The things we see on Facebook! Some people should have a breathalyzer attached to their computer to prevent them from typing such nonsense as this:
You’re going to kill Tommy! Never deliver news like that when someone is drinking!
But seriously folks, what the everlasting hell? And Blaine, it’s not over when YOU say it’s over. It’s over when we the VOTERS say it’s over. AND IT BE OVER!!! What is interesting about this post is that he is implying that he’s still in contention. He may not be the “lead singer,” but he thinks there’s still a place for him. Or, more than likely, there are shenanigans afoot and he is creating a dramatic distraction. Is that why his compadres have been so quiet? ooh, folks, remain vigilant, this could be bad…
Is he the one that Kirby and Billy text during council meetings? We saw this image last week and chuckled:
But maybe there’s more truth to it than we realized.
With the Facebook and WFMD insults flying around like rice at a wedding we were sure this meeting was going to be a Class A disaster. Pleasant surprises, or perhaps it’s our lowered expectations, sometimes come forth in the shape of a county council workshop.
There were only two items on tonight’s agenda. Jerry puts forth the suggestion that perhaps everyone leave their cell phones to the side. A good one we think. We’ve noticed two people in particular who seem to have their heads buried in their devices (wonder who they are texting…). The procedures for the council are now up for vote. Even though Billy got some of the changes he wanted, he and Kirby still vote no. Tony’s not on the bandwagon this week so it passes 5-2.
Next up our wonderful county employees give a nice presentation on solar utility fields. If you recall, back in February County Executive Gardner put a halt to this because the county had seen a sharp increase in applications. Therefore, it was deemed prudent to study the issue so the county could have some clear guidelines. We have to say the discussion was pretty nice. Kirby was concerned that the bond that would allow the government to remove solar fields that haven’t been used in over a year constituted illegal government seizure of property. But he took the explanation well and was rather subdued. His demeanor caused a flurry of texts between your Yokel gals; not sure what exactly is going on there.
Everyone else had some good points and questions, even SOME of Billy’s were reasonable. However, he disagrees with the notion that fences should be put up because he doesn’t believe that deer would bother the panels. Even though those who actually have experience with them say they do. And there was some point (and we use that word lightly) about how the Appalachian Trial is high so therefore you can’t hide the solar fields from it. And why does he always have to act as though he’s an expert on every single subject when he so clearly is not?
The council will think on this and come up with some suggestions before the July 15th deadline. There may even be a public hearing so, if you have a dog in this fight, make sure you check the county website.
There’s a workshop this evening and we are a little afraid to watch. There’s been so much animosity this week in Frederick politics we aren’t sure how this is going to play out. (Can we say we feel really bad for M.C, Jessica , Jerry and, to some extent, Tony.) Only two items on the docket: Adopting the amendments to council procedures and a discussion of solar utility projects. We’ll let you know what happens but y’all may owe us a drink or two or three….
The big news this week was President Otis’ announcement that he was leaving the Republican Party. We wrote two pieces on this topic yesterday. We here at the Yokel don’t blame him one bit considering how he’s been treated by Shrelauter and their cronies on the watch page. We’ve watched every SINGLE council meeting and have seen first hand the rude, snarky comments these two have made towards Bud. Just search through our plentiful archives and you’ll find copious examples of their abhorrent behavior. So when we read through the FNP articleabout Bud’s political affiliation, we were quite perplexed by Shrelauter’s statements. Kirby wants us pretend we’re all new here:
“Bud Otis doesn’t know me very well. I don’t intimidate very easily. I will stand up for what I think is right,” Delauter said. “I ran for office to change things and make the county a better place.” He added that he doesn’t think he’s created conflicts on the council. “If you look at the tapes, I’m pretty calm. I’m speaking my mind,” Delauter said. “That’s what my constituents keep asking me to do.”
Woden hear our cries for mercy!!! Who does this guy think he’s talking to? We’ve seen him get combative with Bud during the ethics bill discussions, we’ve seen him throw a hissy fit and storm off the dais just a few weeks ago when his budget amendments were soundly defeated. We know from his BOCC days that he screamed at fellow commissioner David Gray,lashed out at a county employeeand went after a middle school teacher in the FNP. Calm is the last adjective we would use to describe #kirbydelauter. In fact, he got his # nickname because he flew off the handle at a local reporter and demanded that she not use his name. Our nice little county got a lot of national press because of that hot mess. You don’t get to re-invent yourself, Kirby, just because you have your eye on the CE office. We all have your number.
Now it’s Shreve’s turn to give his insightful, articulate opinion on Bud’s decision. Just kidding!! Here’s what he had to say:
Shreve, who has said Otis is “a trained monkey by the Democrats” in Facebook posts, said he hasn’t lodged personal attacks against Otis, but he will.
