Free Republic

The city of Baltimore has filed suit against the wife of former mayoral candidate Otis Rolley, demanding $26,100 for months of leave that were erroneously granted her because of a computer glitch. Charline Rolley took more than 90 days of paid leave — to give birth, tend to her sick infant and work on her husband's campaign — during the time she was employed by Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young's office. The civil suit accuses Rolley of breach of contract and unjust enrichment for taking the leave time and demands that she pay for the salary that she received...

Population increase is a natural sign of political health. By that measure, Baltimore has been sick a long time. Six straight decades of depopulation have reduced the city by a third. The "experts" assert that immigration is the key to a population rebound. In his Persian Letters, Montesquieu reflects on the fate of the great cities of Constantinople and Isfahan: "People, attracted for a thousand reasons, ought to flock to them from every direction. Yet they are decaying internally and would long since have perished, had not their sovereigns in almost every century caused entire new nations to enter and...

Charles Hauboldt, a Texas funeral home owner, wants nothing more than to see his Houston Texans bury the Baltimore Ravens’ Super Bowl drive at this Sunday’s big game at M&T Bank Stadium. He’ll get his chance as the winning bidder for a playoff ticket auctioned by a Texas Catholic priest and rabid Ravens’ fan. Hauboldt’s high bid of $2,115 won him the ticket, a flight to Baltimore, lodging and ground transportation – not to mention the chance to sit next to Trinitarian Father Stan DeBoe, the man who put the ticket up for grabs. The money will be used to...

What comes to mind when Mexican immigrant Elsa Garcia thinks of Baltimore's drawbacks? "Basura. O las drogas," said the East Baltimore resident. "Trash. Or drugs." Then, quickly, comes her list of Baltimore's pluses: Her husband has been able to find construction work. They have affordable housing. Police are not automatically suspicious of immigrants. (SNIP) At her inauguration, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake set the goal of increasing the city's population by 22,000 people — 3.5 percent — in 10 years. Drawing native-born people back from the suburbs and working to retain current residents will help stem the population decline but cannot alone...

I wouldn't wax rhapsodic about the half centennial of the Jones Falls Expressway ("City's six-lane Main Street at 50," Dec. 16). It was the evacuation route for white flight at a time when the strictures of Jim Crow were in retreat under the Warren Court. How else to explain that the planned "transit line" down the center of the road was never built? Coupled with the dismantling of commuter rail and streetcars around the same time, the JFX could guarantee in and out privileges to white suburbanites but left urban blacks without cars with no way out. The irony is...

Ron Smith, who came to Baltimore 38 years ago as a weekend TV anchorman but found his greatest success on radio as WBAL's "Voice of Reason," died Monday night of pancreatic cancer at his home in Shrewsbury, Pa.. He was 70. Mr. Smith spent more than 26 years on WBAL's airwaves, most of it in the afternoon drive-time period until a move to mornings last year, passionately talking politics from a conservative point of view. But it is not his politics for which he will likely be remembered as much as the informed conversation he helped create on Baltimore radio...

When Redemptorist Father John Murray bashed his head against a railing after tripping along a New Jersey boardwalk 15 months ago, the consequences were devastating. The former pastor of St. Mary in Annapolis and St. Wenceslaus in Baltimore suffered a broken neck that left him instantly paralyzed from the chest down. Rushed to a hospital, he underwent emergency spinal cord surgery and later began rehabilitation at a prominent New Jersey institute. Doctors had little encouragement for the once-active priest who was known across the East Coast for his preaching abilities. The chances he would ever walk again were virtually zero....

The Wall Street Occupiers have become embroiled in a slew of sexual assault allegations in recent weeks, and now Baltimore joins the list of cities with Occupations that have resulted in rape charges. In an interview with Fox Baltimore, a distraught woman who had previously joined the Occupiers claimed she was raped and robbed Friday night at the Occupy Baltimore’s waterfront campsite.She made it clear that none of the Occupiers came to her aid or tried to help her identify her attacker afterwards. The unidentified woman also told reporters that she couldn’t go home because her attacker had taken her...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) – Indecent exposure. Videos of Baltimore students having sex spreading worldwide. WJZ first broke news of both sex scandals, and there are two police investigations underway at this hour. The incidents are provoking strong opinions online. Mike Hellgren has new insight into the controversy. Video of students as young as 14, having sex on school grounds in Baltimore has spread online.

