Free Republic

Given the history of same-sex marriage referendums, poll results should be viewed skeptically There was a brief explosion of optimism from those supporting same-sex marriage in Maryland last week after a poll by Hart Research Associates indicated that voters in the state support it by a significant margin of 54-40. No state has ever approved gay marriage at the ballot box, but advocates here and elsewhere — The New York Times published a piece titled "Hopeful news from Maryland" — contend that the issue hasn't polled this well before either. They shouldn't get too excited just yet. Gay marriage is...

A former D.C. police officer admitted Thursday to falsifying logs regarding the testing of mobile photo-radar cameras that issue speeding tickets — a move that resulted in the department having to refund more than $17,000 in traffic ticket fines. ... the 22-year department veteran was supposed to be monitoring photo-radar equipment during overtime shifts and taking test photographs once an hour with the cameras to ensure they were working properly. In 2008 and 2009, prosecutors said Mr. Cephas failed to take the once-an-hour shots on 33 occasions and covered up the mistakes by rolling back the clock on the radar...

The decision whether to eat at Chick-fil-A has become a hot-button issue since the fast food company’s president opened up about his support for traditional marriage, but one local politician says she’s not making a political statement by welcoming the company with open arms. Prince George's County Council member Karen R. Toles, a Democrat, said she’s attending the opening of a Chick-fil-A in District Heights on Thursday to celebrate the economic development in her community. “When you have someone who hires over 100 people from your county alone, that is something to celebrate,” Ms. Toles said. Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy...

“This is a big moment for Catholic voters to step back from their party affiliation,” Baltimore archbishop William E. Lori tells me from the Knights of Columbus annual convention in Anaheim, Calif.For Catholic voters in November, Lori advises, “The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”At the convention this week, the message wasn’t just coming from Lori, the chairman of the...

BALTIMORE - One of Maryland's most recognizable yet seldom-seen politicians publicly entered the same-sex marriage debate Tuesday. Former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend made a rare public appearance to rally Catholics to uphold Maryland's same-sex marriage law at the polls. She urged Catholics, who are a major voting block, to buck church policy. "I learned from the nuns to love one another and that that was the most important commandment," she said, finding a way to reconcile her Catholic faith with her support of the idea. The daughter of civil rights stalwart Robert Kennedy said the law does gel...

Have you seen the latest jobs report? Major buzzkill: creeping unemployment, anemic growth, and the recovery's totally stalled. But not here: The District is booming! "Washington may have the healthiest economy of any major metropolitan area in the country," says New York Times D.C. bureau chief David Leonhardt in Sunday's Gray Lady. "You can actually see the prosperity"! Yes we can! Construction cranes dominate the downtown skyline, and your average homeless guy can barely grab a stretch of sidewalk before yet another boutique store pops up to bounce his bedroll.

Earlier today, I filed an amicus brief in Woollard v. Gallagher, currently scheduled for an expedited hearing around October 23 before the Fourth Circuit. The case is an appeal from the decision of the federal district court that Maryland’s granting of handgun carry permits only to persons who can prove a specific, imminent threat is unconstitutional. The winning lawyer in the case below was Alan Gura, representing Raymond Woollard and the Second Amendment Foundation. The brief is filed on behalf of the two major professional associations of police firearms trainers: the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association (ILEETA); and...

South Dakota has joined other states in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in a federal appeal involving Maryland's requirements for getting a permit to carry a gun.

“We’ve seen a huge outcry from the public demanding common sense gun laws,” Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence senior attorney Daniel Vice told baltimoresun.com. Vice made his org’s claim on popular support upon hearing that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Benson E. Legg that “would have flooded Maryland’s streets with unregulated guns.” Translation: Legg tossed-out the Old Line State’s “may issue” concealed carry permitting process as unconstitutional. “A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” Legg...

. . When store employees in the red shirts realize what’s happening, they block the doors to stop the young thieves from leaving. But the kids physically struggle to get out and even appear to hit the store manager who then swings back. After the brief altercation, many kids dash out the door. . . After reviewing the surveillance video, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s office opted not to pursue criminal charges in the case saying not every conflict warrants them. . . A bill to toughen the punishments for this kind of crime failed to pass in Maryland’s last...

