Free Republic

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...

The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger. The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press. And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper. Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.</p>

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign. The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public –...

Ann Geddes doesn't want a "fair and balanced" workout. But the 49-year-old worker for a nonprofit agency is having no luck getting the channel changed in front of her favorite rowing machine at a Columbia gym. The television happens to be tuned permanently to Fox News. Geddes, a liberal Democrat and former legislative aide to a Howard County delegate, said she can't stomach the conservative lineup that appears nightly as she gets her exercise. Even though the sound is off, the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen infuriate her.

David Zurawik, the Baltimore Sun’s TV critic, didn’t even wait a full 24 hours after Robert Novak’s death to launch a stinging criticism of the former Crossfire host on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday. Zurawik lamented the apparently contaminated state of political discourse on cable TV and placed much of the blame on Novak in the blog entry titled, “Robert Novak on cable TV: A Polarizing Presence.” The critic began by announcing his intention to focus on the conservative’s television legacy, instead of his “place...on the political and journalistic map.” He then when right into his attack on Novak, which...

The Baltimore Sun has laid off 61 people in its newsroom, about a quarter of its editorial staff, including veteran editors and managers, columnists, photographers and designers. Maryland's largest newspaper laid off managerial employees at the end of the day Tuesday, and notified union-represented employees Wednesday afternoon... Tribune is operating under bankruptcy protection. Real estate mogul Sam Zell took on a $13 billion debt load when he purchased the company in 2007

This newspaper saw fit this month to airily dismiss allegations of voter fraud against the national community group ACORN as being nothing more than partisan posturing by Republicans. In a lead editorial under the headline "Crying wolf?" The Baltimore Sun said, "ACORN's critics across the country accuse the group's workers of voter fraud, but the claims have the taint of hardball politics." (snip) But I've had quite the story told to me about some voter registration efforts right here. An inmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center, whom I'm not naming to protect him from potential retribution, sent me a...

With the massive and desperate MSM attack upon Sarah Palin, there is a lot of competition in the venom spewing department. However, Baltimore Sun columnist Susan Reimer seems determined to make a strong bid for the most seriously deranged of all attacks upon Palin in her most recent column which starts out on her assumption that the Alaska governor is unqualified: So. This is what being pandered to feels like. John McCain picked Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and mother of five, to be his running mate to woo women like me. He seems to think that my girlfriends and...

Even though at least 34 journalists at The Sun have applied for buyout packages, the paper will still need to lay off employees to achieve its goal of eliminating 60 newsroom jobs by August. According to Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Co-chair Tanika White, 34 Guild members and a rumored 10 more non-Guild members applied for the buyout by Friday’s deadline. White stressed that some buyout applications could be rejected — that Sun leadership may decide it cannot afford to lose certain skill sets, which would add to the number of layoffs. Judy Berman, senior vice president of marketing for the Baltimore...

RUSH: I had some rudimentary information on this two weeks ago, and it wasn't enough for me to trust going with. But since then, it has been verified, and most of it's been verified by a "Freeper" at Free Republic. Everybody is writing about this now, since the Freeper posted it over the weekend. This 12-year-old kid that the Democrats used in the Saturday radio address to whine and moan and cry to President Bush about the S-CHIP children's health program, it turns out that the family of this kid sends its kids to "one of Baltimore's expensive private schools."...

Dissident group says will continue efforts for sale or breakup of company... Tribune Co. shares gained ground Tuesday, rising as the media company that's been working to revamp operations amid shareholder unrest announced the results of a Dutch tender auction. Analysts said any gains could prove short lived, however. Chicago-based Tribune Co said that about 45 million, or 15%, of its common shares were tendered and that it expects to buy the shares at a price of $32.50 each. The number of shares tendered came in 8 million short of the maximum that the company had initially authorized in the...

O'Malley shakes up campaign staff Baltimore Business Journal - 3:46 PM EDT Monday by Heather Harlan StaffBaltimore City Mayor Martin O'Malley has replaced his campaign manager and appointed three political strategists, including his brother, in his quest to become Maryland's next governor. O'Malley, a Democrat, named Josh White as campaign manager, sending Jonathan Epstein packing. White, who joined the O'Malley campaign as deputy campaign manager for political outreach in March, is the former head of the Maryland Democratic Party. The campaign also announced the additions of Lucie Snodgrass, former director of governmental and community relations for Harford County, and Peter...

The Baltimore Sun biased, you don't say?