“Tell him to hang on, because it’s just getting started,” Shreve said Thursday.
Oh really? Just getting started. We heard him say on WFMD that we libs monitor his Facebook page. If you call reading what comes in our feed monitoring…then YES. And in those feeds we’ve seen him call Bud names like Turncoatis on his Councilman page tons of times. Now Billy also claimed on the radio that the Democrats on the council have had it with Bud. Did he check with them? Cause it seems like M.C. has a different view:
“The citizens elected us to do our job. We were elected to be legislators. So far, there has been a dearth of legislation from the folks complaining,” Keegan-Ayer said. “You can’t just sit there and lob grenades all day long. Do the job you were elected to do.”
It’s always something. Never, ever anything constructive from these two. Not ever!
We mourn the passing of Bud Otis’s membership in the Frederick County Republican Party. The general climate of vindictive hostility within the county has inspired Council President Bud Otis to change his political registration to unaffiliated.
You may think it would be easy for us to be pleased by this turn of events–watching the jerks eat their own. It most assuredly is not. We need to have two functioning parties, not a rabid pack of arseholes who waste time, impede the functioning of quotidian matters we all depend upon for a good quality of life in Frederick County, and go saying insane things on air on WFMD. Some things that we frankly are not willing to even repeat. When you see where this paragraph is willing to go, you will have to wonder, “What on Earth could it be that is absolutely beyond the pale?” Then there are the apparent residents of some padded cell in a relative’s dank basement who get on Facebook’s Worst Nightmare Watch and tell anyone who disagrees with them things like they have sweat from the Council President’s testicles rubbed all over them. We have some other (apparently) BREAKING news: politics is not supposed to be about pushing people away from your point of view (follow that link back there; it is in a Republican’s own words). Bud Otis is an incredibly good and decent man, who has governed thoughtfully and responsibly on behalf of this county. He been forced out of his party by a party purity test that becomes increasingly guano psychotic. Thanks for that term. You know who you are, girlfriend.
It has become ever more alarming that we appear to be setting examples for young people who are now reaching voting age who may have never even seen the two party system do something like compromise. Failure to function, a la Ted-I’m-Taking-My-Ball-and-Going-Home Cruz, is bad enough. Being the party of bullying is worse. Billy and Kirby employ both tactics, liberally haha see what we did there! Tony is a little more conservative, but not always on the responsible side. We got ourselves a countywide nationwide guano show, people.
We are super sad. How are we supposed to say, “Look folks, there are sane people on both sides of the aisle.” Bud Otis gave us hope. We were inspired. We now rely on some involved private citizens to carry that mantle: Carl Thomas, Steve McKay, Craig Hicks, and Carol Jaar Sepe, we look to you to find the bipartisan common ground. We’re very grateful to you.
We do have utmost respect for the decision Mr. Otis felt himself forced to make. Bravo, Bud Otis. You do you. Middle finger to the haters.
‘Specially you Ellen Bartlett. Thank Zeus Jerry Donald won that race!
We have a different kind of poll for you today Yokels. We are thinking that we need some good derisive nicknames for our unesteemed Councilmen. So we have a few suggestions to get started, but we want you to add your own. We will recompile the results for a poll to determine how we henceforth refer to these guys. We are counting on you. We know you will not let us down.
And let’s close out our last poll. Looks like Ethics are important after all!
We already thanked them for the recent explosion in interest they have garnered for our blog. It seems that they timed their nonsense just smashingly well. After all the side show histrionics over it being unfair for ALL the businesses to have to abide by the same laws, when they seem to feel that a wink and a nod and a post to Kirby’s Facebook page should suffice, they followed up with their main act: budget grandstanding (act 1)and(act 2).Oh wait,(also act 3).
It is time we gave the first Boomhauer Boomerang Award in honor of our generous benefactors. Ironic that they should prove to be so giving, recalling that one of the clowns withheld support he claimed he ordinarily would have given to his district’s high school football team when the County deemed that it would be unseemly for a sitting council member to profit off of county contracts. We bring that up again, in case any of our new readers have just begun to realize that Frederick County politics is hands down the best reality show around.
Howdy, boys! We sure do thank you kindly. Keep up the good work. Your overtaxed golgi apparatus are going to just burn out eventually.
