Commentary

Before the 2020 elections, conventional wisdom, including among Maryland candidates, was that “Asian Americans do not vote.” In fact, half of Asian American registered voters polled nationally in September 2020 reported that neither major political party contacted them. What a mistake. In 2020, the Asian American vote surged because we took our own communities to the ballot box. From individual efforts like award-winning author R.O. Kwon’s nationwide phone banking events to concerted voter drives by newer organizations like Georgia’s Asian American Advocacy Fund, Asian and Pacific Islander voters increased by over 47% compared to 2016’s turnout. It’s a significant jump compared to all other voters, whose turnout increased by 12%. And this jump in voters was beyond the margin of victory in key races.

The Supreme Court in Dobbs held there is no constitutional right to abortion. From now on, federal courts will apply a deferential level of review and uphold most state bans or restrictions. What does this mean for people in Maryland? While much has been said about Maryland’s abortion-protective laws, more needs to be done to ensure long-lasting protection. Many states have banned or are poised to ban abortion with severely limited exceptions. Anti-abortion groups are drafting proposed state laws to preclude residents from accessing abortion care in other states.

In the aftermath of devastating massacres in New York and Texas, officials have scrambled to determine what warning signs were overlooked. While multiple factors may drive individuals to become mass shooters, one common denominator has emerged from both cases: a history of animal cruelty. Alleged Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron boasted he had decapitated a cat with a hatchet, after stabbing it and smashing its head. Similarly, suspected Uvalde shooter Salvador Ramos tortured cats and displayed videos of the torture on social media. The link between animal cruelty and human violence is common knowledge.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 landmark ruling allowing citizens to carry a firearm in public for self-defense creates a tipping point in Maryland that not only threatens to accelerate gun sales, but put them in the hands of a public woefully unprepared to make life and death decisions. The case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, reversed New York regulations that required anyone who wanted to carry a firearm to demonstrate a “proper cause” as to why they should be allowed to.

For 15 years, Baltimore County has been satisfied with their self-proclaimed tough-on-crime prosecutor, State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger. But a former public defender believes the county is ready to embrace the progressive approach toward crime and punishment seen elsewhere in the country and has launched the first primary challenge against the Democratic incumbent since he was first elected in 2006.

A great-grandfather on my mother’s side had a big mouth. The trait seems to run in the family. Ivan Grodzensky — his first name was Israel before he Russified it — was living a prosperous life in Moscow in 1914 when he was overheard at a restaurant denouncing Czar Nicholas II for getting Russia involved in World War I. The czarist secret police imprisoned him, but he got out.

Stop and reflect on the success of the coronavirus vaccines. While most vaccines take five to 10 years to develop and manufacture, the remarkable mRNA shots appeared in less than a year. They were safe, efficacious, free, and dramatically reduced serious illness and death, one of the great biomedical achievements of all time. Yet their results could have been even better. A study by Oliver J. Watson and colleagues at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, published June 23 in the Lancet, sheds light on the scope of the achievement.

One Friday evening last November, a man stepped out of a minivan on President Street and beat a young squeegee worker bloody with a small wooden bat. Brandon Mead, a Baltimore attorney, witnessed the attack. “Clearly, this guy was ready for it,” Mead told me, referring to the white, middle-aged driver of the van, which had Pennsylvania plates. Mead heard the man yell. He saw him get out of the van and raise the bat against a Black teenage boy. The boy raised a squeegee in defense, but his attacker swung the club, broke the squeegee, then struck the boy in the face. The boy went down in front of Mead’s car.