Maryland: General Assembly

At least we now know the one thing that will united Democrats and Republicans in Annapolis is Facebook.

Of all of the more ridiculous decisions that have been made by Annapolis Bureaucrats over the years, this has to be right up on there. We've gotten to the point in society where so many people felt that the process of politics and government were leaving them behind. In the last year, members of the General Assembly have been gradually warming up to social networking (Facebook in particular) and blogging as ways to communicate with their constituents and as a way to sidestep the gatekeeper role of the media.

The Legum's New Line blog reports this morning on a memo from the Department of Legislative Services banning access to MySpace and Facebook from General Assembly computers. The memo says there's been a spike in virus activity since the start...

As he is bound to do, Governor O'Malley delivered the State of the State Address earlier this week. While the state has challenges, Martin was optimistic for our future because a new Sheriff was in town a few miles down the road in Washington, D.C.

But I think the state of the state is much more accurately assessed in the rebuttal, presented by Delegate Anthony O'Donnell - who happens to be my 2008 Legislator of the Year based on his monoblogue Accountability Project score. If you go to the Maryland Public Television site, you'll see and hear both speeches.

It's also worthwhile to see the response from the Maryland Republican Party:

Maryland Republican Party Chairman Dr.