Courageous Republicans who are brave enough to abandon evil Donald Trump like Maryland Allan Kittleman

Maryland:  Allan Kittleman: Why I’m leaving the GOP (aka "Growing Old Party") | Reader Commentary published in The Baltimore Sun

After 50 years as a registered Republican, I made the difficult decision to leave the GOP party and become an unaffiliated voter.

My family spent generations helping build the Republican Party. 

My grandfather chaired his county GOP, in lowa. My father, Bob Kittleman, led the Howard County (Maryland) Republican Party and served more than two decades in the Maryland General Assembly. I followed the same path, chairing the county party, serving in the Maryland Senate — including three years as minority leader — and later as Howard County executive.

For several years, I hoped this was temporary. I stayed through 2016, through 2020, through January 6, believing the party might eventually reclaim its core values. 

But, tragically, Trump’s 2024, election and his illegal actions during the past year have made the truth unavoidable: The Republican Party has fully become the Trump maga Party. Those who refuse to fall in line are pushed out or ignored.

My own beliefs have not changed. I remain fiscally conservative and socially moderate — a combination that once had room in the GOP. It no longer does. And to be clear: I am not joining the Democratic Party. I cannot support the direction of either party, both of which have drifted toward their extremes and away from the broad middle where most Americans live.

My decision isn’t a rejection of the people in my life who remain Republicans. This is not a conversion to the other side. 

Rather, this is simply me saying I can no longer put my name next to a culture that treats disagreement as warfare and political opponents as enemies.

Yet, I try to remain optimistic about our future.

But the GOP party we devoted our lives to no longer exists.😟😥

The GOP once stood for limited government, fiscal discipline and individual liberty. Today, it is defined by loyalty to one man: Donald Trump. Principles that once guided Republican leaders — even in moments of national crisis — have been replaced by a demand for personal allegiance. The independence Republicans showed during Watergate has all but vanished. Too many elected officials now treat dissent as betrayal.

Most Americans want something better ❗than the politics of fear, outrage and blind loyalty.

What we want are leaders who tell the truth, who listen, who solve problems and who put country above personal ambition. We want public service grounded in integrity, not intimidation. I will continue to advocate for these principles and for leaders who fit this profile.

For me, leaving the Republican Party is painful. It means stepping away from a lifelong identity and a family legacy I deeply respect. But staying meant accepting what the party has become — and I refuse to do that.

From— Allan H. Kittleman, West Friendship, Maryland

Kittleman is a former Republican Senate minority leader in the Maryland General Assembly and was the Howard County executive.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans to buy warehouses to keep immigrants are a throwback to purposeful evil

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka "evil ICE") and the queen of evil Kristi Noem want to purchase warehouses to put innocent immigrants into unauthorized prisons. This eerie proposal sounds like Auschwitz-Birkenau in the making 

Echo essay and opinion by Armstrong Williams, published in The Baltimore Sun newspaper: "Holding it felt like holding something profoundly evil," Elliott Broidy.

Preserving proof: Acquiring ‘profoundly evil’ Auschwitz-Birkenau whiteprint: Elliott and Robin Broidy discuss $1.5 million purchase.

Florida-based philanthropist and businessman Elliott Broidy, joined by his wife, Robin, speaks with The Baltimore Sun about acquiring for $1.5 million an original 1941, whiteprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria, a document that embodies the calculated architecture of genocide during the Holocaust.

The preservation of this whiteprint is more than historical stewardship. It is an act of resistance against denial, distortion and forgetfulness. Primary evidence anchors collective memory, and a healthy democracy depends on shared facts. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Philanthropist and Holocaust history preserver Elliott Broidy & his wife, Robin, acquired an original 1941, white print of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. (Courtesy of Elliott & Robin Broidy)

What is the historical significance of this original whiteprint❓

Elliott Broidy: This document is the front elevation of the crematoria building at Auschwitz-Birkenau, dated Oct. 24, 1941. It was created by SS architect Walter Dejaco under the direction of commandant Rudolf Höss. It shows the size, scale and smokestack of the structure — the physical infrastructure that would become central to industrialized murder.

This was not spontaneous evil. It was engineered: deliberate, technical, bureaucratic. It reflects the earliest architectural conception of how a prison complex evolved into a mechanized killing site. That precision is what makes it so chilling.

Why did you feel compelled to secure it❓

EB: Only two such documents are known to exist. One was last documented in Russia in 1991. When this surfaced, I believed it needed to be preserved, not hidden or lost to private hands.

It demonstrates the intentionality behind genocide, how ideology became design and design became machinery. It exposes the cold, administrative nature of what occurred. It is proof not only of horror, but of planning.

How did it survive from 1945, until now❓

EB: A rabbi in California received it years ago. It had reportedly been purchased at a neo-Nazi gathering in Germany, without full awareness of its historical weight.

We believe someone originally removed it from an architectural office at Auschwitz and concealed it. Decades later, it resurfaced. When it was examined by a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the October 1941, date immediately signaled its importance; it placed the design at a critical early phase of the camp’s transformation.

Did you wrestle with the moral weight of acquiring something so disturbing❓

EB: Yes. Holding it felt like holding something profoundly evil. It gave both of us chills. There was a physical reaction as though we were holding a hot coal.

But preserving it is necessary. Holocaust denial persists. Historical distortion spreads easily in the digital age. This is primary evidence — tangible, undeniable documentation.

Ultimately, we intend for it to reside in a museum, likely Auschwitz-Birkenau, where it can be preserved properly and displayed for education.

You support the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization at the former home of Rudolf Höss. What does transforming that home represent?

Robin Broidy: It is reclamation. That house, once occupied by the commandant overseeing mass murder, now serves as a center confronting extremism.

