’s County, currently referred to as Commissioner District 3.  Murphy presents herself as a take no prisoners Republican, which is refreshing as plenty of folks are sick and tired of the RINO’s like O’Connor. She states on her Facebook group page that she is a strong 2nd Amendment supporter and supports American freedom.

“I want you to know I am here for your Freedoms that are in our Constitution. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I will also fight for your right to Bear Arms. Guns don’t kill people, People kill people!”

Commissioner John O’Connor THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

It appears O’Connor is switching political aspirations as often as he switches police departments.  O’Connor is one wild card rolled into a funny deck where he always deals out cards to the public that they never knew he supported. O’Connor attempted to foist charter government on St. Mary’s when voters had already turned it down three times in the past, he pushed for a police union and who knows what other nefarious deals he was cooking up to hire discarded PG County EMS workers? O’Connor has built the record any liberal Democrat would be proud to have earned.

Maybe Murphy will learn the St. Mary’s Commissioners have nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.

 Rita Weaver has now filed for the job of commissioner president and if elected, she would be the third woman to hold the post, as Democrat Julie Randall won the job in 1998 and lost it in 2002 to Hambone Tommy McKay. Randall and McKay distinguished themselves mostly by failing to uphold the tradition of either being sent to jail or quitting and running from gambling debts owed to mobsters. 

However, CHEAP SHOTS owes a great debt of gratitude to both Julie and Hambone for the many pronouncements and acts of crazy and goofy politics that fueled so many columns and cartoons. What would we ever have done without them? 

Francy Eagan, Chris Brugman, and Larry Jarboe provided the most sanity of any of those to hold the office over the years. They saved the taxpayers millions of dollars with good decisions to lower taxes, fully fund education, blow up the Judicial Palace proposal which would have cost over $25 million and instead expand and renovate the existing courthouse. 

St. Mary’s Commissioners paid for the costs of bringing an Indian from North Carolina to march in the annual Veterans Day Parade in Leonardtown, leading the parade and dancing in costume.

They bid out health coverage instead of just continuing good old boy deals with corrupt companies and made the county employees much more responsive to the public.  The county employees soon learned they were better off with good management under John Kachmar as County Administrator and began to see the light. When Kachmar saw the makeup of the incoming Randall board in 1998, he headed for another job.

The 2010 election saw Jackie Russell win a second term as commissioner president and the old crabber managed to stay out of jail and defeated Hambone in his second defeat for public office after losing to Sen. Roy Dyson in 2006.  Hambone had to learn once more that politics wasn’t for him when he lost in 2014 to Matt Morgan for House of Delegates.  What a shame, as Hambone had already ordered drapes for the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis as that is where his destiny lay but along the way, he never found his degree he told everyone was somewhere in his desk along with his son’s funny 20’s.

Commissioners-carving-Tax-Pumpkin-10-30-2001

Where is an Orphan?

Now we have the first early filers for office with the courthouse crowd trying to keep their iron grip on their jobs as no one really understands what they do anyway.  Like, really, what does a Judge of the Orphans Court really do?  Has anyone ever seen an orphan show up at the Courthouse and ask for a Judge to help him or her? Nope. Never.  We have one current Judge who has the distinction of having taken the Fifth Amendment in Federal Court when his company was being prosecuted for defrauding the Federal Government.  We know we can trust that guy.  The Register of Wills does all the real work, and the Three Musketeers show up for paychecks.

CROOKED ST. MARY’S PART III: Fritz’s Great Ocean City Adventure In Luxury Suite At $425 Per Night; Thousands Of Tax Dollars Spent For Canceled Conferences

Fritz Files for 21st Term at the age of 108

And what can anyone say about Richard Fritz? What can really be said, is if Fritz is the best and the brightest of the local bar, then anyone who needs a lawyer ought to Google one from Annapolis or Greenbelt.  There are a lot of women lawyers around Leonardtown now, but they aren’t showing too much to the voters. Likely, they are making too much money handling divorces.

Except one.

 Jaymi Sterling told Fritz to take his job and shove it when she exposed the sweet deal for Fritz spending thousands of dollars taking his staff to a beach week in Ocean City for a conference that had been canceled due to the Wuhan Flu.  There was plenty of time to cancel the hotel rooms and get a refund, but Fritz will always take the fleazy and sleazy path to fame and fortune.  Sterling should run, she has respect from a lot of voters but then again, Fritz may indict her for some sort of crime as a way to clear the playing field for yet another term. He has done so in the past.

