Well, they do until you quickly review your notes and recognize that A, President Trump has an urgent need for distraction given his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the administration’s failure to — despite big promises to the conspiracy-hungry during the presidential campaign — release details of the investigation into the late American financier and sex offender. And B, this is a subject that has been investigated to death with no fewer than four official inquiries, including a 2020 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report (written while the GOP had Senate control) and the special report authored by Trump-appointed special counsel John Durham that came out in 2023. And what did they find? There was ample reason to worry about Russian interference in the 2016 race, and it was clear the Kremlin didn’t want Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

Was then-candidate Trump complicit in these efforts? Nope, not in a manner those various investigators could prove. But Russian interference? There was ample evidence of computer hacking, of digging through emails and of using intermediaries to undermine Clinton (remember WikiLeaks?). Or how about simply remembering Robert S. Mueller III? The special counsel indicted a dozen Russians, none of whom has ever stood trial because they could not be extradited. Even then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (now Trump’s U.S. secretary of state) observed that interference signing off on that 2020 report, which concluded “the Russian government inappropriately meddled in our 2016 general election in many ways but then-Candidate Trump was not complicit.”

Hopefully, most people aren’t taking these claims of treason seriously. They serve only to diminish Trump and Gabbard. Think those criminal referrals Gabbard has sent to the U.S. Department of Justice will result in a successful prosecution? Even Las Vegas will surely refuse wagers on that long shot. Those who still harbor doubts can go peruse those various reports (and their thousands of pages of findings). The rest of us will just have to be content to recognize that the current president and his cronies lie like rugs when it serves their purpose.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

Stuart O. “Stu” Simms has a theory on that. The onetime Baltimore state’s attorney, former secretary to two Cabinet-level state agencies and partner at Brown, Goldstein & Levy boils it down to this: It’s about getting the right people in the room.

Oh, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy or fast. You can expect a lot of different ideas and personalities. But if you can get people who know their stuff, who genuinely seek to solve problems and not promote personal agendas, the 74-year-old Harvard Law-trained lawyer says, the resulting conversation can put you on the right road.

An example? Years ago, Baltimore Police regularly had big backlogs of arrestees. The legal community wondered: Why not locate a court to review bails next to the jail? Some people in the judiciary balked. But thanks to Simms and others advocating for that reform, eventually it happened —and it helped. “You have to come to the table and be open to some solutions,” Simms says. And that is a philosophy that has guided his career.

Simms, now retired, may be remembered as one of the most successful — and perhaps most low-key — leaders in public safety that Maryland has seen over the past 40 years. Colleagues say his quiet competence commands respect. University of Baltimore President Kurt Schmoke, who chose Simms as his deputy when he was Baltimore state’s attorney, traces it back to Simms’ days on the gridiron. The Harlem Park native was a fullback and star at Gilman School and then Dartmouth College, where he started three years and helped lead the school to three straight Ivy League football championships.

“He was willing to take those tough jobs like running back,” recalls Schmoke, himself a former star quarterback at Baltimore City College in the same mid-1960s era. “In his professional life, he demonstrated the same kind of determination as he did as a distinguished athlete in high school and the college level.”

But Simms’ outlook wasn’t just forged on the playing field; it was also shaped by his turbulent times: the late 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement as Black men and women sought to redefine their place in this country. It would have been easy for the son of a steelworker father and public schoolteacher mother to question authority. But he also found inspiration during his senior year at Dartmouth: While on a fellowship in Atlanta, he was introduced to Maynard Jackson, the lawyer and civil rights leader who in 1974 would become the city’s first Black mayor. He ended up working for him for almost a year.

“It was a life-changing experience to work with him,” Simms recalls. He considered postponing law school; Jackson told him not to wait. He was needed on the playing field of public service and the law. He was needed to be a change-maker.

After Harvard Law, the U.S. Department of Justice eventually beckoned. Simms spent four years there as a prosecutor, gaining trial and investigative acumen. He recalls those days as “challenging” but enjoyable,  learning from the talented courtroom rivals who advocated for criminal defendants. Then came his days as deputy state’s attorney in Baltimore, only to find himself promoted to the top job when his boss was elected mayor. Simms was elected state’s attorney in 1990 and reelected in 1994. In 1995, then-Gov. Parris Glendening came calling, hiring him first to run the Department of Juvenile Services and in 1997 to serve as secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, one of state government’s most challenging assignments.

“If ever I was in a foxhole fighting a war, I’d want Stu there with me,” said U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Baltimore Democrat who has known Simms for 45 years. “He has a strong sense of commitment and dedication. And he has a moral compass we don’t always find these days with people.”