If this whiteprint was designed there, displaying it at House 88 would carry enormous symbolic weight, turning a place of planning into a place of truth-telling.

It demonstrates how ordinary settings and seemingly ordinary lives can coexist with unimaginable evil. That warning is not confined to the past.

With antisemitism rising globally, are artifacts like this essential proof points❓

EB: Yes. Polls show disturbing gaps in Holocaust knowledge among young people. At the same time, denial and antisemitism are increasing.

Primary-source artifacts confront falsehood with fact. They ground education in documentation rather than narrative. In an era when truth is contested, evidence matters more than ever.

“Never again” is often said. What does meaningful action look like beyond the slogan?

EB: Elie Wiesel once amended the phrase by saying, “Sometimes we must interfere.” Memory alone is not sufficient.

Hatred begins with rhetoric. It spreads through propaganda. It hardens into dehumanization. Left unchecked, it escalates from words to violence to mass murder.

Action means education. It means speaking truth early. It means refusing to normalize extremism.

What conversations have you had with your family about this acquisition❓

RB: We’ve spoken with our children about understanding history and supporting education that combats hate. This is not solely a Jewish issue. It is about preserving moral clarity and democratic values.

We want future generations of all faiths to understand the consequences of indifference and the importance of responsibility.

When history judges this era of rising extremism, what do you hope your philanthropy will have contributed?

EB: Education. Maimonides taught that the highest form of charity is anonymous. Yet sometimes visibility encourages others to act.

If our work inspires even a few people to resist hatred, protect truth, and strengthen interfaith understanding, it will have mattered.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must end illegal attacks against Venezuelan boats without proof to explain fake claims about drug smuggling

Drugs or no, US boat strikes violate the law

Echo opinion published in The Baltimore Sun, in Maryland, by Peter Jensen: For three months now, Americans have been regularly sickened by real-time images of military strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that Donald Trump claims — so far without corroborating evidence — carry “narco-terrorists” running drugs bound for the United States. 

U.S. airstrikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have continued unabated since early September.

At least 20 attacks have been illegally ordered so far, with at least 83 deaths. As much as it may be tempting to believe that drug trafficking, particularly the trade in highly dangerous fentanyl, can be so easily dispatched, there is ample reason for skepticism. And that was reinforced by a recent Associated Press report that found victims who were not terrorists or even members of any drug cartel but simply average working-class Venezuelans (including laborers and at least one fisherman) earning an extra $500 to crew these craft.

Is this legal or are these deaths, as Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has described them, “extrajudicial?” There is ample evidence to believe the latter is true. And that the attacks dovetail with President Trump’s clear desire to unseat Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who he claims is in league with the drug cartels — which also helps explain why so many U.S. warships, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, are situated nearby. This further strains the credibility of a president itching to send in the troops.

Donald Trump may believe that referring to the drug smugglers as “unlawful combatants” or comparing drug traffickers to al-Qaida terrorists and claiming that every sunken boat saves 25,000 lives reinforces his position that the U.S. is at war, but that’s more than a small stretch of the truth. (There is zero proof❗)

More telling is the United Kingdom’s recent decision to suspend intelligence sharing with the U.S. about drug smuggling boats. Why would our nation’s closest ally, a country with much history in the region, choose to do that? Apparently, because Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is certain that U.S. actions are illegal.

Finally, here’s another reason not to be dropping costly munitions on drug boats: It’s probably not an effective strategy. First, because Venezuela does not appear to play much of a role in the production of fentanyl, which is mostly smuggled in through Mexico, but also because such supplies are better halted through traditional interdiction by the U.S. Coast Guard. 

Drug cartels are out to make money. You want to stop them❓ 

You make arrests and seize their boats and, in the process, prove to skeptical Americans that this is not all a smokescreen. But, Donald Trump and his evil hangnam Pete Hegseth would rather create uncessary deaths, because dead smugglers tell no tales.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must put an end to hate speech. Tragically Donald Trump has normalized the ugliness of "hate"!

Echo opinion by Armstrong Williams, published in The Baltimore Sun with a follow up reader's letter*

Hate is ugly- full stop❗❗

Like sex, hate sells. Possibly even more so. 

Unfortunately, the modern economy of outrage rewards those who can turn resentment into revenue. To denounce another as the worst possible type of person is to buy a ticket to fame. It pays dividends, gets clicks, builds audiences and keeps people listening. In the digital marketplace of ideas, indignation is the only currency that never devalues.

Truth, however, is bankrupt. We have grown so addicted to emotional certainty that facts are now treated as inconveniences. Few care to examine whether their assumptions are wrong, or whether the person they loathe is not, in fact, a monster. The only “facts” that matter are the ones that affirm what we already believe. Those who control the levers of information — media outlets, social media platforms, activists and politicians — understand this perfectly. They’ve learned that rage keeps people watching, sharing and donating.

It’s a strange moment in our culture. Good news no longer travels. Even when there is progress — record charitable giving, declining global poverty, medical breakthroughs — few seem to care. Hope is quiet; hysteria is loud. What sells isn’t the story of a community rebuilding, but the image of that community burning. We are not drawn to calm, but to chaos. We crave villains because they give shape to our anxieties. We want to see the boogeyman.

But here’s the truth: There are very few boogeymen left. At least not the kind that once haunted America. Rarely do we see organized, racially motivated killings in the United States today, though there has been a distressing rise in antisemitic attacks since the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel. 

But the days of the Ku Klux Klan marching in the open or white supremacist cells bombing federal buildings have long passed. What remains are small, miserable, irrelevant groups — pale imitations of what once terrified the public. Yet they dominate our airwaves.

