To hear some tell it, there is nothing in the federal government’s budget that can be cut. Every dime spent is absolutely critical, and if anything is cut, “people will die!”

Even National Public Radio.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher warned, “defunding [NPR] is a real risk to the public safety of the country.”

Maher said advocates for NPR are “devastated that the Senate voted to eliminate federal funding to the local public television stations throughout this country that provide essential lifesaving public safety services, proven educational services and community connections to their communities every day for free.”

If she really believes what she says is true, NPR will now prioritize its spending to ensure the continuation of its life-sustaining functions. Of course, that might mean it will have to eliminate other essential reporting, such as this review of a “teenager friendly” book: “What ‘Queer Ducks’ can teach teenagers about sexuality in the animal kingdom.”

Did you catch the “for free” part at the end of Maher’s statement? If NPR’s programming was really “free,” there would be no need to cut funding, would there?

The truth is, nothing is free. Just because the government is paying for it doesn’t mean it’s free. Anyone who pays taxes is paying for it.

NPR is seriously biased, but it is not free.

It’s like those “free courses” Maryland public school students are now able to take at community colleges. Students may not have to pay to attend the classes, but taxpayers certainly have to pick up the tab.

That’s a concept progressives have a real hard time wrapping their heads around.

Socialists, like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, are all about free. “Free” public transportation. “No-cost” child care. It’s all a lie.

A wise man once said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

And George Bernard Shaw once quipped, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

I don’t really blame progressives for being so deceitful. If the public is too naive to recognize what they’re up to and continues to vote progressive lawmakers into office, then the public gets what it deserves.

The good news is, all across the country, Americans appear to be waking up to the lie. Then again, we live in Maryland — one of the bluest of blue states — where robbing Peter to pay Paul is the state sport.

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future is a great example. The Blueprint prioritizes one demographic group over another. Counties like Carroll now receive less taxpayer money so that the state will have more money to give to other counties like Prince George’s County.

Worse, Carroll County has been forced to adopt the same educational “reform” plan every other county in the state has been forced to adopt. Only a bureaucrat or politician would think the same reforms will work in two jurisdictions as different from one another as Carroll is from Prince George’s County, but that’s what we’ve got going on here in Maryland — a one-size-fits-all government-mandated initiative that treats all Maryland counties the same.

And it will only cost taxpayers $10 billion.

Worse still, state legislators have not allocated enough money to pay for their “reforms,” so they are expecting local governments to make up the difference by raising local taxes.

This is how Maryland Governor Wes Moore is able to run campaign ads in his bid to become president, in which he claims to have fixed the state’s budget woes. He didn’t. He just shifted the tax burden to local governments.

The Blueprint even goes so far as to blackmail the counties. If they refuse to rollover and raise local taxes to pay for the state’s unfunded mandates, they will lose their state education funding altogether.

I’d like to see that. I’d like to see candidate Moore explaining why he cut off education funding to students in his state.

There is very little Democrats will not do or say in pursuit of political power. They have proven this many times, especially since President Donald Trump’s first term, but America is souring on progressive policies — and tactics — and Democrats are trapped. They were perfectly happy to embrace the radical left when they saw it as being in their political self-interest to do so, but they created a monster, and that monster is now feeding on its own.

That progressive policy positions are growing increasingly unpopular with the American public is the reason Democrats are looking for a presidential candidate with “aura.”

Elijah Templeton wrote in The Herald, “Politics have long been more about the candidate presenting the policies than the actual policies themselves and this is nowhere more apparent than America in 2025. This reality has led us to a second Donald Trump term and a Democratic party in complete disarray for one reason and one reason only: the Democrats do not have a candidate with aura.”

These days, the term “aura” is used as a compliment, essentially calling someone cool or suave, so what Templeton is saying is Democrats need a candidate with charisma, not substance; a slick politician, someone people will vote for because they are good-looking and charming rather than on how they will govern.

You know, someone like Wes Moore.

Zohran Mandami and California Governor Gavin Newsom also fit the bill. Fast-talking, silver-tongued politicians who have a lot in common with the average used car salesman.

With socialism becoming a common theme among Democratic politicians these days, a candidate with “aura” is all Democrats have left if they hope to win another national election.

But if the party cannot even disavow a Marxist, antisemitic candidate running to become mayor of the financial capital of the world, it has surrendered the right to be supported by anyone.

And they know it.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Our outreach efforts were not zero-sum undertakings. Meeting the needs of the underserved did not mean ignoring the needs of other students.

One of the first things we did was host forums designed to give historically disadvantaged parents the opportunity to share their experiences at East and other CCPS schools, both the good and the bad. These discussions helped focus our outreach activities, and parents appreciated the opportunity to be heard. I learned a great deal from those discussions.

Something a parent said at one of the forums always stuck with me. “We’ve said all this before,” she said. “People always ask our opinion, and then nothing happens.”

I was determined not to let that happen at East, so I created a Community Outreach Committee to serve as a vehicle to keep me focused on issues important to students whose needs often fall through the cracks in the crush of everything a school principal has to deal with on a daily basis.

