Commentary

I believe that Maryland Department of General Services Secretary Ellington Churchill Jr. has a problem, and he knows it. According to a report by the Office of Legislative Audits, he authorized the ill-fated purchase of 500,000 COVID-19 test kits from LabGenomics last April. More scrutiny of what Churchill did, or failed to do, is necessary. Although the deal was negotiated by Gov. Larry Hogan with the assistance of his wife, Yumi, Churchill formally approved the procurement from the South Korean company.

In 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a scathing report against the United States’ treatment of children in the criminal justice system, concluding that “violations of children’s human rights on federal, state, and local levels” were rampant. Two years later, Human Rights for Kids (HRFK) released the first ever National State Ratings Report on Human Rights Protection for Children in the U.S. Justice System.

Songs and war go together like John Philip Sousa and the Fourth of July. Boots marching in the street, jets screaming overhead, and all the ships awash at sea, songs accompany our troops wherever they’re sent in times of war and peace. “Follow Me,” “Those Caissons Go Rolling Along,” “Wild Blue Yonder,” “Anchors Away,” and “The Marines’ Hymn” – all uplifting anthems of pride and military might. Every service has its band – The Marine Band, the Navy Band, the Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”) and the U.S. Air Force Band. There is even a U.S. Navy School of Music, originally in Anacostia, now in Virginia Beach.

The state senators who expressed ambivalence about the nomination of Dennis R. Schrader to be Maryland’s secretary of Health on Friday were, in many respects, mirroring the public’s mixed feelings about his agency’s most high-profile task — the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. A Goucher College survey released in March revealed a significant, and seemingly-contradictory, split in public opinion. That survey was in the field in February, during the early weeks of the distribution campaign, when appointments were hard to come by — and when local health and political leaders, and state lawmakers, were heaping scorn on the administration.

On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided that employers may once again voluntarily extend Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSL) and Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (EFMLEA) provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) to employees and receive those tax credits. This time the extension runs through Sept. 30, 2021, and further modifies the benefits that employees may receive if employers decide to voluntarily extend the benefits effective April 1, 2021.