Why❓ Because fear is profitable. Networks, influencers and political campaigns have discovered that outrage converts into engagement, and engagement converts into money. The algorithm rewards anger, not reason. The more you hate, the more you scroll. The more you share, the more they earn. The villains we see on our screens are not reflections of reality, but of the market.

Meanwhile, the countless good people who make this country function go unnoticed. The teacher who stays late to help a struggling student, the firefighter who risks his life in a burning home, the small business owner who employs people in his community — these are the quiet heroes. But they don’t trend. They don’t drive ratings. And so, we barely see them.

We’ve inverted our moral priorities. The destructive are celebrated; the constructive are ignored. Outrage has become a form of entertainment, and the producers of hate are its most successful showrunners. This is not to deny that real hatred still exists — it does — but to point out that much of what we now consume as “hate” is curated theater, engineered to sustain attention.

The result is a nation that increasingly mistakes anger for virtue. We’ve come to believe that the louder we condemn, the more righteous we are. But moral noise is not moral clarity. It’s a performance. And as long as we reward it, the performance will continue.

If we truly wish to weaken hate, we must stop buying tickets to its show. Stop amplifying 📣 those who profit from division. 

Stop feeding the algorithm of outrage. Start sharing what is good, noble and constructive about this country — because there is much of it left.

The real rebellion in an age of hate is not to hate back. It is to refuse to be manipulated. The media cannot manufacture outrage without our participation. The demagogue cannot rise without our applause. And the hate-peddler cannot sell without our attention.

America’s greatest strength has always been its capacity for renewal — for rediscovering its decency after moments of darkness. Perhaps it’s time to rediscover that again. Not by pretending evil doesn’t exist, but by refusing to make it our entertainment.

Until we do, hate will remain one of the most profitable products in America — and we’ll keep paying for it with our peace of mind.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.

*The recent column by Armstrong Williams, “Armstrong Williams: Why has hate become so profitable?” (Oct. 11), was a beautifully written and thoughtful commentary on the profitability of hate. 

His opinion is a welcome acknowledgement and description of a serious issue in today’s civil discourse.

Williams outlined a simple correct strategy for disarming the trend — “not to hate back.”

Perhaps someone should impart it to the person who said “I hate my opponent and don’t want the best for them.” That would be President Donald Trump.

From — Nick James, in Baltimore

Henrietta Lacks legacy continues and her family is protecting her integrity

Family of Henrietta Lacks Settles with Biotech Company That Used Her Cells.

Published in The New York Times by Amanda Holpuch

Ms. Lacks’s family had accused Thermo Fisher Scientific of profiting from her cells, which have contributed to revolutionary advances in medicine, without seeking their permission.

The terms of the settlement are confidential, lawyers for both parties said in a statement.

Thermo Fisher, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, and the legal team for Ms. Lacks’s family released identical statements announcing the settlement.

“The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of Court and will have no further comment,” the statements said.

Ms. Lacks was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in 1951, when a sample of her cells were taken without her knowledge. The cell line named for her, HeLa, became the cornerstone of many medical and scientific innovations, including vaccines for polio and the coronavirus. 

But, Ms. Lacks died that same year, and her family did not know about her contribution to medical science for more than two decades.

On Tuesday, which would have been Ms. Lacks’s 103rd birthday, members of her family gathered at a news conference to celebrate the settlement.

A grandson, Alfred Lacks Carter Jr., said, “it could not have been a more fitting day for her to have justice and for her family to have relief.”

“It was a long fight, over 70 years, and Henrietta Lacks gets her day,” he said.

One of the family’s lawyers, Chris Ayers, suggested that similar lawsuits would follow.

“The fight against those who profit, and chose to profit, off the deeply unethical and unlawful history and origins of the HeLa cells will continue,” he said.

Ms. Lacks, a mother of five, died in October 1951. She was 31.

Eight months earlier, she had learned she had cervical cancer after being admitted to a racially segregated ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Doctors removed a sample of cells from the tumor in her cervix without her knowledge or consent and gave them to a medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University. The researcher found that her cells were the first to reproduce in a laboratory, outside the body.

Most cells die within days, but because Ms. Lacks’s cells continued to multiply, researchers and scientists could use them to do things such as test how the polio virus infects cells and causes disease.

Research using the HeLa cells has led to the development of vaccines treatments for diseases including cancer, Parkinson’s and the flu. The cells have also been used by researchers around the world and have been cited in more than 110,000 scientific publications, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Ms. Lacks’s family was not told about the world-changing discovery and did not find out about the cell line until 1973, according to “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” a book by Rebecca Skloot that was turned into a movie featuring Oprah Winfrey as Ms. Lacks’s daughter Deborah.

Ms. Lacks’s descendants have said they are proud of her contribution but angry about how she was treated by the medical establishment. These frustrations have been made worse with the commercialization of her cells, they said.

The family’s lawsuit against Thermo Fisher said the company had “made staggering profits by using the HeLa cell line — all while Ms. Lacks’ Estate and family haven’t seen a dime.”

“Thermo Fisher Scientific’s choice to continue selling HeLa cells in spite of the cell lines’ origin and the concrete harms it inflicts on the Lacks family can only be understood as a choice to embrace a legacy of racial injustice embedded in the U.S. research and medical systems,” the lawsuit said.

Thermo Fisher tried to dismiss the case, arguing that the lawsuit was filed after the statute of limitations had expired, The Baltimore Sun reported. Lawyers for the family said the limit should not apply because the company continued to benefit financially from the cells.

Antisemitism graffiti on a Montgomery Maryland school building

“Did you hear what happened at Whitman?”

Holocaust educator offers advice on teaching antisemitism after Montgomery County Maryland incident.