It's hard to know whether the protest is working when the protesters haven't agreed on its objectives. . . . Since then the Baltimore organizers have carried off everything from a drum rally to an S&M pageant depicting the cruelties of the military industrial complex. . . . Online notes from Saturday's evening assembly show that the group discussed organizing a sit-in at City Hall, decriminalizing drugs and increasing the minimum wage. But protesters also admonished themselves for producing too much trash at the site and urged greater re-use of dishes. A "supplies needed" list called for packing tape, hummus,...

A friend once referred to the late New Orleans Archbishop Philip M. Hannan as the “Forrest Gump of Catholicism.” Just like the Tom Hanks’ character, Archbishop Hannan always seemed to be at the right place at the right time – making history as much as witnessing it. Just consider some of the roles the native Washingtonian so ably filled in his 98 years: paratroop chaplain during the Second World War, Catholic newspaper editor, counselor to President John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights and pro-life advocate, attendee of all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, shepherd to the New Orleans archdiocese...

A 21-year-old Baltimore man has been arrested for attempting to blow up a military recruitment center in Catonsville with a fake bomb supplied by federal agents. Federal authorities say Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain, attempted to detonate what he believed to be a vehicle bomb this morning at the Armed Forces Career Center in the 5400 block of Baltimore National Pike. Court records paint Martinez as obsessed with Jihad and intent on punishing the military. He praised Nidal Hassan, the U.S. Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, and discussed obtaining weapons and shooting up military...

Chase had planned to spend the weekend in Ocean City painting but returned home early because of rain. He decided instead to set up at the Inner Harbor in front of the Harborplace shopping complex. Chase had laid out outdoor carpet, lined up cans of spray paint and set up his tip buckets when the video shows the two officers approached him and said he couldn't operate without a permit. The video shows Chase explaining that he had won a court injunction in U.S. District Court and had a right to paint where he was. Officers argued the laws were...

As affluent residents leave town, the political playing field tips further and further in favor of pro-tax Democrats. This coming Labor Day weekend, traffic in downtown Baltimore will move at more than 100 miles per hour—or not at all: The city's main streets will be closed so that IndyCar racers can compete in the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. Much more than prize money is at stake. Nine days later, on Sept. 13, voters will pick a mayor, and incumbent Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is betting that the auto race will draw thousands of free-spending tourists and stimulate the local economy, thereby demonstrating...

Orioles Great Mike Flanagan Found Dead Near Monkton Home The Cy Young winner is dead at 59. By Tyler Waldman and Sean Welsh Orioles great Mike Flanagan was found dead Wednesday afternoon outside his home in northern Baltimore County, according to Orioles officials and news reports. WBAL-TV reports that police found a body shortly before 4:30 p.m. outside Flanagan's Monkton home in the 15000 block of York Road. The Baltimore Sun reports that police remained outside Flanagan's home Wednesday night, and a police car blocked the driveway. Flanagan was a member of the 1983 World Series championship team, and in...

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has rejected an appeal from Baltimore’s Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who urged him not to promote same-sex marriage out of “mere political expediency.” Responding to a personal letter from the archbishop, O’Malley—who is Catholic—said that he felt a moral obligation to change a law that produces an “unjust result.” Archbishop O’Brien wrote to O’Malley in July, warning him not to endorse a measure “that so deeply conflicts with your faith, not to mention the best interests of our society.” In his reply, the governor said that he has “a public obligation to try to change that injustice.”...

A Baltimore mayoral candidate proposes a tax on bullets as part of a plan to reduce crime. Do you consider that an effective option as part of a larger plan? Yes No

Transportation Security Administration officers have found 13 knives in the carry-on luggage of a passenger attempting to board a flight in the Washington area. TSA spokesman Kawika Riley says an officer operating an X-ray machine at Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport last week noticed something suspicious in the man's uggage. A search turned up the knives, including switchblades and a butterfly knife.