I am very grateful to the parents, community leaders and faculty members who invested so much of their valuable time to serve on that committee. Many of the school’s outreach activities and practices were a direct result of the committee’s work.

We hosted a Harvest Party at the Robert Moton Center on Center Street in Westminster. The event featured food, dancing, face painting and games. It was a way for the school to connect with families, who for a variety of reasons felt uncomfortable in a school setting.

The school participated in block parties organized by Grow Mission near Bishop’s Garth. It was gratifying to witness our students and parents having fun in their own neighborhood. The school’s involvement helped strengthen its ties with the families residing in that neighborhood.

To help African-American students recognize the power of education, the school organized field trips to Coppin State and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A special effort was made to ensure “at-risk” students were included on these trips. The experience was eye-opening for many who attended, some of whom came to believe for the first time in their lives that attending college was a real possibility for them.

We reached out to our Hispanic community by hosting a parent forum at St. John’s Catholic Church. CCPS interpreters helped facilitate that discussion.

One of my favorite activities was making home visits to meet with parents and students who had never had an educator in their homes before.

For me, it was about developing relationships and finding ways to make sure the school was meeting the needs of all of its students. Many of the relationships I developed during that time endure to this day, and it is still a treat for me to run into students I worried about back then, who are doing well today.

We worked hard to provide meaningful professional development for teachers, including working with Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” which explored the culture of poverty and its relation to education. We wanted to equip our teachers with the knowledge and tools they needed to effectively engage hard to reach students.

We worked hard to create an environment in which students enjoyed coming to school, understood why school was important, and could see a positive future for themselves.

I made a concerted effort to diversify the school’s faculty, and I worked hard to make sure all teachers and staff felt comfortable and supported.

We did more than pay lip service to the issue of diversity, whether it was defined in terms of a student’s race, ethnicity, socio-economic status or intellectual and emotional well-being, and we made a real difference in the lives of many students.

It was something we did together as a school community, and it was all very personally rewarding for me.

Each student was different, each deserved my attention, and I felt a personal responsibility to develop a relationship with as many students as I could because in the end, it’s that relationship which matters most — the relationship educators have with their students.

Do we know them? Do we know how to motivate them? Do we know how they learn best? Have we made their parents partners in the process?

Put students in whatever category you like; the key to their education boils down to meaningful relationships.

Our approach to making a difference for students was always a practical one. Lots of people virtue signal and make speeches about diversity. We tried in a small way to do something about it. We weren’t trying to change the world, we simply did the best we could to change lives — one student, one family, one teacher at a time.

I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for any prescriptive one-size-fits-all government initiative to accomplish anything. History has proven time and again, such initiatives are doomed to fail and a colossal waste of money.

But put together a school-based team of committed stakeholders who genuinely want to make a difference for students, and anything is possible.

We need to unshackle our teachers and school leaders from government bureaucrats who tie their hands, killing innovation and preventing schools and educators from adopting the policies and practices best suited to the individual school communities they serve.

As long as politicians and government bureaucrats are allowed to substitute their judgment for the judgment of the people working in and with local schools, public education will never improve.

The best thing bureaucrats — whether federal, state or local — can do to improve schools is to provide them what they need … and then get out of their way.

School leaders and classroom teachers know better than anyone else what their students and school communities need to thrive.

What they don’t need is people who know nothing about their students or their school communities telling them from afar what they must and must not do.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

I wish I could tell you that the rains bypassed that Texas camp entirely and that the campers are right now outside canoeing and hiking and playing instead of dealing with the trauma of knowing they have friends and counselors they will never see again.

But the rains did fall, the river did rise, and many children died.

If there is one place on earth you would think God would want to protect from storms and flooding, it is a Christian camp for children.

The news is full of stories of children who are sick, or kids who drown while swimming, or who die of a drug overdose, or are shot in their home by someone who happened to be driving by.

Car accidents take the lives of whole families. There are senseless murders, mass shootings and diseases of every kind.

But the sheer raw power of natural disasters place them in a category all their own. A tornado levels one home, but leaves the house next door completely untouched. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and wildfires are all part of daily life.

Are they random events that just happen from time to time? Are they God’s judgment on a sinful people? Or are they part of something so marvelously unfathomable that we simply have to trust in the goodness of God?

The Bible warns against speculation. In Luke 13, Jesus speaks of a group of Galileans killed by Pilate. Were they worse than other Galileans?

He also mentions the 18 people who were killed when a tower fell on them in Jerusalem. Were they worse sinners than other people living in Jerusalem at the time?

In both cases, Jesus replies with an unqualified, “No.” Instead, He told those listening their time would be better spent considering their own standing before God.

The Book of Job is about a good man. Of him, God says, “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

Yet God allows one tragedy after another to enter his life. Job lost everything — his health, his livestock, his wealth, even his 10 children. Painful sores covered his entire body. Life became so bad for Job that his wife told him to “curse God and die.”

As he sat in despair and agony, three of his friends came to “comfort” him. Not unlike some today who speculate about God’s judgment, they tell their friend his suffering must be due to some terrible sin he committed, and they urged him to repent.