Echo guest opinion editorial published in the The Baltimore Sun newspaper written by Adam Zimmerman. 

Ministry of Nazi propaganda in Germany (1933-1945)

My student’s question greeted me as I walked into my Hebrew school classroom days after “Jews not welcome” was scrawled on the entrance sign to Walt Whitman High School* in Montgomery County in December— part of a wave of antisemitic attacks on my community, our state and our country. My planned lesson for that evening, covering life in ghettos for European Jews in the 1930s, never materialized. My 7th graders needed to discuss what was happening right now.

Our ensuing conversation about recognizing and fighting antisemitism affirmed a critical truth: Even as antisemitism invades our schools, classrooms are where we can help kids heal, inspire them to speak up for themselves and others, and plant seeds of tolerance and respect that will prevent future attacks. As the Biden administration and Maryland lawmakers eye national and state strategies to combat antisemitism, education must be a top priority.

As a Holocaust educator and as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, here are some principles for teaching and addressing antisemitism that school districts should prioritize.

Understand that antisemitism may be familiar to adults, but it could be new to kids. After my class watched Dave Chappelle’s Saturday Night Live monologue from last year — where he claimed “it’s not a crazy thing to think” that Jewish people control Hollywood — a student asked: “Why would anyone think I control anything just because I’m Jewish?” Her question was both a refreshing reminder of the absurdity of baseless conspiracy theories as well as a sobering reminder that a significant percentage of Americans believe them. It also showed how kids are far less familiar with these tropes than adults. Educators should not assume that kids have preexisting knowledge about antisemitism. They should expect questions underscored by sadness, confusion, disbelief, anger and fear; answers to those questions should be grounded in empathy and patience.

To teach the past, start with the present. My grandparents toiled as enslaved people under Nazi rule in Poland before liberation from concentration camps; I teach the Holocaust to honor their legacy. But while most of my students don’t have a familial connection to the Holocaust, many of them have either personally experienced antisemitism at their schools, know others who have been affected or are otherwise talking about these seemingly daily occurrences with their friends. As a teacher, I have found that having discussions about present-day antisemitism is essential to kids’ learning and understanding of the past and applying lessons learned to their own futures. Antisemitism dates back thousands of years, and teaching that full history is critical, but what’s happening today often resonates with kids far more.

The 20th-century German Nazi Party made extensive use of graphic symbols, especially the swastika.

Most people are not antisemitic, but antisemitism doesn’t need a majority. The Nazis never received a majority vote in any legitimate German election, and many times didn’t even come close: 3% in 1924, 2.6% in 1928, and 18.3% in 1930. Even after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933, the Nazis received only 44% of the vote in an election later that year. The fact that most Germans were not Nazis and did not cast votes for them was not enough to prevent the ensuing atrocities. Adherents of antisemitism thrive on silence from others. School-based training resources to help children (and adults) stand up and speak out are an essential complement to classroom discussions.

Antisemitism, like other forms of discrimination, can affect students’ health and ability to learn. Removing a swastika from a desk or hateful language from a school sign is the easy part. Properly addressing the emotional scars left behind is a major long-term challenge. Too many of our children are already experiencing debilitating levels of stress and anxiety; ongoing antisemitic attacks can fuel it further. School counselors and psychologists are often the first line of defense with respect to providing care for affected students. They should also receive education on antisemitism to build proper awareness and understanding.

Properly incorporating antisemitism education into school curricula requires resources. Maryland House Bill 638 would establish a $1.2 million Holocaust Education Assistance Grant Program annual appropriation under the Maryland State Department of Education. Grants would be available for schools to assist with Holocaust-related training, materials and activities. This is the type of investment we need to help schools become effective allies.

It is through no fault of their own that our children are subject to the current barrage of antisemitic attacks. As I regularly tell my students: Generations of Jewish people before us have persevered, and we will as well. But we need schools in our corner as the fight continues.

Adam Zimmerman (zimadam@gmail.com) teaches the Holocaust and Jewish identity in America at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland.

* WWHS Vision:  Walt Whitman High School mascot logo.  

WWHS is a community which preserves the dignity of all people so that every student will learn in a safe, supportive, and co-constructed environment which cultivates intellectual and social growth.

Republican vaccine myths obviously choose to accept death rather than science

Pandemic hysteria! Ani-vax paranoia!

Echo opinion by Jonah Goldberg, published in The Baltimore Sun.

#SIASD

On a recent flight from Texas to North Carolina, a woman came so unglued that she tried to open the airplane’s door. 

Unbelievable! The flight crew had to bind and gag her with duct tape. This was an extreme example of a disturbing trend in air travel: People are becoming unruly or even hysterical.

I think this phenomenon is attributable to the mental health toll of the pandemic. And it’s not just affecting air travel. 

In fact, it’s contributing to spikes in road rage, crime and crazy politics. Which brings me to the reaction to President Biden’s comments last week. He explained that we’ve moved out of the wholesale approach to vaccination — mass vaccination centers — and must try retail.

“Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people,” Mr. Biden said.

This triggered a geyser of paranoia and asininity (aka, meaning "assholeitis"!) from much of the right. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said this amounted to “illegal” intrusions into American privacy. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) called it a “gross abuse of power,” adding: “Nowhere in the Constitution does it say, ‘The federal government shall go door to door pushing Americans into vaccine trials.”

Even after the White House explained that federal workers would not be enlisted for this effort, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) warned that this could lay the groundwork to “go door to door and take your guns. They could go door-to-door and take your Bibles.” 

Now that would be unconstitutional. Another horrid example of Stupid Is As Stupid Does, or #SIASD!)

