November 2011 Another Distant Warning Earlier this year, we drew attention to an impending treasury raid sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union in the form of a study proposing a massive building program for the Baltimore City public schools, to be carried out through the use of >funny financing= in the form […]
The Governor and Reapportionment: Another Look The Governor=s Redistricting Commission has performed as expected in its lay-out of Congressional districts. Fifteen years ago, four of Maryland=s eight congresspersons were Republicans: each and all persons of strikingly independent judgment and diverse views who punched well above their weight in the House. The purge of them […]
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-norquist-20111219,0,497956.story baltimoresun.com Norquist’s ‘beast’ thrives Influential anti-tax activist’s work has done nothing to limit the size of government By George W. Liebmann 6:00 AM EST, December 19, 2011 Advertisement For the last 20 years, the charming Grover Norquist has been perhaps the most successful of American political entrepreneurs, having used a letterhead and small office […]
Confronting Party Myths by George W. Liebmann Some cheer can be obtained from recent fiscal events. The Reagan-Bush tax cuts ended the Democratic era of tax and spend. The debt limit crisis ended the Republican era of borrow and spend. Perhaps the hour of the late Adlai Stevenson, who told us “there are no gains […]
baltimoresun.com Reefer madness: Reform our crazy marijuana laws 750,000 marijuana arrests a year have gotten our society nowhere By George W. Liebmann 7:00 AM EDT, August 15, 2011 The militarization of the Mexican border is a new phenomenon for two nations whose militaries have traditionally been made to stay out of politics. There are constant […]
The Immigration Conundrum Chapter 191 of theActs of 2011 relating to college tuition has now been successfully petitioned to referendum. This is a welcomc development in that it curbs the increasing arrogance and lack of accountability of Maryland’s single-party government. Itis likely. however. to touch off an unedifying campaign between the self-righteously sentimental and the self-righteously parsimonious […]
The Governor has appointed a reapportionment commission of flive members: his patronage secretary;President Miller, Speaker Busch. a businessman. and a former Republican delegate. safely ‘out of the loop’ as as respects his party’s leadership, The commissionis in effect a Society for the Protection of Democratic Incumbents, Was this the constitutional design? […]
Science Education Revisited Once again.the Maryland State Department of Education. which has done virtually nothing to relieve the State’s chronic shortage of qualified high school science teachers. has released its biannual Teacher Staffing Report. Pages 87 through 90 of the Report contains statistics showing that the state’s high schools offer only 355 physics classes. as […]
NOW AVAILABLE MARION ELIZABETH RODGERS’ BALTIMORE BAR LIBRARY TALK ON “MENCKEN, RITCHIE AND PROHIBITION” AS PART OF PROHIBITION IN MARYLAND: A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS including speeches and messages by Governor Albert Ritchie, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of Maryland’s prohibition-era congressional delegation, excerpts from the Wickersham report on the prohibition laws, and texts of […]
Maryland is known as a strong union state, and it would seem improbable to Marylanders that the current battle in Wisconsin could be replicated here. Maryland’s budget deficit is less pronounced than that of Wisconsin, though its combined state debt and pension deficits place it among the top 20 states in debt burden. It retains […]