The Baltimore City Council has the power to change city law to provide that officers of the Baltimore Police Department may lose their pensions if convicted of crimes — Last month, a story appeared in the Baltimore Banner under the following headline: “They were convicted of crimes. But police officers don’t have to forfeit their pensions in Maryland.” The text of the story explained: “In Maryland, police officers do not lose their pensions if they are convicted of crimes…

This is the third in a series of posts that I’ve written on the controversial use of sick leave to keep Baltimore County employee William “Chris” McCollum on the payroll for the past eight months despite the fact that he is neither ill nor injured. In the first post, I…

Additional research casts more doubt on the recent claim by County Administrative Office (CAO) Stacy Rodgers that the “Administration” of Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski, Jr. “was not aware of the requirement” added to the County Charter in 2018 that the compensation of exempt service employees must be determined in accordance with a system proposed by the County Executive and approved by the County Council.

The story about the extended absence of controversial Baltimore County employee William “Chris” McCollum from his position as Senior Administrative Assistant to Stacy Rodgers, the County Administrative Officer (CAO), led me to discover a remarkable fact: For the past 3 ½ years the County has been in violation of a…

The invasion of Ukraine was not about NATO, nor about the failure of the West to make concessions easing Russian fears about its own security, or about the inadequacy of economic and diplomatic sanctions. It was about Russian president Vladimir Putin and his insatiable ego. Robin Wright wrote in the…

Journalism is a profession under siege. Among the concerns are whether there are meaningful journalistic ethics and standards — in other words, whether journalism is a “profession” at all. Revelations by New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman in her forthcoming book about Donald Trump, titled “Confidence Man,” caused…

This week there was a turn of events that would mortify any self-respecting State’s Attorney. A Baltimore judge vacated a sweetheart plea deal between the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) and a man accused of setting fire to his ex-girlfriend’s house while she and two other people were inside. The…

Don’t confuse means with ends or tactics for strategy. White nationalism is one of the means used by the Republican Party in its attempt to overthrow democracy in the United States. Republicans exploit racial prejudice to seek and hold the support of bigoted white voters who otherwise have nothing to…

The dissenting opinion by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid should send chills running down our collective spine. …