You have to look long and hard to find any prosecutor anywhere who’s written the kind of sentencing memorandum that Robert Rohrbaugh has filed in the Sheila Dixon case.
It is blistering.
Rohrbaugh is, of course, the top gun in Maryland’s Office of the State Prosecutor which spent a lot of time and energy to make the cases against Dixon.
For a moment, you think he’s going to ask the judge to throw out the whole plea deal. His disgust with Dixon’s post-plea bargain behavior and comments is that obvious.
Then you wonder if his office has been slammed with emails and phone calls like the rest of us—from the public complaining about that pension Dixon’s deal allows her to keep.
In the end, you realize the prosecutor is really just putting on the record the questions about Sheila Dixon that she’s never wanted to answer—and that will likely follow her for many years to come.
Why did she take such license with the public’s trust? Do the crimes that we know about represent some tip of an iceberg?
And, where did all that cash come from?
Categorized in people and politics
Turns out that big GOP win in Massachusetts isn’t such a big deal at all — at least in terms of derailing health care reform. Who needs another Republican Senator when the Supreme Court just handed every insurance company complete license to spend as much money as they please to defeat any candidate or elected representative that stands in their way — or to prop up their own candidate and keep them in their pocket.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court, by a divided 5-4 vote, torched the long standing firewall between corporations and politics and ruled spending by corporate interests on political campaigns can’t be banned.
The New York Times, in its Friday editorial, made no bones about its disgust and went so far to as to claim the ruling damages the Court’s credibility:
“The..ruling is likely to be viewed as a shameful bookend to Bush v Gore. With one 5-4 decision, the court’s conservative majority stopped valid votes from being counted to ensure the election of a conservative president. Now a similar conservative majority has distorted the political system ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections.” (To read the full editorial, click here.)
To be sure, Republicans, with their traditional ties to business interests, will benefit most.
But the ruling could also work against some of their causes.
Tort reform? The trial lawyers are now free to spend as well to make sure it never happens.
On Tuesday night, newly elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown declared his was the “people’s seat.”
Might not be another one for quite some time.
Categorized in Uncategorized
Olympic athletes get their medals taken away if they doped up to win them.
College football’s Bobby Bowden lost out for good in his race with Joe Paterno when the NCAA took away 14 of Bowden’s wins as punishment for a cheating scandal.
The response to Mark McGwire is simple:
The apology is way too late.
Put the asterisk next to his name.
Give the Roger Maris family their due.
Categorized in Uncategorized
A few years ago, we did a story on the ATF dogs that are trained to sniff out explosives.
Their abilities are impressive and truly low-tech.
The problem – their presence at the nation’s airports and other transportation nerve centers is most underwhelming.
Think about it. When was the last time, while checking in at an airport, did some panting Labrador retriever give you the once over.
In the wake of the Christmas attempt to bomb an airliner, we, once again, are wringing our hands over no-fly lists, body searches, and who in our intelligence community knew what when.
This time, let’s do what’s necessary to make air travel as secure as possible, regardless of the toll it might take on convenience.
That might include new measures such as a ban all carry-on luggage to allow better screening of all luggage that goes on board.
Some foreign airports are quickly installing those body scanning machines — the US needs to expand their use immediately.
And the TSA should order up an immediate expansion of the supply of the ATF’s dogs. Their mere presence at an airport might give the potential suicide bomber something new to think about.
Clearly, airliners remain a prime target for terrorists. Let’s not push our luck.
Categorized in Uncategorized
The shooting over the weekend inside a downtown Baltimore hotel raises the same question that surrounds the Ft. Hood shooting and countless other such incidents.
Why is it necessary for the particular weapons used in them to be so easily available?
The gun used in the hotel shooting was, according to police, a Tec-9—a mini machine gun type weapon that’s about 18 inches long. It looks like something from an old mob movie.
At Ft. Hood, the suspect allegedly used two semi-automatic handguns. It allowed him quick and ample firepower–enough to kill 13 people in no time at all.
Imagine, in that case, if the suspect had a revolver or a shotgun—not something known on the streets as a “cop-killer” gun. At least he might have been stopped much sooner.
And that’s the question. What’s the point of allowing such super-lethal weapons to continue to be manufactured and sold?
Reasonable gun ownership rights are one thing. What we have instead—a culture of allow all guns at all cost—is something else.