An unruly passenger causes a Continental Express jet to make an emergency landing at BWI. Captain Mike Perry reports around 6:30 p.m. Thursday County police and fire marshals were requested to respond to the airport for an unruly passenger on the Continental Express jet. At this point, it is not clear whether the flight originated from BWI or was en route. Passengers on the flight had to be deplaned as officials and a dog boarded the plane. There's no further information on what the passenger may have done. Stay with WJZ.COM for updates to this developing story. ************** supplement with...

Violence erupted in separate locations of the Inner Harbor Monday night despite a heavy police presence for the holiday, with a child shot in the leg and a man fatally stabbed shortly after the fireworks ended. Earlier in the day, a man in his 20s was shot twice inside a parking garage around 2 a.m. after a long-running feud was reignited. He survived the attack. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III held a news conference Monday evening to quell fears that the downtown area was dangerous, telling reporters that arrests were imminent in the morning incident and that he believed...

Obama or Bono? While Obama addressed the nation Wednesday night to lay out plans for troop reductions in Afghanistan, it appears that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi rocked it out at a U2 concert in Baltimore... Pelosi reportedly was watching the famed Irish band sing “Beautiful Day”

The Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles played six World Series games in broad daylight that fall, though daylight in the World Series was later deemed unconstitutional, at least effectively. The '71 Pirates were loud progressives in that area as a team could be in that era. The whites accepted the blacks, who accepted the Latins, who accepted the whites, all of which you knew because they all teased the snot out of each other. Ellis called Robertson Archie Bunker.

... Police spent hours trying to control a mob of teenagers at the Inner Harbor....

Terrorism: Adam Gadahn grew up in la-la land, knowing he could be anything he wanted. Of all he might've chosen from his banquet of opportunity, he picked al-Qaida. Now he's charged with treason. It's high time. Like John Walker Lindh of hot-tubbing Marin County, Calif., Gadahn grew up in sybaritic Orange and Riverside counties, a garden setting with vast opportunities most people in the world can only dream of. His self-absorbed hippie parents reared him permissively and now have no clue what went wrong. Amid fast-food joints, CDs, flush toilets and lots of pricey toys, Gadahn, a one-time death-metal rock...

Third Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Jonesboro, Illinois September 15, 1858 MR. DOUGLAS' SPEECH. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before you today in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whig and Democrats differed about a bank, the...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station. Pat Warren has more on the incident. According to the ACLU, this isn’t the first time MTA Police have overstepped their bounds. In a YouTube posting, Christopher Fussell left the camera rolling when he was confronted by three MTA officers for taking pictures at the Baltimore Cultural Light Rail Station. “It is my understanding that I am free to take pictures as long as it’s not for commercial purposes but for...

UPDATE: Brown was busted for assault last year at same McDonald’s Meet Teonna Monae Brown. The 18-year-old is facing assault charges for allegedly beating a woman in a Maryland McDonald’s (video of the brutal attack went viral late last week). Brown, who lives several blocks away from the Baltimore-area eatery, was arrested Friday on three assault counts in connection with the April 18 assault of Chrissy Lee Polis, 22. A second alleged assailant, who is 14, has been charged as a juvenile. Brown is pictured above in a mug shot released this morning by the Baltimore County Police Department. A...

A transgender woman brutally beaten at a Baltimore County McDonald's spoke out on Saturday, saying that the attack was "definitely a hate crime" and that she's been afraid to leave the house ever since. "They said, 'That's a dude, that's a dude and she's in the female bathroom,'" said Chrissy Lee Polis, who's 22 and said she stopped at the Rosedale restaurant to use the restroom. "They spit in my face." SNIP Polis suffered cuts to her mouth and face, and said she had a seizure. She also admitted she was intoxicated at the time of the assault. SNIP Polis,...

The transgender victim of a brutal beat-down at a Maryland McDonald's broke her silence to call the attack a "hate crime," and says it's not the first time she's been assaulted. Chrissy Lee Polis told the Baltimore Sun on Saturday the incident, which was captured on video and posted online, has left her "afraid to go outside." "I want to cry, but I need to hold my head up," she said, adding that she's been beaten and sexually assaulted in the past because of her sexual identity.