Job refuses to accept that explanation. His sin did not bring about his suffering, but God never explains to Job what did.

Likewise, we will never know why the floodwaters came to Texas.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”

Romans puts it this way. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”

The Christian accepts the Sovereignty of God. It is God Who rules the universe, and believers know no matter how inscrutable it may be to us, whatever God decides is perfect and just.

The Christian believes “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” Out of the worst tragedies come the greatest blessings.

And because of King David’s testimony in 2 Samuel, believing parents can have confidence they will be reunited with children who predecease them. At this very moment, the children who perished in the Texas floodwaters are with the Lord in Heaven.

More than 120 people lost their lives in that flooding, at least 30 of them were children. Many people are still missing. I cannot imagine the pain and anguish those who loved them are feeling at the moment.

But God can. He understands their pain. He understands because grief is an emotion God experiences Himself.

God’s Spirit is grieved when a believer sins. Jesus grieved over the death of his friend, Lazarus. However painful, it is grief that connects us to the very heart of God.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

When a child dies, it is only natural to mourn, but Christians do not mourn as the world mourns. We have an eternal hope that the world does not have.

Death is not the end for those who are in Christ. Those who know Jesus look forward to the day when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

In the meantime, believers need to pray for the people of Texas. God promises our prayers are not in vain. Our prayers make us part of God’s divine plan for those who are suffering. They serve to align our will with the will of God, they cause us to grow in our faith, and increase our capacity to experience God’s love.

Pray for the protection of those involved in the search and rescue efforts. May God guide their steps.

Pray for strength and provision for people who have lost everything.

Pray for discernment and wisdom for officials making decisions and directing activities.

Pray for communities to come together, to be there for one another, and to draw strength in their unity.

And pray for spiritual growth and resilience for those most affected by the disaster, that they may find strength and hope in their faith.

May the Lord wrap His loving arms around those who are currently overwhelmed and in despair, wherever they may be. May they hear the Lord whisper in their ears that He loves and cares for them. May each find the hope and peace that comes to those who place their faith in Christ.

The darker the night, the brighter the star. The deeper the grief, the closer is God! — Russian poet Apollon Maykov

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

That used to worry the average American. Not so much anymore. Those kinds of attacks are so ubiquitous these days, they’ve become little more than background noise.

Being labeled a “racist” used to really mean something. In fact, to be called a racist was about as bad as it got.

Then the progressive left decided all white people are racist. In fact, everything is racist. The whole country is racist and anyone who denies it is proving they are racist. Every member of the dominant culture is part of an all-pervasive racist tapestry that is woven into every aspect of American life.

Defining racism so broadly is beyond regrettable. It trivializes and inures the public to actual instances of racism that should raise the ire of people everywhere.

Whether it’s race relations or any other aspect of progressive dogma, the left hyperventilates so often that no one pays much attention anymore.

With well-practiced distress, the left sounds the alarm. “The sky is falling, and this time we really mean it! Either we get our way or it’s the end of everything. Agree with us or you’re evil.”

Even Supreme Court justices are jumping on the “everything is an existential threat” bandwagon.

In response to the court’s recent decision to limit the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, “It is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.”

There you have it. Either the court agrees with Jackson, or it’s the end of the Republic.

Jackson’s dissent was so illogical and so hysterical, Justice Amy Coney Barrett felt it necessary to reply. “We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument,” she wrote, “which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” adding, “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

What is it about the left that makes it incapable of understanding why anyone might not believe what it believes, or want what it wants?

Oppose open borders? You’re anti-immigrant. Want to do something about waste, fraud and abuse? You’re anti-poor. Think the policies of liberal district attorneys are wrong and harmful? You’re anti-social justice.

Don’t think oil companies are evil empires or that climate change means the end of the planet in a few years? That makes you anti-earth. Don’t believe a transgender, biological male athlete should be allowed to compete in women’s sports? You’re anti-trans.

Disagree that there should be no restrictions on a woman’s right to an abortion? You’re anti-woman. Think federalizing election laws is unconstitutional, you’re anti-minority. Don’t have a problem using the National Guard to quell rioting in Los Angeles, your anti-democracy.

Anti-immigrant. Anti-poor. Anti-justice. Anti-trans. Anti-earth. Anti-woman. Anti-minority. Anti-democracy.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar believes the United States has become one of the worst countries in the world. “To have a democracy,” she said, “a beacon of hope for the world, to now be turned into one of the, you know, one of the worst countries, where the military are in our streets without any regard for people’s constitutional rights, while our president’s spending millions of dollars propping himself up like a failed dictator with a military parade — it is really shocking.”

If anyone needed confirmation that the Democratic Party has lost its way and is headed in the wrong direction, they need look no further than New York City, where Democrats just made Zohran Mamdani, an antisemitic socialist, their nominee for mayor.

If he becomes mayor, Mamdani intends to hike property taxes on “whiter neighborhoods.”

I have to wonder how a policy that taxes people based on the color of their skin fits into the left’s conception of racism?

Antisemitic, anti-white, anti-capitalist — apparently none of it matters to the Democratic Party, which has no problem funding Mamdani’s campaign.