Categorized in Uncategorized
The latest twist in the saga about health care reform concerns a potential compromise on the issue of a new government health insurance plan. It’s the so-called “public option” that would allow people to get their health insurance from the federal government if they couldn’t find affordable coverage in the private market.
Critics claim it will lead to government-run health care across the board. Insurance companies claim it will put them out of business. And supporters argue there is no reform without it.
So, an alternative idea seems to be gaining some ground—the “opt-out option”. It’s intended to allow individual states to decide whether or not to participate in a public option plan.
Just dandy. Let’s divide the country even further.
Remember how Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina kicked and screamed about accepting federal stimulus funds (when he wasn’t crying about getting caught having an affair in Argentina)? He’ll likely be the first in line to stand up to the federal government and deny his citizens an opportunity to get affordable health coverage.
This is bound to make health care coverage the new political litmus test. Candidates running for state office will have to take a position—do they support opt-out or opt-in?
And, if the opt-out candidate wins—what happens to that state’s citizens who’d prefer to opt-in?
Categorized in Uncategorized
Every city homeowner (myself included) would love to see a lower property tax rate.
On Wednesday, that’s what the Mayor promised as the city’s Board of Estimates approved a land deal to allow for the construction of a slots facility near the football stadium.
The deal is structured in such a way, the Mayor said, to provide the city with a sufficient amount of new revenue to reduce the rate by seven cents in 2011.
Sounds good, but….
That expectation is based on estimates by the people who want to operate the facility that slots in Baltimore will do far better than comparable facilities in Pennsylvania. Neither the slots parlor in Philadelphia nor the one near Pittsburgh draws anywhere near the gross revenue the Baltimore team is touting.
It’s true the deal requires the Baltimore slots team to pay either 2.9% of gross revenues or a minimum that’s to reach almost $16 mil per year. But if revenues lag, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet the slots team will be back before the Board of Estimates in a hurry to modify the deal’s terms.
So, in the event slots don’t prove to be the gravy train the Mayor’s expecting, what’s Plan B? For way too long Baltimore has been choked by its tax rate—which is at least double the rate of every other part of the state. With or without gambling revenue, bringing the rate down has to be an urgent priority.
Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Baltimore, Slots, Taxes
Rush Limbaugh has made a ton of money with his daily rants that rely heavily on insults and, in some cases, comments that many consider to be offensive. This, of course, is Rush’s right—to say exactly what he thinks or what he thinks his listeners want to hear.
But there’s another side of this coin. It’s called consequence. What we say or do does come with a price.
In this case, it’s playing out with Limbaugh’s attempt to become part of the ownership team of the St. Louis Rams. Just as soon as the possibility surfaced, former and current NFL players spoke out against it. Then, Colts owner Jim Irsay said he’d vote against it.
Wednesday, the head of the potential ownership group punted, calling Limbaugh’s potential involvement a “distraction.” Limbaugh was off the team.
Predictably, Limbaugh is blaming the political left and what he likes to call “Obama’s America” –as if the NFL is suddenly some bastion of liberalism.
No, Rush. What’s happened here is pretty simple. You can say what you wish but others don’t have to like it. Your brand of talk may be a great asset to yourself but others see it as a huge liability. It’s the consequence of what you choose to do.
Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Limbaugh, NFL
I thought it was pretty low of the President’s critics to cheer Chicago’s loss of the Olympics—all as a means to relish Obama’s failure to sway the IOC. Nothing like rooting against the country.
Then came the surprise announcement that Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace.
The critics are beside themselves—calling the decision “cheap” and “embarrassing” and a “joke.”
One can certainly debate whether Obama’s really achieved anything yet. He himself recognized that as he accepted the award.
Harder to argue is that Obama has certainly caught the world’s attention. Countries everywhere, fatigued by the policies of the previous Administration, seem to welcome a new American tone in its diplomacy and a new willingness to seek cooperation to tackle the thorniest global challenges.
Too bad the tone inside the country is so different and so bitter.
Every president has his detractors and his critics. But, in the past, event the most ardent opponents of a president managed to maintain respect for the office and keep a “country first” frame of mind.
That’s not happening now. What is it about those who oppose Obama? Why are they so determined to see him fail?
Categorized in people and politics
Tags: Nobel Prize, Obama