"Two things are infinite in the universe and human stupidity- and I'm not sure about the universe," Einstein.

But, going to extraordinary lengths to fight a pandemic isn’t. 

In 1796, Congress passed “An Act Relative to Quarantine,” authorizing the president “to direct the revenue-officers and the officers commanding forts ... to aid in the execution of quarantine and in the execution of the health laws of the states.”

The president was George Washington, a man with some passing knowledge of the Constitution.

But you don’t have to go back centuries to understand that federal action is neither illegal nor unconstitutional. Helping localities promote vaccination was part of the March COVID relief package, and such efforts have been underway since April.

Besides, what’s wrong with going door to door to inform people where, how and why they should get vaccinated?

People go door to door all the time. The Census Bureau does it (and that is in the Constitution). Political campaigns do it, as do churches, charities and activist groups. Supporting local efforts to promote vaccination is a perfectly reasonable response to an ongoing pandemic (with new strains popping up) that has cost America more than 600,000 lives and trillions of dollars.

You can just say, “Not interested.”

I’m not arguing for the feds to knock on doors to promote getting vaccinated — especially now that the right has primed people to be outraged by it. But the hysteria is embarrassing.

It’s also bewildering. When Former Guy (aka #tfg) Trump was president, Operation Warp Speed was an own-the-libs triumph. 

On Nov. 20, Laura Ingraham of Fox News said: “The stunning success of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed caught team apocalypse totally off guard. Don’t you love it?”

Now, Ingraham and many other right-wing media figures are engaged in fearmongering over the alleged dangers of a vaccine we wouldn’t have were it not for #tfg Trump.

At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC junk pack!) in Dallas, professional gadfly Alex Berenson said the Biden administration was “hoping they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated, and it isn’t happening” — and the crowd cheered. (OMG! Kill off their own kind?)

At a time when COVID-19 is spiking among the unvaccinated and 99.5 percent of COVID deaths are among this group, this is depraved. It’s certainly not pro-life.

But as bad as all this is, it would be a mistake to think this is purely a right-wing problem. When #tfg Trump was in office, anti-vax sentiment was high among Democrats, including then-Sen. Kamala Harris and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 

Mr. Biden himself raised doubts about a Trump vaccine in a debate. Mr. Trump shot back: “You don’t trust Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer?”

After President Biden won, vaccine paranoia became largely a right-wing phenomenon (which Mr. Trump, who is vaccinated, refuses to push back on). Of course, there’s plenty of other paranoia and hysteria on the left these days, including about the alleged resurgence of Jim Crow. But at least that paranoia isn’t getting people killed.

For the anti-vaccine right, it’s as if President Biden were the pilot of a plane and they would rather open the door and bail midflight if the alternative is being a “sucker” by landing safely.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast.

President Joe Biden will make political centrism great again

"...Mr. Biden is not an emblem of this coastal elite. His sensibility was nurtured by his working-class family.."- David Brooks

David Brooks: President Biden’s first day | Echo Commentary published in The Baltimore Sun

Progressive centrism! Getting things done to improve the human condition.

The first thing you’ll notice is the quiet. If Joe Biden wins this thing, there will be no disgraceful presidential tweets and no furious cable segments reacting to them on Inauguration Day.

Donald Trump himself may fume, but hated and alone. The opportunists who make up his administration will abandon him. Republicans will pretend they never heard his name. Republican politicians are not going to hang around a guy they privately hate and who publicly destroyed their majority.

But there will be a larger quiet, too. For two decades American politics has centered on a bitter culture war between the white working-class heartland and university-bred coastal elites.

Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were all emblems of this university class, and it was easy for the Republican media wing to gin up resentment against them. In 2016, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Clinton among the white working class by a crushing 28 points.

But Mr. Biden is not an emblem of this coastal elite. His sensibility was nurtured by his working-class family during the postwar industrial boom of the 1950s and 1960s. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and missed the late 1960s culture war that divided a generation.

It’s very hard for conservatives to demonize Mr. Biden because he comes from the sort of background that Trumpian conservatives celebrate. He eludes all the culture war divides. He doesn’t act superior to the “deplorables,” because his family taught him to despise status games of all sorts.

It will become immediately clear that in a Biden era, politics will shrink back down to normal size. It will be about government programs, not epic wars about why my sort of people are morally superior to your sort of people. In the Trump era a lot of people who don’t care about government got manic about politics.

It will also become immediately clear that in a highly ideological age, America will be led by a man who is not ideological.

Last a week a few of us columnist types spoke with Mr. Biden about his economic plans. His most telling sentence was, “I’ve kind of tried to shed the labels and focus on the nuts and bolts of this.”

I asked him to describe the big forces that have flattened working-class wages over the past decades. Other people would have spun grand theories about broken capitalism or the rise of the corporate oligarchy. But Mr. Biden pointed to two institutional failures — the way Republicans have decentralized power and broken Washington and the way Wall Street forces business leaders to focus obsessively on the short term.

Mr. Biden’s worldview seems to come mainly from lived experience, not a manifesto somewhere. He has lived experience of a time when there were good manufacturing jobs, when unions protected workers, when the less affluent had a ladder to climb.

His economic agenda, promoted under the slogan “Build Back Better,” is about that, not some vast effort to remake capitalism or build a Nordic-style welfare system. The agenda is more New Deal than New Left.

In the two speeches he has delivered so far there are constant references to our manufacturing base — infrastructure, steelworkers, engineers, iron workers, welders, 500,000 charging stations for electric cars. “When I think of climate change, the word I think of is jobs,” he declared.