Until Democrats and their leadership realize politicians like Omar and Mamdani are killing their party, and do something to isolate them politically, they will never again win the hearts and minds of the American people.

For too long, the far left has set the party’s agenda, and the center, such as it is, has simply gone along for the ride, afraid to say or do anything that might upset the party’s radical base.

Democrats find themselves in quite a pickle at the moment. The way things stand now, without the radical left, they cannot win another national election, but unless they abandon the policies of the radical left, they will continue to bleed support, which is already at historic lows.

To save the party, moderate Democrats must cut ties with their far-left colleagues, inviting Omar and other likeminded politicians to form their own party.

It seems more likely the far-left will send moderate Democrats packing, but either way, only when they are freed from their progressive task masters will Democrats be able to get back to the policies and values that once made their party, in the words of Democratic strategist James Carville, “the most effective political party in the history of the world.”

But it’s a long road back, and time is short.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Iran lies, cheats, blusters and bullies.

Can you imagine what it would do if it ever acquired a nuclear weapon?

After two years of negotiations, in 2016, the United States and other world powers entered into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which restricted the number of centrifuges Iran could possess — for 10 years —and how much enriched uranium it could produce, for 15 years.

In exchange for the temporary JPOCA restrictions, President Barack Obama immediately lifted economic sanctions on Iran. He even secretly arranged a plane to deliver $400 million in cash to Iran, which the country promptly used to fund terror activities throughout the region.

President Donald Trump recognized early on why Iran was only too willing to sign such an agreement, and during his first term in office, pulled the United States out of the deal.

Few people think Iran having a nuclear weapon — today, tomorrow or 10 years from now — is a good idea, and with Israel having paved a path for the United States to finally do something to prevent that from happening, the opportunity to act decisively was simply one Trump would have been a fool to ignore.

Trump had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of world history and to bring peace to a region of the world that has known precious little of it. He seized the moment.

But rather than celebrate the fact that the United States had just effectively ended Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Democratic politicians like Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen could only think to call Trump’s actions “unconstitutional.”

Last Saturday evening, after learning the United States bombed three sites key to Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, Van Hollen issued a statement reading, “Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one. His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution — ignoring the requirement that only the Congress has the authority to declare war.”

It was only a couple weeks ago that Democrats were claiming Trump sending the National Guard into Los Angeles was “unconstitutional.” That argument took a major hit when, as Politico reported, a “three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Trump appeared to have acted within his authority when he took control of 4,000 California National Guard troops.”

So, Democrats needed to find a new constitutional crisis to lay at the feet of the president.

For a mealy-mouthed politician like Van Hollen, who would rather engage in partisan attacks than celebrate an American success, the strikes on Iran offered the perfect opportunity, not to bring peace to the Middle East by defanging a cancerous regime which has wrought death and destruction for decades, but to attack the American president.

Van Hollen didn’t stop to take a breathe before criticizing the president’s actions. The B-2 bombers were still in the air with hours to go before reaching home when Van Hollen issued his querulous statement.

He didn’t take time to compliment the American service men and women who put their lives at risk, and whose courage and skill allowed them to eliminate one of the greatest threats to world peace.

Unfortunately, Van Hollen is representative of today’s Democratic Party, which puts its own partisan interests ahead of the interests of the country.

To justify their all-consuming irrational hate for the president, Democrats have convinced themselves he is Adolf Hitler reborn.

As long as the far-left is determining their party’s agenda, Democrats will continue to bleed support as more and more Americans reject not only its radicalism but its inability to distinguish between right and wrong and its inclination to appease evil.

Whether it’s reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, securing the southern border, eliminating the threat posed by criminal aliens in the United States or keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Democrats always say they are in favor of the ends, but they are never in favor of taking the steps necessary to achieve those ends.

What would Democrats have us do? Cower in fear? Allow ourselves to be blackmailed by Iran? Pass on the opportunity to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program because it’s safer to do nothing? Condemn the world to live with the threat of a terrorist state lobbing nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles because we’re afraid the mullahs might get mad?

Democrats were wringing their hands worried what Iran might do in response to the destruction of its nuclear sites, and well they should have.

Given how porous the southern border was under the prior administration, it would be foolhardy to think Iran and its proxies did not take advantage of the opportunity to send sleeper cells into the United States. Between 2021 and 2024, over 1,500 Iranian nationals were arrested at the southern border. The Biden administration released nearly half of them into the United States.

But rather than criticize the conditions that made such an infiltration of the country possible, if the terrorists living among us should decide to act, is there any doubt Democrats will cast that as President Trump’s failure?

Trump’s restraint after Iran’s retaliation in Qatar is commendable, but we should stop playing with the current Iranian regime. How many Americans does Iran have to kill before the U.S. says, “Enough”? If Iran wishes to remain a country that tells the world, “Do what we say or we’ll blow you up,” then it’s time for the world to take definitive action to eliminate that threat once and for all.

As for partisan rubes like Senator Van Hollen, Maryland can do better. Much, much better.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Later, when the images streaming out of the city made Waters’ claim impossible to defend, Democrats were forced to rethink their narrative.

