Commentary

Who in this world has never needed a second chance in life? There is a group of people that need it more than most: the formerly incarcerated. Hundreds of laws and regulations make it difficult for people with criminal convictions to access resources and opportunities, including housing and employment, which helps explain high recidivism rates. The business community can play a significant role in reducing recidivism by hiring qualified returning citizens to fill vacant positions.

Lawn signs are multiplying as local elections heat up after a confusing start due to the pandemonium associated with redistricting and uncertainty about who was running for what because of extended filing deadlines. In my state district (District 33) incumbent state Sen. Ed Reilly (elected in 2010) was, until recently, running unopposed in the GOP primary. Dawn Gile (to whom I have contributed) is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. In April, Del. Sid Saab surprised many people, perhaps even Reilly, by filing to run for the District 33 Senate seat after announcing in December that he was seeking a third term in the Maryland House. Reilly announced his retirement within days.

I have been exposed to the good, the bad, and the ugly both in people and policy during a half-century of environmental advocacy. One of the really ugly scams is the corn ethanol federal mandate. It forces Americans to use 15 billion gallons of ethanol in their gasoline that has been grown and then distilled from corn. Whether in your car, truck, boat, or lawnmower, Congress has dictated by law since 2006 that ethanol be blended into your gas so that 98% of gasoline now contains corn ethanol, most commonly a 10% blend called E10, but it can be as high as 15%.

The unprecedented leak of a draft opinion authored by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito overruling the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade and thus permitting state legislatures to decide the legality of abortion sent a shock wave through the national legal establishment like few other incidents involving the court. Lawyers of all stripes, journalists who report regularly on the work of the federal courts, as well as others who pay attention to developments in the national legal system, were at once dismayed and, at the same time, unsurprised by the disclosure of the draft opinion.

You’re a liberal. You’re up in arms about the Tennessee teacher who was fired for telling his class that “white privilege is a fact.” But when an Indiana school administrator was dismissed for denying that idea, you sat on your hands. You’re a conservative. You’re outraged by the sacking of the Indiana educator, who was simply saying what he believed. But you won’t speak up for the Tennessee teacher, who was doing the same.

The news that Harvard University is setting aside $100 million to study and address the repercussions of its historical ties to slavery is only one such recent announcement by wealthy American institutions of higher education grappling with their pasts. In 2021, Georgetown University in Washington D.C. announced its own $400,000 annual financial aid reparations program affirming its obligations to the descendants of over 200 enslaved persons sold by that institution in the 1830s, including paying for tuition at Georgetown.

The explosive leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting the imminent reversal of Roe v. Wade has proved quite the Rorschach test for a country long divided over this most fundamental of moral issues. The usual combatants have reacted predictably, even though the document is, hello, only a “draft” by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and may or may not receive the predicted approval by five conservative justices. Pity Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who had this unprecedented leak on his watch and has ordered an investigation.

Which comes first: safe streets or more people? More people or safe streets? The question would seem to have an obvious answer, but I don’t think there is one — at least not in this age of endless guns, with some 400 million of them in civilian hands. By one estimate, the United States, with about 4.25% of the world’s population, has 46% of all the civilian-held guns in the world. We have so many guns, so many mass shootings and so much daily violence that my which-comes-first question seems quaint and probably irrelevant. But let’s walk through it.