Anne Arundel County Assistant States Attorney Jaymi Sterling, left, with Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Ripken and her parents, Gov. and Mrs. Larry Hogan.

 In the old days when a lawyer wanted to create a good impression, he would gather an audience in the lobby of the courthouse and have someone dare him to do 100 pushups. That was Senator Paul Bailey, who was fit and trim until he died of something. He has a nephew who is the State Senator now and a nice chap.

Another Windshield Tour for Visiting Grand Poohbahs

 Sen. Jack Bailey recently sent out a press release with several photos of him and a couple of fellow Republicans that he brought down for a tour of St. Mary’s County.  Senator Bailey took his GOP colleagues around like they were a bunch of tourists gaping at historical stuff and posing with big smiles as if someone would actually vote for them due to their pricey sets of chompers that they got at Sedation Dentistry. 

Senator-Jack-Bailey-with-GOP-senators-at-old-State-House.

From Sen. Jack Bailey:

“On Wednesday, September 29th, Senator Jack Bailey hosted colleagues from the Senate Republican Caucus for a tour of St. Mary’s County, past and present. Stops on the tour included the Loveville Produce Auction, a windshield tour of Leonardtown, Historic St. Mary’s City, St. Mary’s College, Patuxent Naval Air Station and St. Mary’s County Regional Airport.”

No scheduled flights, never a paying passenger

St.-Marys-Airport-multimillion-dollar-terminal-has-never-had-a-scheduled-flight-or-a-paying-passenger.-THE-CHESAPEAKE-TODAY-photo

Gee whiz, Batman. Imagine a carload of Republicans speeding down from Annapolis and slowing down to a mere 50 mph as they zoomed through the Walled City of Leonardtown and peeked up from their booster seats to peer out of the Windshield at the antique shops and expensive eateries. 

Comptroller Peter Franchot with Leonardtown Mayor J. Harry Norris. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

There were days when visiting political honchos would be guided through the stores at the Leonardtown Centre, stop at the grocery store, visit in the center of town by the Mayor, be met at Leonard Hall by one of the county commissioners and go office by office to meet county employees and thank them for their hard work, go to the courthouse and visit with the elected officials and say hey to the Judges.

What Senator Jack Bailey didn’t do was show them some of the needs of St. Mary’s County instead of taking a “windshield tour” as his press secretary described it.  That term of a windshield tour was used a number of years ago by the Maryland Superintendent of Schools to describe how she did a “windshield tour of the new Charter School on Great Mills Road. It was likely given such a bum’s rush as a favor to the teacher’s union who oppose charter schools. 

Roy-Dyson-and-John-Bohanan-shown-hold-a-SHA-plan-to-eliminate-the-bottleneck-on-Rt.-5-at-Great-Mills-with-reversible-rush-hour-center-lane-that-neither-of-them-bothered-to-promote.-

What could have Jack Bailey shown his Senate colleagues? 

How about the bottleneck at Great Mills where Rt. 5 and Great Mills Road slam together in a Dysonion-Bohananian-HoyerGeezerist Mixing Bowl of Apathy and Do-Nothingness?

Or Senator Bailey could have taken them for a ‘windshield tour’ of the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge which is held together with massive steel bands while the pillars are rumored to be eroding at the base of the bridge. A new bridge with four-lanes instead of the goofy design of the present bridge has long been ignored by a succession of Governors.

When will Sen. Jack Bailey decide to take advantage of the rarity of a Republican Governor to get these two traffic nightmares fixed?

Keep your fingers crossed when driving over the Gov.Thomas Johnson Bridge. The steel bands hold the crumbling top of the supports intact. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

Roy Dyson always squawked about the bridge, but he became more ineffective the longer he stayed in office. He and his brother-in-law Bohanan actually held a plan in their hands to add a third lane to Rt. 5 that would be reversible, and SHA put a price tag of about $1.6 million to revamp the road from Great Mills to Callaway, but the two Democrats proved to be incapable of understanding the problem or finding a solution, which is a common theme among Democrats.  