They now acknowledged there was some rioting in Los Angeles, but just a little. A few cars burned. A couple police were attacked. No big deal.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass put it this way: “This is isolated to a few streets. This is not city-wide civil unrest.”

I suspect mobilizing the National Guard may have had something to do with keeping it that way.

Then there was California Governor Gavin Newsom. After months of tacking to the political center in preparation for a run for the White House, events dragged Newsom back to his progressive roots … and progressive talking points.

“Other states are next,” Newsom said. “Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.”

If Democrats hadn’t been saying the same thing every time they didn’t get their way for the last 10 years, maybe more people would have taken the governor’s rantings seriously.

That Democratic politicians like Congresswoman Waters are able to tell the American people with a straight face there was no rioting in Los Angeles, that Mayor Bass thought the American people would be fine knowing the rioting was limited to five or 10 streets in downtown Los Angeles, and that Gov. Newsom believed he could paint President Donald Trump’s efforts to quell the violence as the “end of democracy,” is the reason a growing number of Americans simply don’t trust Democrats anymore.

From denying President Joe Biden’s undeniable cognitive decline to pretending that what’s happening in Los Angeles isn’t really happening, Democrats have gotten in the habit of telling the American people they shouldn’t believe their lying eyes.

And why not? It’s how many on the left live their lives. Denying reality and being careful to conform to established progressive doctrine.

Former President Biden opened the flood gates to millions of illegal immigrants, among whom are more than a few individuals involved in human trafficking, drug smuggling, pedophilia, child abuse, gang membership and murder, and it’s Trump who is the villain for trying to clean up the mess?

Is it not Biden who bears responsibility for creating the problem in the first place by allowing millions of people to cross the border illegally?

There are also hundreds of thousands of people who enter the country legally, but once their visas expire, they just decide to stick around.

What are we supposed to think about that? They’re nice people, so who cares?

If that’s the way we feel about it, if we’re ok with tens of millions of people entering the country illegally anytime they feel like it, or staying after their visas expire because they want to, then change the laws to allow it.

I’m not sure many people would think that’s a particularly good idea, but if that’s what we want as a country, then pass the laws necessary to make it so.

In the meantime, as long as the existing laws are in place, Trump and ICE are simply enforcing legislation passed by Congress.

Unfortunately, many on the left seem to believe a law only needs to be obeyed if they like it.

Enter sanctuary cities.

The left is upset because they say “innocent” illegal immigrants are being swept up in attempts to arrest and deport “criminal” illegal immigrants.

But if run-of-the-mill illegal immigrants are being caught up in ICE’s efforts to go after their violent brethren, they have nothing to blame but the sanctuary cities themselves.

If sanctuary cities would cooperate with ICE and allow its agents into their prisons to take custody of criminal aliens wanted by federal authorities, it would not be necessary for ICE to conduct as many enforcement operations in the community, which are dangerous for all involved.

As things stand now, ICE is forced to cast a wide net when it comes to its enforcement activities because sanctuary cities make more targeted approaches impossible.

I believe there are many Democrats in Congress who know this to be true, but they are cowed by the far left of their party.

I wish they’d all follow Sen. John Fetterman, tell their leadership in the House and Senate to go pound sand, and start working to take back their party from those who lost touch with the American people long ago.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

The first category comprises parents who live sacrificial lives committed to providing their children a nurturing, supportive environment at home where they feel safe and loved. The physical, intellectual and emotional well-being of their children is always their top priority.

These parents understand love means more than showering their children with gifts and giving in to their every demand.

They understand there are lessons in life that can only be learned through failure, so they avoid doing anything that will shield their children from experiencing the natural consequences of their actions.

These parents know the English word “discipline” comes from the Latin “discipulus,” which means, “to learn,” so they recognize disciplining a child is an act of love.

These parents teach their children to respect authority, to respect themselves and to respect others, and they model in their own lives the behaviors and attitudes they expect of their children.

They set high expectations in terms of behavior and learning, and they make sure they are active participants in the education of their children.

These parents understand school is more than just curriculum. It is where children prepare for their future, learning how to be responsible for themselves and laying a foundation for the life ahead.

It is hard to overstate how important it is for a child to learn how to do school well.

But each child is unique, and while the end result parents are seeking for each of their children may be the same, the methods used to achieve that result need to be adapted to each child’s individual needs and personality.

The second set of parents love their children every bit as much as the first, but they express that love differently. Their relationship with their children is more friendly than it is parental.

They talk a good game about school being important, but they’re lackadaisical when it comes to ensuring their kids are in school on time every day, and only become truly interested in how their children are doing academically the week before the marking period ends.

For these parents, the measure of how well their children are doing in school tends to be no broader than the grades they bring home on their report card, and they place the responsibility for making sure their children receive passing grades squarely on the shoulders of teachers — not on their children, and certainly not on themselves.

If their children fail to turn in an assignment, the expectation is that teachers will accept the work whenever they get around to doing it, and if the work is never turned in, they expect teachers to extend “extra credit” as an alternate way for their children to pass their classes.