The agenda pushes enormous resources toward two groups: first, African Americans, who have been pummeled by deindustrialization for decades; and second, white working-class Trump voters. This looks like an attempt to rebuild the New Deal coalition and win back the white working class who should be a core of the Democratic base. Mr. Biden’s populist “Buy American” messaging is just icing on that cake.

Can he pull off this manufacturing revival and this political realignment?

I’ll be curious to see if it’s possible to create millions of manufacturing jobs — or if technology means there’s only a need for relatively few workers. I’ll be curious to see if he can tamp down the Democratic media and activist wings, with their penchant for wildly unpopular moral gestures like “defund the police” and “decriminalize the border.”

I wonder if the economic crisis will obviate all this. With mass unemployment the need will be to get money out the door immediately on Day 1. Launching infrastructure projects and clean energy industries takes a lot of time.

But I do know that if he can win a chunk of the white working class (44% of the electorate, according to Ruy Teixeira), he will realign American politics. I also know that from that first day the Biden agenda will put the surviving Republicans in Congress in an awful bind. Do they cooperate and work with Mr. Biden’s infrastructure and manufacturing plans? If they oppose him they give him a clear shot to win their voters while also inviting him to end the filibuster.

Everybody says Mr. Biden is a moderate, and in intellectual and temperamental terms that is true. But he has found a way to craft an agenda that could reshape the American economy and the landscape of American politics in fundamental ways.

Joe Biden may (...will!...)turn out to be what radical centrism looks like.

Finger pointing Donald Trump spotlights incompetence

"...as a conservative who just can't board the Trump Train" 

Trump’s daily and confusing coronavirus briefings spotlight his inadequacy: A Baltimore Sun echo opinion by Jonah Goldberg.

During one recent press briefing Donald Trump, absent any hard evidence, suggested that large numbers of masks were being stolen from New York hospitals, citing an unnamed facility he said had seen a huge surge in mask usage. “How do you go from 10 to 20 [thousand masks being used], to 300,000?” Mr. Trump said.

And he didn’t stop there. “Where are the masks going — are they going out the back door?” Trump posited. “Somebody should probably look into that, because I just don’t see from a practical standpoint how that’s possible.”

Perhaps — just perhaps — the increased volume of masks being used is correlated with the emergence of a runaway, highly contagious pandemic? I wonder if Joseph Stalin ever said during the Battle of Stalingrad: “This doesn’t make sense. Normally they only want 20,000 boxes of ammunition. All of sudden they want 300,000? Someone must be stealing the bullets.”

Is it possible there is some mask pilfering by staff? Sure. But why is the president hypothesizing about this off the top of his head? Why not use his position as the most powerful man in America to have "somebody" look into the situation before he blurts out an accusation without facts to back it up? (Maine Writer- as a nurse, I am offended by the accusation that staff are stealing supplies.  Donald Trump wastes time by pointing fingers. Instead, he should be leading to solve problems! #WhereAreTheMasks?)

This is just one example of why I hate these daily news briefings. I hate them with a kind of loathing I have not experienced before. Sure, I resent having to watch them, but that's not a new sensation. I see it as a professional obligation, like watching the State of the Union address (which I also despise). So, it's not the due diligence part that vexes me. It's the experience of feeling like we're all supposed to pretend the president is up to this challenge.

This is just one example of why I hate these daily news briefings. I hate them with a kind of loathing I have not experienced before. Sure, I resent having to watch them, but that's not a new sensation. I see it as a professional obligation, like watching the State of the Union address (which I also despise). So, it's not the due diligence part that vexes me. It's the experience of feeling like we're all supposed to pretend the president is up to this challenge.

For the last three years, as a conservative who just can't board the Trump Train, I've been urged by people, including friends, to put my personal feelings aside and support the president. 

Such demands to become a cheerleader were easy to dismiss during a time of peace and prosperity as mere exhortations for partisan loyalty.

But this is a different time and it’s a real dilemma. Do you go along, even at the margins, with the fiction that Mr. Trump is up to this challenge? Or do you shine a light on his inadequacy?

I think the answer depends largely on what lane you’re in. Governors and public health officials, like Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, need the support of the president to do their jobs. If that means swallowing hard and praising the president when it’s not warranted, that’s a small price to pay, at least during a crisis.

Still, it is beyond outrageous that Americans have to witness the spectacle of public health officials tailoring their responses to questions so as to not offend the president. It’s the pandemic version of Kremlinology, parsing the statements of responsible officials for hints of the truth beneath the boilerplate praise and toeing the line.

It's even worse that we have to put up with a president who answers questions off the cuff without regard for facts or concern for how what he is saying might be misinterpreted. Add in his incessant dedication to petty grievances, partisan puffery and chest-beating braggadocio, along with all of the obligatory obsequiousness he requires of officials who know far more than he does. Together, these things create an affirmative need to call out the nonsense, because the nonsense isn't just annoying, it's dangerous.

Holding Trump accountable creates its own problems, of course. Some of the coverage mirrors the president’s shortcomings, making the crisis about Trump’s meanness to the media. Moreover, the president craves a foil, which is why such sizable portions of these daily sessions are dedicated to assaults on the news media.

Trump is (somehow) enjoying a small bump in his approval ratings, though nothing like what George W. Bush or other presidents got during other rally-around-the-president moments. This meager improvement is partly explainable by partisanship. But it has more to do, I think, with the fact that the president is incapable of doing what other presidents do in such moments: earn the benefit of the doubt by rising to the occasion.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast.

Bipartisanship and paid sick leave - the miraculous outcome

Paid sick leave stops the spread of infectious disease.

Although Donald Trump gave another bombastic and false assumption about how the highly infectious coronavirus #COVID19 will somehow miraculously disappear, the fact is, the "real miracle" is in Nancy Pelosi's competent leadership, She was quickly able to lead a bipartisan mandated paid sick leave policy.  This echo opinion was published in The Baltimore Sun and reprinted in the Portland Press Herald in Maine.