The transgender community is organizing a rally outside a Baltimore County McDonald's Monday night to condemn the severe beating of a transgender woman at the fast-food restaurant. The rally is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the McDonald's, located at 6315 Kenwood Ave. in Rosedale. SNIP Sandy Rawls, founding director of Trans-United, a Baltimore-based organization that works to decrease discrimination against transgender people, said nearly 100 people have indicated on a Facebook page that they will attend the rally. She said the event is intended to raise awareness of hate crimes against transgender people.

A Baltimore County McDonald's owner announced on Saturday afternoon that an employee who taped the violent beating of a customer — a video that went viral Friday — had been fired. "My first and foremost concern is with the victim," franchise owner Mitchell McPherson said in a statement, adding that action might be taken against other restaurant workers as well. "I'm as shocked and disturbed by this assault as anyone would be. The behavior displayed in the video is unfathomable and reprehensible." The video of a beating the Rosedale restaurant went viral Friday, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on...

Beating at Baltimore Co. McDonald's: Read the police report (redacted): http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/acrobat/2011-04/61087659.pdf

As seen above, in a Facebook posting, Hackett has contended that the woman seen getting beaten in the video was actually a male cross-dresser who got into a confrontation with female patrons when he refused to leave the women’s bathroom at the Baltimore eatery. Hackett claimed that the victim faked a seizure and, when cops arrived at the restaurant, “he got right up.”

Sunday, April 21, 1861 The rumor that Federal militia troops would again march through Baltimore, was once more the talk of the town. 3,400 Federal militiamen had just arrived in Cockeysville (17 miles north of Baltimore) via rail from Philadelphia. They were given ammunition and were now waiting for a couple of Regular US Army regiments to accompany them through the city. Almost immediately, as church bells rang out the news, 4,000 men from every class joined the Baltimore militia. Before dismissing his congregation, a Universalist minister urged his flock to “beat your ploughshares into swords!” The city’s new militiamen...

Last Thursday’s issue of The Catholic Review reported on the 150th anniversary of the Pratt Street Riot in Baltimore, a bitter conflict that resulted in the first blood spilled in the Civil War. The city officially commemorated that event with a procession along Pratt Street this morning. Check out this video report: http://www.catholicreview.org/matysekblog

Matthew VanDyke didn't go into Libya to be in the middle of a war. The 31-year-old freelance journalist from Baltimore thought Moammar Gadhafi would be ousted from power by the time he arrived in early March. He would report on the changes sweeping the country and help friends he had met on previous visits build a new country. But VanDyke hasn't been heard from since mid-March, when he called his mother and girlfriend on a cellphone with a scratchy connection while on a truck headed from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to the town of Brega. (snip) The journalist decided...

During a March 2 testimonial at a special celebration of Cardinal William H. Keeler’s upcoming 80th birthday, Richard Berndt told a story that demonstrated why friends know the retired archbishop as a master of the one-liner. Speaking at the Center Club in Baltimore, Berndt recalled how he and the cardinal were walking back to the Catholic Center after a meeting with The Baltimore Sun in the late 1990s. Berndt, who was an attorney for the archdiocese, was discussing some difficult personnel matters with the cardinal as the two strolled by the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of...

Thirty-one Baltimore police officers have been suspended after authorities uncovered a towing extortion scheme, and 17 of them are facing federal charges. The department is starting suspension hearings Thursday for the officers, many of whom were assigned to the northeastern district. It is also filling a staffing gap in that district with a 20-officer community stabilization unit.

ROSEDALE, Md. (WJZ)—An elaborate extortion scheme generating thousands of dollars. Wednesday night, investigators say it was Baltimore City police officers and the owners of a local business who were behind it all. Kelly McPherson explains how investigators say the operation worked. In a more than two yearlong investigation, federal authorities claim 17 officers took kickbacks for illegally steering car accident victims to a Rosedale auto body shop.

292. Q. What is a sacramental?A. A sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church to excite good thoughts and to increase devotion, and through these movements of the heart to remit venial sin.It is not the sacramental itself that gives grace, but the devotion, the love of God, or sorrow for sin that it inspires. For example, a person comes into the church and goes around the Stations of the Cross. The stations are a sacramental. In looking at one station he sees Our Lord on trial before Pilate; in another he sees Him crowned with thorns;...