These parents see their primary role as running to the rescue of their children whenever they are in trouble. If their kids misbehave, it’s always the fault of someone else and, therefore, any assigned consequences are unfair.

With this kind of champion at home, children soon discover they can easily manipulate their parents, whom they wield like weapons at school.

These parents are “on-call” all day just in case their children need to contact them about a teacher they believe is treating them unfairly. They listen to the child’s side of the story, and then jump into action.

As one might expect, the children of the first set of parents are far more likely to grow to be productive members of society with the skills necessary to achieve success in whatever path they choose for themselves.

This is not the case for the children of the second set of parents. These children never learn to take responsibility for their own actions, and have been conditioned to expect whatever problem they encounter in life, someone will intervene to save the day.

Children are almost always products of the environments in which they grow. To expect the same outcomes for children who grow up in homes that actively foster their development and those who don’t is wildly unrealistic.

Still, there are many people today who maintain that if all children are not achieving equally, there must be something wrong … with society.

These people believe that diversity of outcome is a problem borne of society’s failure to allocate sufficient resources to parents and children who do not take responsibility for themselves, for their own growth, for their own education and their own choices.

Their contention is that whatever choices a parent or child makes, good or bad, every child should end up in a place where they can thrive and prosper.

But more money and more resources are only effective if students come to school ready to learn, and that only happens when parents set and enforce comprehensive expectations concerning their children’s performance in school.

All the money in the world spent hiring and training staff is wasted on students who seek to accomplish little in school beyond disrupting the learning of others.

Yet when they fail to achieve, it is the school and its teachers who are blamed — not the parents and not the children.

To give the illusion of progress, schools and school systems lower standards. As a result, a lot of people are walking around today with high school diplomas who haven’t learned a thing, yet we are quick to pat ourselves on the back for rising graduation rates.

Every dollar spent on students who don’t want to learn is a dollar not spent on those who do, and gifted and talented students are almost an afterthought now.

Learning starts at home. It always has and it always will. Perhaps more resources should be devoted to building the capacity of parents to foster in their children the development of positive attitudes toward school, and holding parents accountable when they fail to do the bare minimum in that regard. Insisting children attend school regularly is not an unrealistic expectation.

If children come to school ready to learn, with an expectation they will learn, there is no limit to what they can accomplish, but until they come to school ready to learn, all the money in world won’t help them.

Instead, they are likely to become the next generation of parents raising entitled, misguided children who believe the world owes them a living.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

That can also be said of Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the far-left progressives known as “The Squad.”

Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are equally wrong when it comes to the policies they champion, but at least they aren’t pretending to be something they’re not.

I have very little respect for people who do.

Unfortunately, it is beginning to appear that Gov. Wes Moore is the latest chameleon to come out of the Democratic Party.

In her bid for the White House, Kamala Harris changed her position on just about everything. There are any number of examples that highlight Harris’ highly tuned ability to adapt her positions to the political realities of the moment.

She was for and then against defunding the police. She was for and then against “Medicare for All.” She was for and then against a ban on fracking. She was for and then against mandatory gun buyback laws.

Her lack of conviction should surprise no one. Harris was Joe Biden’s vice president and Biden was the master of deceit. He campaigned as a moderate and governed as a progressive.

There was nothing hard about that for Biden. For decades, he had proven himself to be a political opportunist of the first order.

Standing on the Senate floor in 1993, a then-Senator Biden declared, “We must take back the streets. It doesn’t matter whether or not the person that is accosting your son or daughter or my son or daughter, my wife, your husband, my mother, your parents, it doesn’t matter whether or not they were deprived as a youth. It doesn’t matter whether or not they had no background that enabled them to become socialized into the fabric of society. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re the victims of society. The end result is they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons.”

“I don’t care why someone is a malefactor in society,” he said. “I don’t care why someone is antisocial. I don’t care why they’ve become a sociopath. We have an obligation to cordon them off from the rest of society.”

But when it became chic for Democrats to care more about criminals than their victims, President Biden was only too happy to join in the new chorus.

Biden had no enduring principles, only a desire to win the next election.

Today, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, with his eye set squarely on the White House, is beginning to show signs that he, too, is a political chameleon — a kindred spirit of Biden and Harris.

How else can you explain Moore’s attempt to be simultaneously for and against the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) transmission line?

I have little regard for fast-talking politicians. Say what you want about Trump, what you see is what you get. You may hate what you see, but at least you know it’s authentic.

Moore can’t even be honest about his interest in running for president.

The Baltimore Sun reported, “Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has repeatedly said he’s not running for president, but his latest moves — including meeting with Obama and Biden advisers — indicate a 2028 presidential bid is on the table.”

In the meantime, Moore is still the governor of Maryland and the people he represents in Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties desperately need him to take a firm, unequivocal stand against the new, highly intrusive MPRP transmission line.

What they don’t need is some mealy-mouthed politician who complains about procedural irregularities but refuses to use the gravitas of his office to stop the line from being built.

The last thing the American people — who may ultimately be called upon to decide whether or not they wish Moore to be president — need is another two-faced politician in the White House, but if Moore is willing to adopt duplicitous positions relative to the MPRP line, can there be any doubt that duplicity will follow him into the Oval Office?