Gov. Thomas Johnson Bridge on St. Mary’s side as crash ties up both directions. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

Recently, Delegate Crosby, who is way in over his head, held a meeting at which he planned to show he was taking action on Great Mills Gridlock and instead of learning the ropes, was surprised to learn from the MDOT staffers at the meeting that it would take at least two years to relocate utilities along the Rt. 5 section in Great Mills and he wouldn’t be able to use the improvement as a campaign stunt for the coming election.  In all fairness, Deb Rey never lifted a finger to solve the gridlock on Rt. 235 and replace the Solomons bridge or break up the Great Mills Gridlock. She was too busy running her mouth about issues over which delegates have no control.

Jack Bailey State Senate – THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo

The Lone Ranger

Sen. Jack Bailey is acting like the Lone Ranger of St. Mary’s Politics when we need him to be the leader.  Jack Bailey had a remarkable career as a law officer and showed real guts in taking on corruption in the Natural Resources Police and ferreting out criminals in the ranks of poachers and pirates of the watermen.  He replaced Steve Waugh, a bozo who served no one as State Senator and failed St. Mary’s and Calvert at every turn. Now, Jack needs to lead and bring about solutions to real and grinding traffic gridlocks on Rt. 4, Rt. 235 and at Great Mills that Democrats have ignored for the past twenty years.

Forty Years of an Unfinished FDR Blvd.

Look at the track record on FDR Blvd. The first proposal for the second method of navigating from St. Andrews Church Road into Lexington Park first came up in the 1980s.  Even today, it is not finished which summarizes the St. Mary’s County Commissioner Boards for the last forty years as being a collection of ineffective yahoos. All of them. Democrats and Republicans, if judged by this one public works project.  You bought them; they are all yours for eternity.

FDR-Blvd-from-Chancellors-Run-Road-to-Pegg-Road-still-just-a-plan-not-a-reality.

The Rise of the Know-Nothings

Republicans have their heads up their rear ends so much that they can’t find their rumps with both hands.  Woe to the poor citizen who has to suffer from these chump politicians

One new GOP commissioner candidate says he supports the addition of access to give the public access to the Patuxent River and new boat ramps at the new county park at Sandgates. This might be a good idea, but it defies logic to build boat ramps at this park before building boat ramps at Myrtle Point Park.  The new GOP candidate for Commissioner Scott Ostrow lives in Town Creek and would have found that St. Mary’s County bought Myrtle Point with state funds in 1995 and the GOP commissioners caved to a group of about a dozen or so nearby property owners who were determined to prevent any development of the park.

The elitist FRIENDS hid their jealous motivations of keeping the big park for themselves and blocking the unwashed from fishing, playing sports, or launching boats by claiming they were just trying to protect the environment.

 The Friends of Myrtle Point Park were just a bunch of phonies.  The Republicans have repeatedly blocked placing sports fields and boat ramps there at Myrtle Point and the Democrat Commissioners when they were holding office, were just as compliant in kissing the butts of the NOT IN MY BACK YARD neighbors.  There are more than two miles of waterfront at the park but the politicians in St. Mary’s County can’t find a way to put boat ramps at Myrtle Point and now propose ramps yet another park, which other phony enviro whackos will likely block as well.  For progressive, commie, far-left liberal activists it’s always about the children, the whales, the baby seals, the Eastern Narrow Mouth Toads, or something else when it’s usually all about themselves.

TUTTLE IS HERE TO SAVE ST. MARY’S COUNTY! Filed for county commissioner

At least another candidate for Commissioner that has filed for office on the Democrat side lives very close to Myrtle Point Park and Steve Tuttle and his husband can walk their dogs there and carry along a supply of plastic bags.  The trouble with this candidate is not his choice of marrying style, as former Delegate John Bohanan took care of that when he was the deciding vote to make same-sex marriage legal in Maryland.  No, the trouble with this candidate is that the residence he listed on election records is at odds with the address listed on the State Department of Assessment and Taxation where the record reflects that it is not his principal place of residence. If he doesn’t live there, as he shows on his Facebook page, election records, and tax records, where in blue blazes does he live. This problem can easily be fixed, of course, but it is a fact for the time being.

Former Delegate Deb Rey threw away a great win in 2014 over Bohanan when she talked herself out of a job. She ranted and raved about right-wing talking points that are available on the internet and that a delegate has little or nothing to do with, and the voters decided that an unknown clone of Bohanan would be a better choice.

Delegate-Brian-Crosby-voted-to-strip-protection-from-law-enforcment-officers-and-to-override-Governor-Hogans-veto.