Two Baltimore Sun journalists lost their appeal of a federal court's dismissal of their case against Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who ordered state workers not to talk with them in November 2004. Feb. 16, 2006 · Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich's freeze-out of a Baltimore Sun reporter and columnist was an inconvenience but did not chill the journalists' or the paper's First Amendment rights, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, upholding a lower court's dismissal of the case. Statehouse Bureau Chief David Nitkin and columnist Michael Olesker failed to prove that Ehrlich trampled on their free speech rights on Nov. 18, 2004,...

Call him Prince of Darkness. Darth Vader. Or, if you want to get on his good side, the Angel Moroni. Just don't call him candidate for governor. Joe Steffen's not running. "I really have decided not to run," Steffen told me yesterday. "The main reason is, most people thought I was doing it just to be vindictive - to be a jerk or be vindictive. I have no personal animosity toward anybody. I didn't want it to come across looking like I did." Is this the same Joe Steffen who cultivated a foreboding image as an Ehrlich administration aide, one...

--Snip-- Nitkin: These questions most frequently come from within the Republican Party of Maryland. The state Republican Party is offering the theory that the former executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party, Josh White, left his post because of some connection to MD4Bush, the Internet identity of a person or persons who engaged former gubernatorial aide Joseph F. Steffen Jr. into talking about how rumors about Martin O'Malley's personal life had been spread. There's no evidence to back this up. White may have landed a new position, but he has not yet confirmed for us his new employer. Ryan O'Doherty...

A longtime columnist for The Baltimore Sun resigned Tuesday amid allegations of plagiarism from other newspapers, The Sun said early Wednesday. Michael Olesker, who wrote a column that appeared twice a week in the Maryland section of The Sun for 27 years, quit two weeks before his 30th anniversary as a Baltimore columnist. His most recent column had appeared in Tuesday's Sun. "I made mistakes," Olesker said as he cleaned out his desk in the newsroom, according to an article in The Sun's editions published Wednesday. "I am sorry to say that in the course of doing those columns, I...

What follows is the lede from a Baltimore Sun article today (Sunday) about Army recruitment as reprinted in The Day in New London, Connecticut. It demonstrates, again, the truth of Mark Twain’s dictum, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” "Washington — The Army met its recruiting goal for November by again accepting a high percentage of recruits who scored in the lowest category on the military's aptitude tests, Pentagon officials said Thursday, raising renewed concerns that the quality of the all-volunteer force will suffer. "The Army exceeded its 5,600 recruit goal by 256 for November, while the Army Reserve...

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. criticized yesterday Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a rival in the governor's race, for praising a surreptitious Internet user who lured an Ehrlich aide into circulating rumors about the mayor's personal life. Speaking on his bimonthly WBAL radio show, Ehrlich said MD4Bush, the screen name of an anonymous visitor to a conservative Web site, discussed rumors about O'Malley and insulted Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, and should not be applauded. On Friday, O'Malley, a Democrat, said he wanted to thank MD4Bush for helping expose the role of an Ehrlich aide in talking about the mayor's personal life....

In an article today (1 October) by Kelly Brewington, the Baltimore Sun takes Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett to task for his unusual comment on his radio show this week. The article is focused mostly on the reactions to that comment. The reporter writes, "Democrat leaders leapt on Bennett, a prominent Republican analyst, describing his statement as the latest in a long trail of public comments by white conservatives unfairly linking blacks to crime and sexuality." Source: hard copy, Baltimore Sun, page 6A, 10/01/0522 Here is Bennett's statement, "...if you wanted to reduce crime, if that were your sole purpose,...

Kidded by a colleague about his "deviousness," one-time gubernatorial aide Joseph F. Steffen Jr. replied that he had "never been caught at anything," according to an e-mail released yesterday by the Maryland Insurance Administration. The e-mail, written four months before he acknowledged spreading rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley's private life, was among 242 pages of documents released yesterday by the insurance administration in response to a freedom of information request by The Sun, The Washington Post and the Associated Press. In the e-mail exchange, Amy Stupi, an insurance administration employee who struck up a friendship with Steffen during his...

NEW YORK A month after Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich issued his controversial ban on state employees talking to two writers at The Sun of Baltimore late last year, the governor met with Sun editors and submitted a list of 23 complaints he had about the paper's coverage of his administration. During the past several months, the Sun's public editor, Paul Moore, has reviewed the complaints and found that just three of the instances were true journalistic errors. In a lengthy column published today, Moore detailed each grievance, followed by an explanation. In most cases, he determined that the paper had...

