Commentary

In the final 20 minutes of Monday night’s Anne Arundel County Council meeting, a Democrat and three Republicans pushed through a change that might be tough for a casual observer to care about. Council Administrative Officer Laura Corby understood. She wiped away tears as the council inexorably moved toward a 4-3 vote on Resolution 4-24, telegraphed by the number of sponsors.

Individually, we adore and pamper our children. We shuttle them from soccer practice to music lessons and then organize their play dates with meticulous fanaticism. Yet collectively, we mistreat America’s children, especially by the standards of other wealthy countries. When we’re formulating policies for children as a whole rather than coddling our own little angels, we fall scandalously short. We prize children in the abstract but as a society tend to ignore their needs.

Quick, describe your local flag. Can’t do it, can you? Oh, Marylanders certainly know their state flag. Like it or not, that flag, with its centuries-old gold-and-black and red-and-white heraldic banners from the Calvert and Crossland families (first combined into a unified coat of arms by Cecil Calvert in the 17th century) stands out in a crowd. None of those difficult-to-tell-apart flags featuring nondescript state seals or local animals (crab silhouette?) floating in a sea of white for the Old Line State.

Grants are essential to bolstering communities with better infrastructure, innovative technology, and general economic stimulation. They are critical when the beneficiaries are communities that might feel forgotten or oppressed. Thanks to the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, billions of dollars in grants were earmarked for community development, infrastructure modernization, and rail and safety improvements.

As one of the founders of a sanctuary in the 1980s, I’m reminded that arguments leveled against whale and dolphin sanctuaries in a Baltimore Banner article have all been tried and disproven over many decades. In the past half-century, sanctuaries have been established for land animals of all kinds that suffer from exploitation. For example, elephants who had been housed in the cramped compounds of zoos or in trucks being shuttled from town to town to dance and do handstands at circuses are today free to roam the pastures of sanctuaries such as the Performing Animals Welfare Society in California and the Global Sanctuary for Elephants in Brazil.

One of the most dangerous things a leader can do, be it mayor, governor or other prominent elected official, is send a message that you can break the law. Tragically, anti-law-and-order leaders are not uncommon nationwide. Particularly affected states are those such as Maryland, New York and California, whose leaders have enacted policies that permit flagrant criminal activity and violent acts of injustice with minimal, if any, repercussions.

Mark Graber, the Maryland law professor whose constitutional expertise helped disqualify from office a New Mexico man who joined the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has concluded that Donald Trump’s words and actions fit the historic definition of an insurrectionist — strongly suggesting that he, too, should be barred from office. In a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, Graber argues that the former president engaged in insurrection in its well-documented, well-understood meaning. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment clearly forbids anyone who engages in insurrection, after swearing to support the Constitution, from holding office.