This guy Crosby followed the game plan laid down by Bohanan to adhere to a carefully choreographed campaign to unseat the unpredictable mouthy Deb and he beat her. Now Crosby has suddenly discovered, in the eight years, he has lived in St. Mary’s, that the county is systemically racist.  St. Mary’s is one county in the state that moved into the 21st century and worked hard to make opportunity more than a phony campaign plank advocated by airhead Democrats. 

Sheriff-Joe-Lee-Somerville-THE-CHESAPEAKE-TODAY-photo

A black guy beat a white guy in the Democratic Primary for Sheriff in 1978, supported by the white voters and Joe Lee Somerville became the first black elected Sheriff in the history of Maryland. That same year, voters re-elected a Jewish County Commissioner, Larry Millison, and elected a Jewish lawyer, Neal Myerberg, as States Attorney.  Not too shabby for a bunch of racist voters.  Running at large in 1986 and again in 1990, a black gentleman named John Lancaster, a Democrat, who worked as an extension agent in the county, was elected to the commissioner district for Lexington Park.  Maybe Crosby never saw a photo of Lancaster to learn that he was a black guy. He did get a park created from the flattened Flat Tops named after him. He might have won a third term if he didn’t sleep in the commissioner meetings.

Deb Rey is running again to unseat Crosby thus voters are given a choice between a bloviating right-winger and a loony left-winger. Neither one has any particular skills at being an effective legislator.

Janice Walthour

There is a faction of black educators who have thrived from opportunities being available to them due to the changing laws and times and yet they still pop up all the time screaming about how racist the county remains. They are the true racists. At least they come up with entertaining new hairdos occasionally as they appear at meetings to remind everyone else how bright and all-knowing they are; and demand new Marxist Critical Race rules for the educational system.

For the future:

Dipping toes into calm political waters can be refreshing for old warhorses like Sal Raspa. Dr. Salvatore Raspa, the Lion of Lexington and Past Principal of the Castle Great Mills is being sought by friends to file for St. Mary’s County Commissioner. Sal lives in the south county district of Ridge and Valley Lee that actually includes his home in Hermanville. 

Linda-Palchinsky-and-Sal-Raspa-October-27-2021. Many friends are urging Linda to file for County Commissioner from Lexington Park. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo.

Sal was long known as a young and energetic educator who kept his hair and mustache died jet black. When he suffered a scalp injury, he had to give up the obsession with shoe polish and now his snow-white full crop of hair and mustachio gives him a look that is a cross between Anthony Quinn and Marlon Brando. His recent heart tune-up now gives him the energy of a 40-year-old and he can throw away his testosterone supplements. Raspa is in a quandary. He is an elected member of one of the looniest groups in Maryland – the St. Mary’s Democratic Central Committee.  The Dems recently dumped Shane Mattingly as their chairMAN due to the fact that he is a man.  Now he is a man without a chair. Apparently, the committee didn’t mind that Shane used to be the Chairman of the GOP Central Committee. But they wanted to have one of the members who uses a different pronoun to describe oneself.  Shane is just marking time to the day when Fritz falls out of his tree-stand and won’t be around to run for States Attorney again so he can walk in and get the post. He knows that he can’t run against Fritz as he will just be indicted for something.

The Democratic Central Committee is a bastion of discrimination. They have a special rule that demands that an equal number of members be female, and an equal number be males. They have no allowance whatsoever for any freaks like Biden’s new four-star Admiral of the Public Health Service, a man who dresses like a woman and claims he is the first female four-star admiral.  How about it, Democrats?  What about having an allowance for those who self-identify as one of Dr. Fauci’s hounded victims in weird experiments?

The question of the day is will Sal Raspa run for County Commissioner? He would destroy Eric Colvin, who really is a Democrat.  Should Raspa file, Colvin should run for the hills.  A Republican is being urged to file in the south county commissioner race and has done a good job on the Redistricting Committee. Rich Johnson was appointed by Commissioner President Randy Guy to the panel and would be a friend of the taxpayer.

Remember, dear readers, THE SHADOW KNOWS.

2022 Election: Preview coming soon in PART TWO

Rich Johnson, left, with St. Mary’s Commissioner President Randy Guy and former St. Mary’s Commissioner Larry Jarboe campaigned on a Ronald Reagan approach to government. Rich Johnson is being urged to file for St. Mary’s Commissioner from Valley Lee/Ridge District.
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