Moore must decide. Is he for the MRPR line or against it? He cannot have it both ways.

If he is against the line, he needs to say so, right now, and act to prevent it from being erected.

Refusing to come out against the line or simply remaining noncommittal is the same as supporting the line’s construction. It’s Moore telling voters he has contempt for the property rights of landowners.

But it is not just Marylanders who are watching to see what Moore will do. How he handles himself relative to the MPRP issue will give the American people a pretty good sense of what kind of president he would make.

Does Moore support the rights of individuals when it comes to their own land, or does he support the government’s power to trample on those rights?

I’m not sure why telling voters the answer to that question is so hard for the governor.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

You can expect, therefore, as the 2028 election draws closer, Moore to begin pretending he is a moderate and to embrace every side of every issue.

Truth be told, that metamorphosis has already begun.

The Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) is a diversified energy company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. It is one of the largest combined electric and gas companies in the United States. It is PSEG that is seeking to erect a 70-mile high-voltage transmission line, the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP), through the heart of Carroll County.

To complete the line, PSEG needs to acquire property rights from individuals who own the land along the line’s proposed path, and the company intends to use eminent domain powers to take that land if owners refuse to surrender their rights voluntarily.

The prospect of mile after mile of 140-foot steel gray towers winding their way through Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick county wetlands, forest and countryside to serve the needs of Virginia data centers has caused the citizens of those counties to respond in understandable anger.

In an interview with The Baltimore Sun co-owner Armstrong Williams, Moore responded to the citizen outrage by saying, “I understand the anger, but to direct it towards me doesn’t make any sense.”

But a “Gee Whiz, what can I do about it, I’m only the governor?” attitude is hardly believable. It’s not particularly presidential, either.

PSEG itself has acknowledged the state’s climate policies are partly responsible for making projects like MPRP necessary.

At a packed community meeting hosted by PSEG in Carroll County, Westminster resident Whitney Miller called the utility company’s PowerPoint presentation “lies and propaganda.”

At first blush, Miller’s allegation sounds unduly harsh, but it would not be the first time such allegations were leveled against the New Jersey utility.

In December last year, Utility Dive, which describes itself as an outlet providing news and analysis for energy and utility executives, reported, “Public Service Electric and Gas (PSEG) agreed to pay $6.6 million to settle allegations it gave the PJM Interconnection inaccurate information” about the $546 million Roseland-to-Pleasant Valley transmission project in New Jersey.

If PSEG was less than truthful about that project, is it really a stretch to consider the possibility that what the company is telling us today about the need for the MPRP line is also less than truthful?

To date, Governor Moore’s public statements concerning MPRP have been feckless, at best. In November, Yahoo News reported Moore’s office released a statement expressing “grave concerns,” not with the line itself, but with the “planning process” used for the project.

In other words, the governor is OK if the high-voltage transmission line gets built. His only concerns have to do with the process that was used to advance the project to this point.

Such a nuanced position allows Moore to claim he’s both for and against the project at the same time.

It’s the kind of slimy political posturing Americans have come to expect from a politician like California Governor Gavin Newsom, whom in some respects Moore is beginning to resemble.

Both the Carroll and Frederick County sheriff’s offices have stated their departments will not cooperate or assist PSEG in any way when it comes to MPRP.

Carroll County Sheriff Jim Dewees said that members of his staff “will not respond and enforce a civil court order to allow the MPRP group onto anyone’s property.”

When asked about Dewees’ position on the matter, the governor was typically obtuse.

“I believe we need to follow the law,” Moore said. “I also believe the process needs to happen accordingly, where you have community involvement inside what is happening because it should not be dictated to jurisdictions about what is actually happening to them when it comes to their energy rates or their energy rights.”

His comment reminds me of the kind of “word salad” for which former Vice President Kamala Harris was famous.

Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins responded to the governor’s comment by saying, “I watched what the governor had to say. I’m not really sure what he said other than he believes in a process, which I also believe in a process. We all want a reliable source of energy, electric, we want cheaper electric, but I’m not sure what his position is.”

And that’s precisely the way Moore wants it.

In an interview with Spotlight on Maryland earlier this month, David Turner, a senior adviser and communications director for Gov. Moore’s office, echoed the governor’s attempt to have it both ways, saying, “The governor understands there has to be sustainable, cost-effective infrastructure to ensure the reliability of the grid and also make sure that we build an economy for the future of the state. But this approach has to put people first and has to take community involvement, and that’s why he has expressed his concerns about how that process has happened.”

But the bottom line is, the governor refuses to call for the project to be abandoned, or even paused, and no one should be holding their breath waiting for him to do so.

Progressives in Annapolis, of whom Moore is one, have shown nothing but contempt for the right of people living in Maryland counties like Carroll to govern themselves. They are only too happy to force their progressive policies down the throats of communities who want nothing to do with them.

It’s hard to find anyone in Carroll County who is in favor of the MPRP line, but that means nothing to state Democrats who are well on their way to controlling every town, village and hamlet in the state, whether they like it or not.