The Maryland state retirement and pension system is in bad shape. The deluxe benefits package has $37 billion in assets, but even that amount isn’t enough to meet the promises made to government bureaucrats. In the last fiscal year, this prodigious sum was invested in a way that yielded a negligible 0.36 percent return. That would be bad enough, but State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, chairman of the pension-system trustees, insists on pretending the fund is earning 7.75 percent for the purposes of calculating future value. This accounting gimmick masks the dire situation of the program’s finances. Retirement funds are generally...

Went to my local Chick-Fil-A here in Maryland(the Blue Liberal Bathtub) at Noon today and the store was already packed with customers just before Noon time today! The other location near Waldorf Maryland was just as busy from what I have been told. Today in my opinion was the successful defense of free speech as well as free will as I have the right to spend my money when and where I want, when a business shares my believes.

Since funding a lavish half-million-dollar party to celebrate the election of Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III about 18 months ago, officials at the Bowie-based Path to Greatness have continued to raise thousands of dollars from donors while counting Mr. Baker’s wife as a trustee, an arrangement that critics say opens up another avenue for special interests to curry favor with his administration. Under Internal Revenue Service rules, such nonprofit organizations are not required to make public the names of donors, though officials did so in response to a request by The Washington Times. The list reveals dozens...

Last week I told you that Lenny B. Robinson — I unmasked him as the Route 29 Batman after he was stopped by police in his Lamborghini this spring — had just picked up his new $200,000 Batmobile in Canada and was driving cross-country visiting sick children in hospitals. He was doing so, I wrote, even after the horrible massacre in Colorado during the opening of “The Dark Knight Rises” at a theater in Aurora. “I will continue to portray this iconic superhero, giving courage to sick children around the world that need it most,” he wrote on the Facebook...

James Nowicki, 28, of Baltimore, pleaded guilty today to his involvement in hanging a raccoon on the porch... James conspired with Joshua Wall, Billy Pratt, Brittany Whedbee and Dena Whedbee to hang a dead raccoon from a noose. James admitted that he and Dena, his girlfriend, found a (dead) raccoon... and that he gave Wall a rope to make (with witch, co-con fabricated) a noose. “Today the department secured a guilty plea from the fifth (James) conspirator in a hateful scheme to intimidate an African family at their own home,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Right....

Maryland legislators will be cutting their summer vacations short after Gov. Martin O'Malley announced a special session for Aug. 9 to address gambling questions left unanswered in the spring. But after Mr. O'Malley repeatedly urged state leaders to “put the issues behind us so we can move forward,” some people are wondering whether the decision was a risky bluff. It’s the second special session this summer — Mr. O'Malley called the first one in mid-May to wrap up the budget — and the issues of table game expansion at Maryland’s existing casinos and adding a sixth casino in Prince George’s...

The District will open a new southbound ramp linking Anacostia Freeway with Interstate 695 and Interstate 395 on Monday morning. D.C. transportation officials say the new ramp, part of the 11th Street Bridge Project, will ease congestion and cut down on traffic that flows through neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. Infrastructure designers predict the new ramp will save drivers 10 minutes on their commutes. The ramp will accommodate 34,000 cars per day by 2030.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler is asking a federal appeals court to delay the implementation of a judge's ruling that Maryland's gun permit law is unconstitutional, pending an appeal by the state.

A Maryland group with loose ties to a tea party organization in Texas says it has found evidence of ballots cast at polling places in the state long after the voters were listed as deceased, but has not decided what to do with the information. Election Integrity Maryland has turned over information to state and county election board officials on 9,000 people listed on voter rolls in Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Baltimore city who, it says, are deceased or have an improper address. Asked whether the group has found evidence of voter fraud in the state, Election Integrity...

Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown is donating $17,000 in contributions his campaign received from a D.C. contractor now at the center of a fundraising scandal in Washington embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray. The move Thursday comes days after Gov. Martin O’Malley donated $38,000 in donations tied to Jeffrey E. Thompson, while some but not all fellow prominent Democrats also moved to get rid of Thompson-linked cash. Federal agents looking into campaign-finance wrongdoing in the District raided Mr. Thompson’s offices and home earlier this year.