NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday March 7

[Scroll down for full week’s compendia]
 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
 
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond.   Your weekday morning look  (with links)  at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Friday:

The U.S. Postal Service’s Star-Spangled Banner ‘forever’ stamp was unveiled Thursday by the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The stamp was dedicated Thursday at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., as the Smithsonian Institution began a year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of the flag and song that became the national anthem.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, where in September 2014 Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as he watched the flag while being held captive on an invading ship in the Inner Harbor.

The Smithsonian has housed the flag, which it recently restored, since the early 1900s. Key’s lyrics, set to the music of a popular drinking song of the time, became the national anthem in 1931.

On Flag Day, June 14th, the museum is planning a simultaneous singing of the anthem nationwide and will also display Key’s original manuscript with the flag for the first time, borrowing the handwritten text from the Maryland Historical Society.

Read More at:  WBFF Fox45-TV

•  BWI FIRES BLACK, HIRES HISPANIC FIRE CHIEF

The action comes on the heels of the hiring of an all-white class of firefighter recruits last month and is being questioned by the NAACP and the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  DEMOCRATS COME TO CUMMINGS’ DEFENSE AFTER HOUSE HEARING

The Maryland congressman was unceremoniously silenced and his microphone cut off by Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who adjourned the hearing contrary to Cummings’ objections.

The committee is looking into whether the Internal Revenue Service has targeted conservative groups. The key witness’s refusal to answer questions by taking the Fifth Amendment caused Issa to adjourn the hearing.

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Hubert Humphrey lost the presidency to Rich- ard Nixon by razor-thin margin in Nov. 1968.

Political world today would be more civil
if 38th Vice President had won in 1968

OVERWHELMED BY NEGATIVITY,
VOTERS  SOLD  HUMPHREY
AND THE U.S. SHORT
 
By David Maril
 
I was too young to vote but memories of Hubert Humphrey losing to Richard Nixon in 1968 are still fresh in the mind.

While books, documentaries, and news/talk programs are focusing on the 50 year-anniversaries of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and Lyndon Johnson’s launching of his Great Society programs, Humphrey’s importance should not be overlooked.

In today’s world of political rancor, with character assassination and demonizing replacing civilized and rational debate, Humphrey’s influence on history remains relevant and is growing.

With him, it has become a case of what might have happened and how different our world and political outlook would have been if Democrats and liberals hadn’t been so hardheaded, petty and dysfunctional in 1968 when he lost to Nixon.

And I am as guilty as anyone. If I could have voted in that election, I probably would have skipped the balloting or written in Eugene McCarthy’s name in protest.

In the eyes of us peace-marching college kids and antiwar liberals, Humphrey, in 1968, seemed nothing more than a stooge for Lyndon Johnson and his quagmire war policy. We mocked Humphrey’s cheery demeanor as being out of touch.

We laughed at Humphrey apologists at the time who defended him as a man of loyalty and honor, carrying, as the vice president, the burden of Lyndon Johnson’s escalating Vietnam War.

Years later we learned that Humphrey had consistently, behind closed doors with Johnson, spoken out against escalating the war. It was also revealed he had been threatened by LBJ he would not get the party’s support if he used an antiwar theme in his presidential campaign.

Read more »

 
NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday Feb. 28

[Scroll down for full week’s compendia]
 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
 
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond.   Your weekday morning look  (with links)  at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Friday:

Political operative Julius Henson was sentenced Thursday to four months in jail for violating his probation on a 2012 ‘robocall’ conviction.

•  HENSON VIOLATES PROBATION, GETS FOUR-MONTH
JAIL SENTENCE; SAYS HE WILL CONTINUE TO RUN

Political consultant Julius Henson — who was convicted in May 2012 on a conspiracy charge for his role in sending automated robocalls on Election Day 2010 to persuade Baltimore and Prince George’s County Democrats to stay home and not vote for Gov. Martin O’Malley — was sentenced Thursday to four months in jail for violating his probation by filing last week to run for State Senate.

