Thanks to everyone who braved the weather last night to join us at our second gathering of Political Buzz-Maryland!  We apologize to anyone who missed us due to the very last minute venue change. Our original meeting place accidentally double-booked, so we had to quickly make arrangements nearby.  If we missed you, please try to join us next time for an evening of food, friends and a serious education on Maryland politics!  Thank you Pat and Patti for scrambling to regroup and doing it with such efficiency!  Bravo to all who pitched in to make our meeting possible.

Guests mingle and enjoy a snack before our meeting begins.

We were very honored to have Delegates Michael Smigiel and Kathy Afzali join us to talk about the damage done during the 2013 Legislative Session and other information we need to know about.

Del. Smigiel gave us up-to-the-minute details on the O'Malley Prison Scandal.  Don't be fooled by the media coverage you are not seeing.  This is a big deal.  A gang member was running....running the Baltimore prison!  Many of his gang members were working as guards, which means there was no mechanism for screening employees arriving for work.  Drugs, money, phones and more were walked into the prison without difficulty. The few prison guards who were not gang members feared for their lives every day, as they could not depend on other guards to "have their back" in dangerous situations. (As a side note, repealing the death penalty took away any deterrent for "lifers" to commit murder within the jail.)  Needless to say, this investigation must see the light of day.  Please visit Del. Smigiel's web page for more information.  Educate yourself and then take action by contacting media outlets about this outrage and absolute failure of leadership.  Speak out now!

UMRWC President, Patti Witham introduces Del. Mike Smigiel

Attendees also heard a first hand account of Democrat vote manipulation with regard to gun control legislation.  Despite dishonesty and dirty tricks, several amendments were added at the last minute that eased the pain for Maryland gun owners.  Not that the bill itself isn't awful - it's just that our hard working Republican representatives did everything they could to make it less awful.

Frederick Delegate Kathy Afzali gave us the bad news on the new gas and rain taxes.  The gas tax will cause serious harm to lower and middle income citizens. (The very constituents Democrats claim to champion!)  As we know, much of Maryland is rural, and residents live in rural areas for many reasons. One of those reasons is that housing prices in large cities are generally unaffordable, therefore, working requires a commute. If you are already struggling to keep a roof over your head and food on your table, adding to the ever increasing cost of gas could put some families in real peril. We hope to revisit this awful new tax next session which, by the way, is tied to CPI and was designed to never go down, but always go up...without a cap!

Patti introduces Del. Kathy Afzali

It's  hard to believe we were actually spending time talking about a rain tax, but there we were! Due to an EPA mandate, Maryland needs to find a way to raise $14.8 billion to cut down on stormwater runoff flowing into the Chesapeake Bay.  So, instead of finding waste, fraud, abuse or other unnecessary spending, they did what they always do.  Look to us to finance every bright liberal idea.  How this will all be implemented and administered remains to be seen, but here is my advice: until further notice, do not sneak out to get the morning paper in your jammies.  Satellites will be taking photographs of your property and you don't want THAT photo to be in your permanent file!  If we knew for sure when they were photographing our property, I'm sure many of us would defiantly look up to the sky and flip 'em the bird.  But I digress.

Kathy is so great at keeping us all informed about what is going on in Annapolis, click here to join her mailing list so you are the first to know!

Frederick Del. Kathy Afzali talks about....taxes. 

Of course, we are ready to begin planning our next meeting. Please leave us a comment or question if you attended last night, or if you would like to see a particular topic addressed at a future meeting.  Also, if you would like us to bring Political Buzz-Maryland to your neighborhood, let us know!  We are happy to help!