And while government-mandated paid sick leave is generally seen as a Democratic initiative, there is surely no political harm to President Trump and Republicans in Congress if they belatedly climb on board a policy that one-quarter of the nation already practices.

Pandemic underscores need for paid sick leave for all
The common-sense practice would not only hinder the spread of COVID-19 but also would boost confidence that the consumer economy isn't facing collapse.

There may be no “magic bullet” yet devised that could turn back the coronavirus, let alone spare the world the growing economic harm associated with it, but there is something President Trump and Congress could do right now that would surely help. It is simple. It is effective. And, if anything, it is overdue.

What the United States needs as soon as possible is a paid sick leave mandate that allows workers or members of their families with symptoms of illness to stay home and take the day off to care for themselves or a loved one. This common-sense practice would not only hamper the spread of COVID-19, but also would potentially put money in the pockets of average Americans and boost confidence that the consumer economy is not facing collapse.

In Maryland, we know a thing or two about paid sick leave. Two years ago, the General Assembly approved the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act (overriding a veto by the state’s Republican governor in the process) that requires companies with 15 employees or more to offer at least 40 hours of paid sick leave per year.

The policy was criticized at the time by Gov. Larry Hogan as “job killing,” but in the two years since it became law, there’s little evidence of that. Not only is Maryland’s unemployment rate below the nation average (ranking 21st among the states as of December), the Free State’s median household income of $81,868 is top among states, according to the U.S. Census, including nearby Virginia ($71,564), where the state legislature seriously considered a paid sick leave mandate during its 2020 session only to see the measure fail as time ran out this week.  (Maine Writer comment here - as a native of Baltimore, I know there is a ton of Federal money in Maryland. Dr. Hogan has the benefit of leading a state with the position of "location, location, location".)

The benefit of paid sick leave is obvious. The last thing Americans should want to think about is how the line cook at their favorite restaurant, the taxi driver giving them a ride, the clerk restocking the grocery store produce and so on and so on are still at their posts despite a cough or fever. And that’s especially true given that the coronavirus is far from the only disease the can be transmitted through casual contact.

CDC Coronavirus update website here.

The sad reality is that too many families live paycheck to paycheck to sacrifice a day of work if they don’t have paid sick leave. And that’s a common experience. 

An estimated one in four U.S. workers does not have that benefit. 

Even more simply don’t qualify for the benefit because they are too new to their jobs.

Staying home when feeling unwell is strongly recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vice President Mike Pence even listed it in his briefing with reporters earlier this week. It is reportedly among the ideas that his coronavirus task force is recommending.

Maryland is hardly alone in its sick leave mandate. 

Eleven other states have some version of it: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine (effective next year), Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state. And that’s not even counting major cities with their own mandates from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles.

Would suddenly having to provide sick leave to employees who weren’t provided this benefit in the past pose a hardship to some employers? That’s quite possible, but in most cases one imagines that an escalating outbreak would harm these companies far worse. Just look at the record drops in the stock markets in recent days. Full-fledged recessions have been caused by lesser events.

This much is certain: Paid sick leave policies reduce the spread of disease. Studies have shown this. 

Indeed, it is believed that African American and Latino workers are more apt to contract the flu, in part because they are less likely to have a sick leave benefit.

Maryland supports the Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission

As a native of Maryland, I can truthfully say that we were not taught about this state's dark lynching history. Maryland lynchings were not talked about, even while we learned about this heinous practice happening in other states, especially reported during the 1950's and 1960's Civil Rights Movement. This is a learning article, in addition to being a history essay.

The Legacy Museum - From enslavement to mass incarceration

Maryland Commission Sets Out To Investigate State's Lynching History- essay report published in the History News Network

"We're losing the last physical eyewitnesses to some of these events,” says Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “But it's not too late.”

by Robin Young and Allison Hagan

Robin Young brings more than 25 years of broadcast experience to her role as host of Here & Now. She is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS and ABC television and for several years was substitute host and correspondent for "The Today Show."

Allison Hagan is a freelance digital producer for Here & Now. Allison has spent the past year reporting local news for The Boston Globe business and metro sections. In business, she covered the aftermath of the Merrimack Valley gas explosions and Wayfair employees protesting the company selling beds to ICE detention camps.

Lynching in Maryland - reported in The Baltimore Sun: The most recent such attack — the hanging and mutilation of 22-year-old farm laborer George Armwood in Princess Anne in 1933 — was carried out in front of about 2,000 people, and within the lifespans of tens of thousands of living Marylanders.

“People tend to think something as terrible as lynching must have happened long ago and far away,” says Nicholas Creary, a history professor at Bowie State University who studies the subject. “But it took place right here, in communities we know and drive past every day.

“The fact that we forget about it doesn’t change the fact that it happened.”

Essay echo published in the History News Network - The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the first-ever state-run commission dedicated to addressing lynchings in the U.S.

The commission was established by a bill that received unanimous approval from the state’s house and senate in April, which acknowledges that at least 40 African Americans were lynched by white mobs over nearly an 80-year period in the state of Maryland.

The bill also recognizes that no one was ever charged in connection to these crimes, and various government entities commissioned the lynchings and conspired to conceal the identities of the perpetrators.

The last known lynching in Maryland occurred 86 years ago, but Ifill says the truth behind these killings is hidden in plain sight.

The commission will be comprised of a staff member from the state Attorney General’s Office who is authorized to issue subpoenas for documents and witnesses that could reveal key details like the burial place of victims, who she says were often buried in obscure graveyards.

