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Commentary

Steiner: Maryland police must stop playing ICE
February 7, 2021 -

Sara Medrano, a Latina grandmother and Frederick County resident, was driving her daughter and two grandchildren to pick up laundry detergent on her way to work when a Frederick County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over, purportedly for a “broken” taillight — that was working just fine — and detained her. In Medrano’s words: “I was so scared thinking that this stop would be the last moment I would have with my grandchildren and my daughter.” The only reason for this stop? The color of her skin.

Read More: Washington Post
Stacey Abrams: Our democracy faced a near-death experience. Here’s how to revive it.
February 7, 2021 -

The violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, coupled with ongoing threats to election officials, election workers and lawmakers at all levels, represent unprecedented attacks on the foundations of our democracy. Certainly, President Donald Trump and others in his party who inspired the attacks must be held accountable through all available means. But accountability alone will not be nearly enough. Only meaningful reforms can undo the damage done — and establish a government that is truly representative of the people. The next real test of our democracy comes now.

Read More: Washington Post
Rodricks: In the midst of the muck, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer stands up for decency
February 7, 2021 -

It was in a Senate hearing room in Washington in 1954 when the bow-tied Boston attorney Joseph Welch asserted “a sense of decency” as an American ideal. In the early 1950s, in the midst of the Cold War, Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had almost single-handedly created a second red scare by claiming, with little evidence, that the federal government and Army had been infiltrated with communist sympathizers. His obsession was the “deep state” of the Eisenhower era.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Vaccinated Montgomery County teachers should be in the classroom
February 5, 2021 -

ABCs, 123s. Sitting in a circle and waiting your turn. Keeping your hands to yourself. Not taking your neighbor’s belongings and absolutely no cutting ahead in line. Beyond basic classroom rules, these are the life lessons that teachers impart to our kids each and every day in schools across the country. Some of these rules are about fairness and right and wrong, and others are about how a person’s actions can affect the good of the group. Teachers start these lessons early and recite them often because these are all critical concepts about being part of a community and they are the foundations upon which a school is run and society prospers.

Read More: Washington Post
Another year starts violently in Baltimore. Roca keeps knocking on doors to try to save lives.
February 5, 2021 -

The gauge we hate but cannot ignore shows that 2021 is already worse than 2020. There were 29 homicides in Baltimore by Wednesday; that’s one more than at the same time last year. All but six of those killings were by gun. On top of that, 51 other people were wounded, and that represents 10 more nonfatal shootings than police recorded by Feb. 3, 2020. There were no killings on Dec. 8, the day Brandon Scott took office as Baltimore’s new mayor. But there have been 56 homicide victims since then, including the Safe Streets peacemaker Dante Barksdale.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
‘Normalcy’ is still a long ways off, despite COVID vaccine rollout
February 5, 2021 -

To say we were overjoyed after we were each vaccinated against COVID-19 would be an understatement. As two physicians, one of whom works in the ER and the other of whom works in the medical wards and ICUs, we had spent our shifts watching COVID ravage our patients and worrying that we would contract the virus ourselves. This vaccine marks, to date, the best weapon available to turn the tide against this virus. However, as the vaccine begins to be rolled out to the general public, we do want to remind everyone that this vaccine, while incredible, will not end the threat that COVID poses overnight.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
New environmental scorecard a sign of change in Anne Arundel politics
February 4, 2021 -

American carnage is a phrase Donald Trump used in another context. Of course, it is hyperbolic. But the damage to the environmental cause done during the reign of Donald Trump is hard to overstate. He rolled back more than 100 anti-pollution rules, sold off national resources, abandoned enforcement of environmental laws, purged government agencies of scientists and replaced talented technocrats with political hacks. President Joe Biden’s administration will surely do its best to reverse the damage but it will be a lengthy undertaking.

Read More: Capital Gazette
Our Say: Ed Reilly is just messing with your head
February 4, 2021 -

Sometimes, lawmakers are just messing with our heads. That must be the explanation for state Sen. Ed Reilly’s non-binding resolution that would ask school systems in Maryland to add “female monthly cycle tracking for adolescent girls” to the school health curriculum. Reilly, whose views on reproductive health are based partly on his faith, knows this idea isn’t going anywhere. And even if it did pass, it is unlikely the Maryland Department of Education would add it to the health curriculum for schools.

Read More: Capital Gazette
Covid-19 Vaccine Bottle Mockup (does not depict actual vaccine).
Editorial: Maryland’s vaccine rollout, the ‘Hunger Games’ of health care
February 2, 2021 -

If we needed any more indication that the Maryland vaccination rollout has been an utterly, confusing mess, we got news Monday that there may not be enough doses for people to get their second shots. This came on the same day that the state opened up vaccines to yet another group of people (those with certain health conditions who are hospitalized) even as those in earlier groups, those older than age 65 for instance, are still desperately struggling to get an appointment. What sense does that make? Expanding eligibility for vaccines that aren’t available and building up false expectations and anger?

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Peter Franchot: Why Hogan’s COVID Relief Proposal Isn’t Enough
February 2, 2021 -

Avid Maryland Matters readers — particularly my colleagues in the legislature — know that for several months I’ve advocated for a Maryland stimulus package that helps Marylanders, small businesses, and communities most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. For months, I’ve urged Gov. Larry Hogan to tap into the more than $1.5 billion in reserves in the state’s treasury — our $586 million surplus from Fiscal Year 2020 and the almost $1 billion in our Rainy Day Fund — to provide immediate cash assistance to low-income families and struggling small businesses who are barely keeping their heads above water.

Read More: Maryland Matters

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