“The priest I am today is largely due to his example.” That’s how Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien remembered the late New York Cardinal John J. O’Connor during a panel discussion at the 12th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life Jan. 23. Archbishop O’Brien paid tribute to his mentor’s courage in speaking out for truth and the cardinal’s pastoral sensitivity in serving priests and laity alike. “To accompany him to the bedside of a priest in the hospital who was dying was a retreat for me,” said Archbishop O’Brien, a former New York clergyman who served as Cardinal O’Connor’s first...

With the much-anticipated signing of Vladimir Guerrero, the Baltimore Orioles are getting a proven slugger with a reputation for some amazingly freewheeling swings. (Two years ago in Baltimore, the Dominican superstar famously smacked a bloop single against the O’s by connecting on a pitch that bounced in front of the plate). Yet, there’s something else the long-suffering birds might be getting with their latest signing: a man of deep Christian faith who says he takes his Bible with him everywhere he goes.

U.S. District Court Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled Jan. 28 in Baltimore that it is unconstitutional to require pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs with language mandated by the government. The ruling was a major victory for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which had challenged a Baltimore City law passed in 2009 requiring the posting of signs at pro-life pregnancy centers stating that they do not provide abortion and birth control. The archdiocese argued that such signs were a violation of First Amendment rights and that the law unfairly targeted pro-life pregnancy centers while no such signs were required of pro-choice...

There are many parishes and schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore that strongly support the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville is one of the most passionate. For the 25th year, students from the all-girls school have participated in the march – traveling to the capital in six buses Jan. 24. Check out the following video report ...

I have always felt that liberal urban politicians would make the best teachers of economics.  They know how to illustrate economic principles through practical applications like nobody else.  Last year, the hoodlums on the Baltimore City Council passed a 2-cent beverage tax on all bottled beverages sold in the city.  Only a few months later, Pepsi plans to shut down their production of soda in Baltimore.  The Baltimore Sun reports: "The Pepsi plant in Baltimore will no longer make soda, and the company plans to lay off 77 people as officials have decided to stop manufacturing operations — a decision...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Pepsi is packing up production after deciding to stop making soda in Baltimore City, and they’re blaming the new city beverage tax. Kelly McPherson explains the decision also puts dozens of people out of work. Pepsi will continue to transport products in and out of Hampden but no longer will carbonated beverages be made here. Seventy-five workers have lost their jobs. Pepsi says it’s the economic climate—and something else. “In the case of Baltimore, as you may know, there was a beverage tax that was passed here and in this case, it did not help in the...

Arraignment scheduled a week after animal cruelty trialSeven months after Baltimore prosecutors dropped gun and drug charges against teenage twins accused of setting fire to a pit bull puppy, one of the young men was arrested again — this time on attempted murder charges. Travers Johnson, 18, is slated for arraignment Jan. 27 on charges of attempted murder, assault and handgun violations — roughly a week after he and his brother, Tremayne Johnson, are scheduled for trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court on animal cruelty and mutilation charges. The teenagers are accused of dousing a pit bull in gasoline, then...

Maryland State House mailroom employee was injured Thursday afternoon while handling a package, and the incident was being investigated by bomb squad officials, according to Annapolis city officials. The Annapolis Fire Department's bomb squad was investigating the incident and the state's bomb squad and FBI officials were on their way to the Jeffrey Building on Francis Street, where the incident took place, as of 12:51 p.m., according to Phillip McGowan, a spokesman for Annapolis Mayor Joshua J. Cohen. There were also media reports that six people were injured in an explosion at the Maryland Department of Transportation offices at 7201...

<p>FBI agents armed with search warrants raided two houses in a southwestern suburb of Philadelphia yesterday, backed by members of a hazardous-materials squad wearing full protective gear.</p> <p>Located less than two blocks apart in Chester, Pa., some 15 miles southwest of Philadelphia, the houses are owned by Dr. Irshad Shaikh, a Pakistani physician and specialist in epidemic diseases who is Chester's city health commissioner, and by Asif Kazi, the Chester city accountant, who also is a Pakistani native.</p>

Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh talks about his Catholic faith on a video report posted on this blog. Great stuff! He's a dedicated Christian man.