Commentary

Midshipman Gabe Neale, commander of this year’s Herndon Monument climb at the Naval Academy, poses in front of it before plebes began ascending it on May 17, 2023.  Midshipman Claire Pelletier-Heblock predicted the time that the 17th Company would need to scale the Herndon Monument on Wednesday morning, a bold statement. “Two hours,” she said.

On Feb. 3, the only sound echoing farther than the thundering crash of the derailment of a 1.7-mile-long Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio was the subsequent outcry from politicians. Make no mistake, this was a disaster with explosions and fire (some of it deliberately set as a controlled burn to reduce the scale of the toxic spill). Despite the enormous turnout of emergency personnel and first-responders, elected officials from Ohio Gov.

Montgomery County faces a public education staffing crisis. A staff and faculty shortage combined with record-setting enrollment has more than overburdened our support staff, faculty, administrators, and nurses. Shortchanging education spending is only exasperating the situation, particularly as Montgomery County is now spending less on education per student than it did over a decade ago.

When Wes Moore first ran to be Maryland’s 63rd governor, his pitch came down to this: “No matter where you start in life,” he would often tell his audience, “you deserve an equal opportunity to succeed.” In signing into law legislation to restrict who can carry firearms and where they can be carried, as he is expected to do this afternoon, and to make it easier for individuals convicted of a crime to have their records expunged once they meet certain criteria, Governor Moore has made his most serious effort to date to provide that opportunity.

Human rights tops Ben Cardin’s list of accomplishments as a senator — specifically, his sponsorship of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a law imposing economic sanctions on bad actors in Russia and around the world. There are other items on Cardin’s list: Subsidies for small business; federal funds for the Chesapeake Bay; improving ways for Americans to save for retirement; addressing health disparities.

You don’t have to live next door to the LaFarge Quarry in Middle River to recognize that there’s something amiss with how Baltimore County makes land use decisions. To those who haven’t tracked the on-again, off-again dramatics surrounding the plan to turn what had been a sand and gravel quarry into an industrial park, here’s the short version: The controversial project was given fast-track approval last fall when it was located in the district of Councilmember Cathy Bevins, a Democrat who chose not to run for reelection.

There is no shortage of opportunity in Baltimore. Yet, there always seems to be a shortage of resources to seize those opportunities. Even when hundreds of millions of dollars come our way, it feels like a drop in the bucket after decades of disinvestment. Too often, that feeling of scarcity leads to resignation and a lack of imagination.

A nation of laws, not men — a principle undergirded by a system of checks and balances designed to secure liberty and justice for all. In striving to live up to these ideals, the work always begins with owning up to the reality of injustice. When we are silent on the rights of others, or when the will of those in power is forced on the voiceless, we stray dangerously far from justice for all.