Free Republic

Maryland lawmakers advanced a bill Monday that would prohibit stores from providing plastic bags to customers starting July 2022. An iteration of this legislation passed the House and was voted out of the Senate Finance Committee last year, but it did not reach the Senate floor due to the abbreviated legislative session. With an amendment from Del. Brian Crosby (D-St. Mary’s) that would allow orchard farmers to provide plastic bags to customers for its fruits and vegetables, the Plastic Bag Reduction Act, sponsored by Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore City) and Sen. Malcom Augustine (D-Prince George’s), moved out of the House...

A member of the Legislative Black Caucus from Baltimore City has resigned from the group over remarks purportedly made by the caucus’ leader. Her decision comes just days before the House of Delegates votes on a new speaker, amid signs that a leading candidate — a member of the caucus from Prince George’s County — may be preparing to align himself with Republican legislators in order to win the position. That decision has frayed relations within the 98-member Democratic caucus – which includes 45 members of the black caucus. The LBC is scheduled to meet Monday afternoon in Annapolis –...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore’s mayor is asking for help from the FBI as the city struggles to contain a soaring murder rate. But will bringing in the feds stop the killings? Catherine Pugh pulled no punches earlier this week when she said the violence is out of control. “I’m calling on all the assistance we can possibly get because I can’t imagine going into our summer months with our crime rate where it is today, what that’s going to look like by the end of the summer,” Mayor Pugh said. “… Murder is out of control.”

The city of Baltimore worked to tear down thousands of homes on Monday in an effort to lift itself out of decades of urban decay. The city and state are paying millions for demolition in the hope that, one day, developers will see vacant lots as a land of opportunity.

Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, has resigned abruptly from the House on the revelation by ABC News of “sexual” instant messages to underage male pages. The Democrats in Congress and in the media are trying to hang this albatross around the necks of Republican leaders, and Republicans generally. There is incompetent reporting, either accidental or deliberate, on this story. Foley sent e-mails to some pages that were not overtly sexual. Almost the entire press has failed to report the differences between e-mails and instant messages. Since most reporters use both methods of communications or can easily get information about...

I’ll be brief this time about Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. Due to stupidity and incompetence, he did not carry out the evacuation plan for his city. As a result, more than a thousand of his constituents died, and tens of thousands suffered personal disaster, and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and the National Guard. There was an established evacuation plan for Southern Louisiana, dated 1 January, 2004. Local and national media were incompetent in not reporting this plan and its details. The salient point was that the mandatory evacuation had to be called early, to...