Despite his best efforts to convince voters otherwise, Moore would almost certainly bring the same controlling instinct to the Oval Office he has brought to the Governor’s Mansion, and the Republican Party needs to make sure Americans are well aware of the governor’s proclivities in that regard.

Of course, if Moore wishes to demonstrate he’s cut from a different cloth than the typical Maryland progressive, he can easily do so by taking a firm, unequivocal stand against the MPRP line.

I don’t suspect he will.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

For decades, Maryland enjoyed Moody’s highest rating, Aaa, but as of last week, Moody’s lowered the state’s rating to Aa1.

Predictably, Maryland’s top five Democrats — Gov. Wes Moore, Senate President Bill Ferguson (Baltimore City), House Speaker Adrienne Jones (Baltimore County), Comptroller Brook Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis — immediately blamed President Donald Trump for the downgrade.

In a joint statement, they wrote, “To put it bluntly, this is a Trump downgrade. Over the last one hundred days, the federal administration’s decisions have wreaked havoc on the entire region, including Maryland.“

Reading their statement, one would think Moody’s downgrade was only 100 days in the making.

The truth is, Moody’s was expressing concerns about the state’s financial well-being long before Trump’s election to a second term.

Earlier this month, Maryland Matters reported that in 2024, “Moody’s itself cited ‘escalating expenditures in education and healthcare, combined with elevated retirement benefit liabilities’ when it reaffirmed the state’s Aaa bond rating, but downgraded the outlook from stable to negative.”

Moody’s report cited “looming structural deficits driven by programs like the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.”

That the state will spend billions of dollars on the Blueprint to accomplish little more than tweaking around the edges of a failing public school system only makes the downgrade all the more galling.

Republican House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel was quoted as saying the downgrade “should come as no surprise to anyone.”

For years, Maryland’s Democrats used Moody’s rating to argue how well they were managing Maryland’s finances.

Republicans argued the rating was no more than an indication that Moody’s was confident that no matter how much the state spent, its Democratic leadership would always be willing to raise taxes to satisfy their insatiable appetite for additional revenue.

Democrats have played games with the state’s budget for years. They approve ridiculously high levels of spending that they know the state will never be able to afford, but defer the tax increases necessary to pay for that spending.

Inevitably, when the bill comes due, in a grand gesture designed to demonstrate how reasonable they are, Democrats then pass new legislation that combines the tax increases they intended to enact all along, with modest adjustments to the absurd level of spending they approved previously.

It’s a dishonest way of doing things, but it allows Democrats to spin the increase in taxes and the token “cut” in spending as a “balanced approach to budgeting,” when actually there’s nothing balanced about it.

Maryland Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr. noted, for 20 years, economists have warned the state’s economy “is too dependent on federal jobs. Despite repeated calls for economic diversification, Maryland remains highly dependent on federal employment, contracts and grants, making budget planning challenging when federal spending fluctuates.”

Trump’s current campaign against government waste and bloat means federal employment, contracts and grants are “fluctuating” as never before.

But no matter how you slice it, Democrats are responsible for engineering a state economy in which 30% of revenue is derived from the federal government in one form or another.

That’s a stupid way to run a state.

Why hasn’t Maryland done more to diversify its economy? I believe part of the reason is Democrats, whether from Maryland or some other variety, have a hard time even comprehending a scenario in which government spending might be cut in any meaningful way.

Well, that scenario is now unfolding before our eyes, and Maryland finds itself in the middle of it.

Is that Trump’s fault? Should government waste and bloat be tolerated because the waste is good for Maryland’s economy?

According to The Baltimore Sun, an additional “potential impact of the bond rating downgrade is that costs would be shifted to counties.”

Ted Zaleski, Carroll County’s budget director, was quoted as saying, “We are often part of their solutions to balancing budget problems.”

In other words, when the state runs out of money, it just passes costs onto the counties, with the expectation that local officials will raise taxes.

That’s what state Democrats are doing right now with costs related to the Blueprint.

Moody’s downgrade means the debt service Maryland pays on its bonds will rise, decreasing the funds the state has available to spend on other things, and you can be sure the counties will be required to make up much of the shortfall.

Or, perhaps Maryland’s progressive lawmakers will make meaningful cuts to spending in recognition of the state’s current revenue problem.

OK. Forget I said that.

All this puts Gov. Wes Moore in an economic pickle. He wants to run for president, but the nation’s mood is decidedly less progressive than it once was.

It’s clear Maryland needs to curtail its spending in a meaningful way, but state progressives would crucify Moore if he ever supported anything of the sort.

Which leaves only one option open to Moore — raise taxes. But Moore knows raising taxes will only further damage an already fragile state economy. More importantly, raising taxes will negatively impact his run for the White House.

As he seeks to become president, Moore knows progressives will allow him to pretend to be a moderate, but actually championing legislation that curtails state spending, that’s another matter altogether.

It will be interesting to see if the charismatic governor is able to talk his way out of his predicament.

He might pull it off. After all, Democratic voters are always willing to believe President Trump is to blame … for everything.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.