The commission is expected to submit a preliminary report to the governor on Sept. 1, 2020 and a final report on Dec. 1, 2021.

Ifill says that Maryland's support of this commission is “powerful” and “historic.”

“It is really vital that this not be seen as some private effort,” she says. “And the state has to take responsibility for its own history that is not pleasant.”

“It's not so long ago that there's not documentation or other information or artifacts that are relevant to piecing together the story,” says Ifill, who will deliver the keynote address at Thursday’s launch.

The commission will be comprised of a staff member from the state Attorney General’s Office who is authorized to issue subpoenas for documents and witnesses that could reveal key details like the burial place of victims, who she says were often buried in obscure graveyards.

In her book “On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century,” she reveals that lynchings often occurred on courthouse lawns.

In the days following these tragic crimes, white communities would fall silent and law enforcement would say they couldn’t find any witnesses, she says.

Black communities fell silent, too, but for different reasons. The silence from white communities was made from fear of accountability and sometimes shame, while black communities only spoke about lynchings as a cautionary tale of what could happen if they “walk outside the bounds of citizenship that the white community has set for black people,” she says.

Lynchings were intended to terrorize entire communities, she explains, so reparations for these crimes need to be community-wide gestures like apologies from local law enforcement offices that failed to protect citizens and county sheriffs who allowed mobs to take black detainees from their jails.

Non-government organizations also share the blame: In some cases, newspapers refused to report on lynchings that happened near their publishing offices.

Reparations also need to be made in public spaces by memorializing unmarked graves of lynching victims with markers that describe the events “that stand in such sharp contrast to what the courthouse represents in terms of justice,” she says.

The commission is expected to submit a preliminary report to the governor on Sept. 1, 2020 and a final report on Dec. 1, 2021.

Ifill says the state’s support of this commission is “powerful” and “historic.”

“It is really vital that this not be seen as some private effort,” she says. “And the state has to take responsibility for its own history that is not pleasant.”

Donald Trump test of the day - explain how tariffs really work

Donald Trump hasn’t made a convincing argument about #TRUMP_tariffs.  Echo editorial published in The Baltimore Sun.

Instead, he’s been wholly dishonest with the public. Over and over again, he’s deliberately misrepresented how tariffs work, going so far as to suggest the Chinese government cuts a check to the U.S. Treasury. And when his chief economic adviser goes on TV, as Larry Kudlow, and explains that the latest tariff increase affecting $200 billion in Chinese goods will cause the U.S. economy to suffer in the short term? President Trump will have none of it, tweeting, instead, that U.S. GDP was boosted by “Tariffs from China” and that there is “no reason for the U.S. Consumer to pay the Tariffs.” (MaineWriter: OMG.....and we will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it....!)

There can be a case made for imposing tariffs. Those taxes paid on imports raise prices, making those goods less attractive to consumers and, theoretically, giving an advantage to domestic producers. Just as importantly, they give a country leverage on its trading partner. Raise barriers to our exports? We’ll do the same to your imports. With China, there’s an argument to be made that curbing that nation’s worst trade policies (its failure to enforce intellectual property rights and its unwillingness to fully embrace a free market economy among them) requires this level of sacrifice from the American public or the biggest U.S. trade partner won’t change its ways.

Even if Chinese companies partially lower their prices to offset tariffs, consumers are bound to feel the pinch. And as for writing a check to the U.S. Treasury for tariffs? That doesn’t happen. Ever.

American companies buying the goods are the people writing the checks. And they pass along the cost in the former of higher prices to consumers, who ultimately bear the brunt. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s this added cost — this disincentive to buy imported goods — that’s supposed to drive policy change. Meanwhile, China announced Monday that it will impose higher tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. That’s what Trump trade policy has actually wrought so far.

And while there’s an argument that “both sides pay” in a tariff war — another point made by Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, — but Donald Trump won’t even go that far. His position on tariffs has been consistent — consistently misleading. Now, perhaps this can be ascribed to the usual Trump salesmanship that overstates arguments much in the manner of a high-pressure real estate salesman whose idea of a “fixer upper” is a candidate for condemnation to the rest of us. But what’s especially noteworthy here is that Americans might actually rally around a straight talk description of what’s going on. 

In fact, even those American soybean farmers who have been hit so hard by Chinese retaliatory tariffs might support the White House’s position on China trade out of sheer patriotism, if Trump administration claims bore some resemblance to reality. 

Instead, farmers are getting angry — and increasingly desperate.

It’s one thing to sacrifice for a country that claims to need your sacrifice, it’s quite another to sacrifice to a White House that claims everything is going swell. Add the financial losses of exporters like those farmers with the high cost to consumers (the last round of tariffs having cost $1.4 billion a month, the new round probably much more, according to experts) and you aren’t talking about chump change. Does Mr. Trump think the country won’t notice or that they’ll just take his word for it? What happens when Walmart shoppers notice that prices are much higher? Is he counting on them not putting two and two together?

Make no mistake, we weren’t impressed with this tariff strategy from the beginning. While there is an intellectually honest argument for tariffs, we believe the counter-argument generally holds more weight in an increasingly interconnected global economy. And this White House appears to be especially ill-equipped for a complex and protracted trade war that requires study, patience and a clear strategy, which is hardly the modus operandi of a (failed) leader...Trumpzi.... who makes stuff up as he goes along. Trump is certainly capable of hurting China, but to what end? What would victory even look like? Certainly, a better fair trade enforcement mechanism than China has offered in the past would be great, but what else? We don’t know, but whatever the outcome, this latest escalation is unlikely to bring a swift end to a trade war between two economic powers, neither of which can boast a head of state known for his honesty or willingness to be scrutinized.