To keep y’all informed we like to look at Councilman Billy Shreve’s Facebook page. It’s public for all to see, and you would think it’s there to keep his constituents informed. Mostly it’s a bunch of grandstanding nonsense. However, something has caught our eye lately. Billy likes to tag people at the end of his posts. We would hazard to guess these are people whom he thinks are directly involved with whatever the rant of the day may be. Look at this sampling and see if you can see a pattern:
Blaine Young, every time. We can understand the others (why no C.Paul Smith though, did they break up?), but why Blaine? Isn’t he on some kind of hiatus? What say you Councilman Shreve?
We’ve finally figured it out readers! We are living in an alternative reality than Shrelauter and, on occasion, Tony. It’s the only way this all makes any sense.
First let’s thank Baby Fitzwater for allowing his/her mommy to be in attendance during this very important meeting. Without her there…shiver…we don’t even want to think what would have happened.
Tony starts off the meeting trying to get the 6th item pulled off the agenda and wants to have clarification over what is a budget transfer and what is a supplemental appropriation.
On a side note-Kirby is saying yes instead of aye now. He used to say aye, but now he’s adopted Billy’s idiotic manner of using yes. Isn’t he such a brave rebel?
After Billy predictably votes against approving past meeting minutes, we are off on a discussion on bond offerings. There will be two bond series, A and B. A will pay for government projects such as schools, roads and other improvements. B is a refinance on the note that was taken out three years ago to pay for Montevue/Citizens nursing home. And hey, we think we’ve found Billy’s Pavlovian response. Because holy hell, he won’t let it go. He has to be told by two separate people that this is to simply refinance a note that needs to be paid off, but he wants to know everything about the nursing homes right this very second. Tony gets confused about debt financing debt, which is not what this is. And it’s never easy for our county employees is it?
Now, brace yourself because it’s time to vote on the budget and capital improvement projects. Tony is right out of the gate with his: I’m very sorry but I cannot vote on this budget. Next it’s time for Kirby.
To say the least!
Well Yokels, we knew we wouldn’t get out of this one unscathed. It is ridiculous to Kirby that the council only cut out $210,000 from this budget. It should have been more! And did you know the county council members are just cookie cutters to the County Executive’s budget (drink!)? Of course, and let’s not forget that Kirby believes they are giving the impression that they are handling this with the savoir-faire of drunken sailors, as well.
You didn’t think he was going to let this time go without pointing out that Jessica and Jerry vote on their salaries did you?
Jerry is the star of this evening.
It’s so very hard, we feel for you Mr. Donald.
Jerry sees this as a teachable moment. Too bad his students are Billy and Kirby. He reminds them if they actually met with department heads and sat down with the County Executive then maybe, just maybe, they would have seen more of what they wanted in the budget. After all, the time for negotiation is before the budget is written. Jerry pointed out that Kirby wanted to pull $1 million from the education budget.* To which Kirby sarcastically replies, “The children will suffer.” He then points out that the former BOCC actually raised taxes which elicits a bait and switch comment from Kirby. Jerry then has to point out that Kirby does not know what bait and switch means (kinda like Billy doesn’t understand what a wedding crasher is). There are some more words exchanged which made your Yokel ladies wonder if there will be a fist fight later on.
Jessica adds that she will not cut the budget just for the sake of cutting. The community and department heads said they wanted to see these things in the budget, and that is what is happening. You hear that Shrelauter?! Pay better attention next year! You don’t get to pretend you did something just because you attempt to cut a million things out of the budget after the fact! Bud ends this portion of the meeting with: “We’ve had a good discussion, well we’ve had a discussion. Let’s vote” Passes 4-3.
Tax rate stays at $1.06. All except two appointments pass with 7-0, Shreve being the only hold out on two. He probably blocked them on Twitter like he did to us as well. Animal control bequest goes off without a hitch and then we have our historical designation hearing on Glenellen Farm. We had a very nice presentation about the history of this property and Lady Thompson’s school that once existed there. This will be voted on at the next meeting. Public comment is one guy that Kirby gave a sheet to read from and then it’s time for council member comments.
Shade Trees and Evergreens is the popular theme this evening.
Kirby starts off the talk with how the county has ruined these poor people’s lives. But hey he’s also not saying that people should go out and do whatever they want. Then again if they’ve gotten away with it for 10 years, then it’s fine. Since they weren’t caught, it gives them immunity, right? But even though they were in the wrong the county shouldn’t bring the hammer down on them. The county is a train wreck. A train wreck he says! Making businesses follow the rules is running them out of the county.
Billy is so very sorry about the tax increase, folks! And the county is targeting the wedding venues. That’s right! Targeting them. Since the fire marshal has not produced any papers for Billy, Jan is a liar. And we just have to wait for the rest of this to come out!
Tony also insinuates that Jan is lying about the fire marshal. His solution? Let the venue operate until the end of the year, don’t let them use the bathrooms, and then close them down and fine the Dickens out of them!