Henson filed papers and announced in an email Feb. 17
his intention to challenge five-term East Baltimore Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, the president pro tem of the Maryland Senate, in the June Democratic primary.

In imposing the four-month sentence, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Emanuel Brown chided Henson for having “a more cavalier approach to being on probation than is healthy” and noted that the sentencing judge had barred Henson from working “in any capacity” on a campaign, which would include his own.

Henson has been serving three years’ probation, which was set to end in 2015, under the provision that he “shall not work in any political campaign paid/volunteer during probation.”

On Thursday, Brown ended Henson’s probation, noting that he had completed 300 hours’ community service, and stayed the four-month sentence for 30 days to allow Henson time to file an appeal, which Henson argued comes down to the definition of “work.”

As a candidate for election, he maintained that since “there’s no compensation, no payment,” nor is he “a volunteer,” his candidacy should not be defined as “work” and therefore does not violate his probation.

The judge disagreed.

Henson’s attorney, Russell A. Neverdon — who himself is a candidate for Baltimore City State’s Attorney — expressed confidence following the hearing that the judge’s decision will be overturned on appeal and that Henson will be permitted to continue his run for State Senate, an uphill battle at best, according to most political observers.

“The chances of him winning are close to zero,” said University of Maryland Law Professor Larry Gibson, a longtime observer of city politics who served as chief adviser to former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

Read more »

The FCC’s intention to grill journalists in U.S. news- rooms on their criteria for reporting the news seems reminiscent of George Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ of 1984.

Are American newspapers a ‘polluted vehicle’?
Should Obama Administration bureaucrats
have oversight  over journalists’ work?
 
A VOICE OF BALTIMORE EDITORIAL
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
Thomas Jefferson, the great champion of Freedom of the Press, dramatically altered his view on the importance of free speech once he ascended to the presidency.

The First Amendment, he came to realize as the nation’s third chief executive, is not the friend of people in power.

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” Jefferson wrote in 1807, his next-to-last year in office. “Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

In 2014, if newspapers can be said to be “polluted vehicle”s, then what does that say about the Internet? Facebook, Twitter and all the sundry online publications where most Americans get their news these days, and which are unencumbered by government regulation, and in many cases, truth.

Or from comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and the like, who are also unencumbered by government regulation, and in many cases, not entirely truthful.

Satire requires a grain of truth, to be sure, but is not required to be totally accurate, nor is it mandated to be fair and unbiased, although Stewart and Colbert certainly seem to not play favorites when it comes to making fun of politicians and newsmakers.

Like Jefferson, and numerous presidents in between, Barack Obama and members of the current administration seem determined to “unpollute” that Jeffersonian vehicle, which now includes far more than simply just the print media.

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Whatever happened to, ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’? Last week, Baltimoreans were lucky to get three-day delivery.

‘We the Folks’ replaces ‘People’?

SPRING TRAINING, TIME FOR OPTIMISM
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering, with the U.S. Postal Service having so much trouble delivering mail, how some Washington politicians can consider proposing that the system offer banking services in branches… it’s interesting to note the following:

  Don’t assume that the U.S. postal system lost the battle to cut service back.

While its cost-cutting proposal to eliminate Saturday delivery was rejected by Congress, the Post Office may be having the final word. Through much of this snow-dominated winter, many residents of Baltimore have been fortunate to get mail delivered just three or four times a week.

Whatever happened to: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”?

There are no simple answers to explain why mail delivery gets worse each year. The problem relates to cuts in the wrong places, spending in the wrong places, dysfunctional and bureaucratic upper management, unwise policy decisions in the system’s history, and, most importantly, interference and absence of leadership from Congress.

When customers complain about lack of service, they are given a wide series of reasons and excuses, ranging from road conditions to shortage of manpower.

When service is rendered, deliveries often take place late into the evenings, probably running up huge overtime wage totals.

Sometimes, even on clear days when temperatures are above freezing in most parts of the state, a decision during delivery hours will be made by an upper management bureaucrat in a remote location to pull all trucks off the roads because one area has slippery conditions.

The result: Mail service is finished for the day and many customers go without a delivery.

Read more »