Annapolis lawmakers renewed calls yesterday for an independent investigation of the Ehrlich administration's management practices after e-mail messages released this week suggested that a state worker fired for spreading rumors about Mayor Martin O'Malley had ties to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s inner circle. Sen. Brian E. Frosh and Del. Peter Franchot, Montgomery County Democrats, said several e-mails sent and received by fired worker Joseph F. Steffen indicate that he was more than what the Ehrlich administration termed a "rogue operation." In e-mails given to The Sun and other news organizations -- and unrelated to the O'Malley rumors -- Steffen...

WBAL-AM talk-radio host Chip Franklin, who frequently comments on state government -- and whose show often provides a friendly forum for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. -- has been paid more than $30,000 in the past three years to appear in commercials for the Maryland Lottery. Franklin, who hosts a morning show with about 130,000 listeners a week, receives a $1,500 payment each time he tapes a television commercial for scratch-off lottery tickets in an arrangement that predates Ehrlich's election. He is paid by Eisner Communications, a Baltimore advertising agency hired by the lottery. Station management and Franklin defend the...

Jervis S. Finney, chief counsel to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., has questioned members of the media - including two Sun reporters - about "MD4BUSH," an anonymous contributor to a Web site that posted adultery rumors about Mayor Martin O'Malley.Finney said he was asking the questions as part of his investigation into the activities of Joseph Steffen, an aide to the governor who was fired February 8 for his involvement in spreading the rumors about O'Malley's personal life, The (Baltimore) Sun reported.O'Malley has denied the rumors.MD4BUSH had several Web log exchanges with Steffen about the O'Malley rumors and gathered a number...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the order by Governor Ehrlich barring state employees from contact with two Sun writers. U-S District Court Judge William Quarles said in his order he was dismissing the case filed by The Sun because The Sun was seeking more access to government officials than that accorded a private citizen. The judge wrote, "The Sun seeks the declaration of a constitutional right that neither the Supreme Court nor the Fourth Circuit has recognized." The judge also ruled the The Sun could not demonstrate irreparable harm or the likelihood of success in the case...

ON THE DAY Official State Dirtball Joseph Steffen admitted spreading stories to humiliate Mayor Martin O'Malley and his family, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appeared on WBAL-TV news, where he was asked by reporter Dave Collins, "Have you known about this rumor?" "No, absolutely not," said Ehrlich with a straight face. Imagine the effort that must have taken. Imagine the faith in people's sheer childlike naivete to stand in front of a TV camera and say such words in an effort to distance yourself from this disgrace. If the governor of Maryland did not hear the rumors about the mayor...

"I don't like O'Malley and I am no Dumbocrat/Caligulite. Still, methinks you should validate stuff like this before you post it." So wrote "Sartorius" on Aug. 13, 2004. The participant in a discussion board on FreeRepublic.com was responding to an explosive posting that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley was having an extramarital affair. It turns out that even Web posters themselves question the publishing power the Internet grants anyone with a modem. Sartorius's skepticism proved salient: Another person posting about the topic was revealed this week to be Joseph Steffen, a longtime political operative for O'Malley's political rival, Gov. Robert L....

A longtime campaign operative of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. resigned his state job yesterday after admitting he had been spreading rumors on the Internet about the personal life of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. Joseph Steffen, 45, said he gave the governor his resignation after questions about his postings on www.FreeRepublic.com, a well-known conservative Web site. The postings discussed O'Malley's marriage. "The governor had no idea," Steffen said. "I don't even think he knows where the Web site is. If anyone is guilty, it is me. There was no outside influence. It was all me." ---Snip--- Steffen said his resignation...

Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland has pushed the public interest aside by promulgating an extraordinary ban forbidding tens of thousands of state employees from talking to two Baltimore Sun journalists whose coverage has displeased him. The gag order is a sweeping attempt to cut the two - the statehouse bureau chief and a columnist - from the flow of information vital to democracy. It is no surprise that The Sun has felt obliged to go to court to defend the journalists and accuse the governor of violating the First Amendment right of free speech. No less does Mr. Ehrlich's order...

During a visit to Towson University Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich commented on the recent media controversy surrounding his relations with the Baltimore Sun and reviewed the events of the 2004 presidential election. In professor Richard Vatz’s Persuasion class, Ehrlich explained his decision to ban state employees from speaking to two Baltimore Sun journalists. “[The Sun] does not have a constitutionally-protected right to commit gross negligence on the front page,” Ehrlich told reporters after the class. On Thursday, Nov. 16, the governor’s press office ordered government staff not to speak with David Nitkin, the State House Bureau Chief, or...