M.C. is the first voice of reason on this subject. She wants to know if her fellow council members are really advocating for businesses to not follow the proper procedures. After all, this particular business had been warned and did nothing to correct the situation. And she is getting calls from legitimate businesses who are upset that the three amigos are advocating for a business that is run by people who thought they were above the law. She hopes that there aren’t two separate set of laws in this county.
Bud finishes off this discussion by informing us that he saw some evidence that they haven’t even had their gas lines inspected. So we are talking about a possible explosion here folks.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
Bud says it doesn’t matter if nothing has happened in the past, that doesn’t excuse them. And if anything were to happen in the future shame on them all! Why can’t they see this? What is the matter with these three? Leave your diagnosis in the comments!
Frederick County politics strikes again.
* This is a correction. The county council did not take $1 million from the education budget as was previously noted. Jerry was pointing out to Kirby that his budget took $1 million dollars away from the schools. Your lady Yokels apologize for any confusion.
Despite all the declarations of love we’ve heard from our At Large Council member there seems to be some trouble between him and Governor Hogan brewing:
Oh dear.
What evidence does Billy present as to why Hogan should jump on the Trump bandwagon?
Frederick County Councilman Billy Shreve warned that Hogan is risking the support of the 54 percent of Maryland Republicans who voted for Trump in the April 26 primary.
“It’s going to look really bad if Trump wins Maryland and the governor doesn’t come out and support him,” Shreve said.
54% huh? Let’s do some numbering. Let’s see there’s 959,858 registered Republicans in the State of Maryland. 434,572 of those decided to show up and vote. Of those 434,572 primary voters 236,623 voted for Trump So yes 54% of those who showed up voted for Trump, however only 24% of the registered Republicans in this fine State of ours cast their vote for him. If we look at that in Statewide numbers, out of the 3,694,527 registered voters in Maryland 6% of them have actually cast a vote for Trump. Not quite the mandate.
And even if former Republican governors are drinking the Trump Kool-Aid:
Really Bobby haircut?
There’s precedence in this year’s election that not every Republican is throwing their support behind him. There’s a Republican governor in Massachusetts, a mostly Democratic state like Maryland, who is refusing to back Trump. Huh, what would give a fellow Republican pause? Let us count the ways.
Y’all remember way back to the 2012 election when Romney pretty much lost the election because he said this?:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax… my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives…. The president has been a disappointment. He told you he’d keep unemployment below 8 percent. Hasn’t been below eight percent since. Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can’t get a job. Fifty percent.”
If that was enough for people to stop and think, “Huh, maybe Romney doesn’t give a flying hoot about me?”. What can we pull out of the Trump archives? Ready! Set! Go!
“Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine and needy, but inside they are real killers. The person who came up with the expression ‘the weaker sex’ was either very naive or had to be kidding. I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye — or perhaps another body part.”
“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
“[Angelina Jolie’s] been with so many guys she makes me look like a baby… And, I just don’t even find her attractive.”
“While @ BetteMidler is an extremely unattractive woman, I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct. ”
“My favorite part [of ‘Pulp Fiction’] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: ‘Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.”
On maybe dropping a nuclear weapon on Europe:
Matthews: How about Europe? We won’t use it in Europe?
Trump: I—I’m not going to take it off the table.
Matthews: You might use it in Europe?
[Laughter]
Trump: No, I don’t think so. But I’m not taking . . .
Matthews: Well, just say it. “I will never use a nuclear weapon in Europe.”
Trump: I am not—I am not taking cards off the table.
Matthews: O.K.
Trump: I’m not going to use nuclear, but I’m not taking any cards off the table.
Matthews: O.K. The trouble is, the sane people hear you and the insane people are not affected by your threats. That’s the trouble. The real fanatics say, “Good. Keep it up.”
Trump: I think—I think they’re more affected than you might think.
In one of the kerfuffles that sparked early (and wrong) predictions that Trump’s campaign was about to implode, the Republican candidate appeared at an event in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, during which he derided Arizona Sen. John McCain as “a war hero because he was captured.”
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at the Family Leadership Summit, during a discussion. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Mr. Trump said his experience at the New York Military Academy, an expensive prep school where his parents had sent him to correct poor behavior, gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”
We could do this all day. If you want more Google is up and running for ya. If Mr. Shreve really believes that Trump has some kind of mandate in this State he is beyond delusional. We know that the good people of Maryland are not going to elect a opportunist, misogynist, xenophobic, bumbling “entertainer” to the highest office of our land. And maybe, just maybe Governor Hogan feels the same way.
frederick local yokel 