O'Brien's quixotic fight

Recently, Cardinal-designateEdwin F. O'Brienwrote a stirring letter to all those who worship in the Baltimore Archdiocese, calling on their help to "regain our religious freedom." The impassioned call to arms suggests the federal government has dealt...

Arundel English-only bill: A hostile, empty gesture

County Councilman Jerry Walker wants to make English the official language of Anne Arundel County. That would make perfect sense if English weren't already, for all practical purposes, the county's official language. When was the last time you...

Proposition 8 ruling: A limited win for equality

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a lower court's ruling that California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, was unconstitutional is surely a good outcome and an advance for equality. Already backers of same-sex marriage...

What's in a name?

Stray Camel Way. Sealed Message Road. Misty Rise. Fragile Sail Way.

Intervention in Syria

Payroll tax deadline approaches — again

The latest news in Washington on the payroll tax cut is that there's not much news. To the surprise of no one, negotiators in Congress are exactly where they were last December when the tax break was extended two months — gridlocked.

Stretching downtown

According to Google Maps, it's about nine-tenths of a mile from Constellation Energy's current headquarters near the intersection of Pratt and President streets to the site company officials have chosen for a new office tower, assuming the firm's...

O'Malley and McDonnell: Battle of the Potomac

In his State of the State speech this week, Gov.Martin O'Malleymade a provocative boast: "Because of your wise and balanced decisions about where to cut, and your smart decisions about where to invest, Maryland's businesses are creating jobs again....

When politicians go bad

Maryland's constitution calls for the removal from office of any elected official, state or local, who is convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors. That would seem simple enough, but we have, sadly, at least three examples from recent years in...

Making college affordable

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced a number of new proposals aimed at making college more affordable. Most people agree that expanding access to higher education is a worthy goal and that the rapidly rising cost of...

Meet the governor

Gov. Martin O'Malley has certainly given Marylanders a lot to talk about: gas taxes, gay marriage, income tax hikes for top earners, wind power, septic restrictions, taxes on apps and online purchases and a stepped-up role in national Democratic...

The income classes according to Mr. Romney

Mitt Romney's ill-considered remark about the destitute, "I'm not concerned about the very poor," and his subsequent awkward explanation of it represented something more noteworthy than a rich man's gaffe. The question raised by the episode is not...

Republican nomination

City justified in gambling raid

If city workers and union officials think busting up a party in which municipal employees were drinking and gambling on the job is overzealous, then Baltimore could use a lot more zeal. The fact that the city inspector general's 2011 raid on a...

A vote of conscience

With a Senate committee hearing tomorrow, the General Assembly begins its debate over same-sex marriage, an issue that has closely divided the state. Polls suggest that Maryland residents support and oppose legalizing gay unions in about equal...

Md. needs an assessments assessment

To our knowledge, The Sun's newsroom staff has received no special training in tax assessment and record keeping, yet reporters armed with no more than foot leather and personal computers seem to have a gift for uncovering gross errors — more...

For city schools, a promising vision

The proposal to rapidly overhaul Baltimore's aging school facilities that district CEO Andrés Alonso presented to a state Senate committee last week represents one of the most important and innovative ideas the city has offered in recent years...

The feds investigate the mortgage mess: What took so long?

In this week's State of the Union address, President Obama announced to cheers the formation of a new Justice Department unit tasked with going after the big banks and mortgage companies whose reckless lending led to the collapse of the housing...

Setting a minimum standard

Last Tuesday, a Delaware state senate committee approved legislation to raise that state's minimum wage to $8.25 by 2014, making it $1 above the federal government's (and Maryland's) current standard. If the measure becomes law, the Diamond State...

The flush tax blues

There's an old joke about "denial" being more than a river in Egypt. Far less amusing is the denial some in Annapolis seem to have about pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and what's required to bring Maryland's sewage treatment plants into compliance...

Is the GOP handing the election to Obama?

The last time a Republican candidate for president defeated an incumbent Democrat running for reelection, the primary returns were a lopsided affair. Ronald Reagan won convincingly in New Hampshire and South Carolina (after George H.W. Bush took...

Big Brother on your bumper

In George Orwell's novel "1984," the unblinking eye of government surveillance is omnipresent and inescapable. Orwell could not have known what technology would one day make his nightmare scenario possible, but he could foresee that whatever it was,...

State of the Union, or State of the Campaign?

Was that a State of the Union address or was it President Barack Obama's first big campaign speech of 2012? It certainly sounded like the latter, but given the state of Washington, what else could we expect? His opening lines, a tribute to the...

Playing games with Baltimore voting

As elected officials in Baltimore and Annapolis seek to address the debacle that was the city's voter turnout during the mayoral primary and general election last year, it's clear that the thing they care about the most is what voters care about...

Offshore wind farm

A Ravens fan's stages of grief

The season began with a thrashing of the Steelers and had the promise of ending with the Superbowl in Indianapolis, of all cities, where the Ravens had the prospect of facing off against either the 49ers (coached by our John Harbaugh's little...

Eat less fat and exercise, y'all

Celebrity chefs have become a big business in recent years. Rare are the kitchen products, from pots and pans to garlic presses, that do not carry an endorsement from some chef with a cable television show and a chain of restaurants.

Now or never for O'Malley

The next two and a half months appear destined to provide a defining moment for Gov.Martin O'Malley's second term in office. If his agenda for the remainder of this General Assembly session doesn't match the intensity of his effort during 2007's...

The winner of South Carolina's primary: Super PACs

It has been two years since the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and we are only now just beginning to see how its overturning of a century of campaign finance law is distorting the...

An unhappy 'Kodak moment'

The bankruptcy filing of Eastman Kodak Company this week marked the end of a chapter in American manufacturing history. The venerable corporation that gave the world the Brownie camera and the slogan "You push the button, we do the rest" once...