It is notable that those two agencies have been immersed in much controversy in recent years but not so when Simms was running them. Indeed, the fact that his name was rarely in the news may have worked against him when he ran a hastily arranged campaign to be Maryland attorney general in 2006 and lost the Democratic primary to Montgomery County State’s Attorney Douglas F. Gansler.

“Decency. That’s the word that suits Stu,” said Larry Gibson, the longtime Democratic organizer and law professor who managed his political campaigns. “He is an intelligent, decent, productive person. Not someone who seeks limelight or has a large ego.”

In more recent years, he’s also someone who has been supporting many civic and professional causes, serving as chief counsel to Maryland Legal Aid and on the boards of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Gilman and others. In 2022, he lost his beloved Candace, his wife of 49 years. They first met in high school and developed a lasting bond in college. He is a father of two and grandfather of two.

His hope for the future? That others will look to do the right thing and not spend time “thinking about the damn headlines,” as he was once told by his coach at Gilman. “I took the job seriously,” he says. “I wanted to do the right thing.”

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

Stuart O. ‘Stu’ Simms

Age: 74

Hometown: Baltimore

Current residence: Baltimore

Education: Gilman School; Dartmouth College; Harvard Law School

Career highlights: Staff counsel to U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes; assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland; Baltimore state’s attorney; secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services; partner, Brown, Goldstein & Levy; Maryland Legal Aid chief counsel

Civic and charitable activities: University of Maryland School of Law advisory board; board member for Baltimore Museum of Art, president of the Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust and past board member of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Gilman School, Sinai Hospital, St. James Episcopal Church, United Way of Central Maryland, Baltimore Community Foundation, Associated Black Charities and the Baltimore NAACP

Family: Wife Candace died in 2022; two sons; two grandchildren

And then every once in a while, you hear a political figure willing to tell it like it is, defy his or her party and perhaps even core constituents and say something that won’t make them popular but they believe needs to be said. This kind of truth-telling is rare. But even more uncommon is the exact opposite — a political candidate so craven, so untethered to the truth, so disinterested in actual governance or policymaking, and so lacking in character that he will do or say anything to get elected. And how do voters react to such people? The former is seldom, if ever, appreciated in their own time. And it’s entirely possible that in less than a month, Americans may vote to return the latter to the Oval Office.

Last week, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican, joined Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, at a campaign event in Ripon, Wisconsin, often referred to as the birthplace of the GOP. Here, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a frequent critic of Trump’s role on Jan. 6, announced she’d be voting for Harris. Her argument wasn’t about ideology; it was about morality. She described former President Donald Trump as “petty,” “vindictive” and “cruel.” Trump promptly responded on social media by calling Cheney, whose criticism of him practically guaranteed she could never again win office in Wyoming, a “low IQ War Hawk.” Of course, he did.

I’m not interested in lionizing the Cheney family. The George W. Bush-Dick Cheney administration was not exactly a pillar of truth about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But, as most in the GOP have demonstrated over and over again, it’s simply much easier to look the other way when Trump starts talking about issues from “stolen elections,” or how the country is on the verge of economic depression or how his Democratic opponents are “heavy into the transgender world,” to how there have been 20 million individuals coming over the border illegally during the current administration. All of this is false and easily disproven. But does anyone care at this point?

The Republican nominee for president is all about emotions. He wants people to be scared, angry, and resentful. And when his frequent inaccuracies are pointed out, he blames the “mainstream media” for having “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Other Republicans have jumped on that bandwagon. The right-wing media, particularly Fox News and Newsmax, is only too happy to lead the parade as it often results in higher ratings. Ask a major figure in the GOP who won the last presidential election. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson is unwilling to say on network television that Joe Biden won in 2020.

This is not normal. And what’s scariest of all, at least to me, is how many people I’ve encountered are buying into it. They are not discomfited when Trump calls immigrants “vile animals” or when he refers to Harris as stupid, “very dumb,” and “mentally disabled” or even appointed as “border czar,” which she was not. They are willing to believe the world is out to get him and that apparently includes the New York jury that earlier this year convicted him of 34 felonies. Do Americans really believe the world is rigged against billionaire ex-presidents? Because that would seem to contradict any rational thought or experience.

Look, it’s reasonable to have differing views on important issues. Taxes, for example. Or abortion rights. But the fact that Trump’s campaign pledges would grow the U.S. debt by more than twice as much as his opponent, at least according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and that Trump is now wavering in his abortion stance after his appointees struck down Roe v. Wade, suggests it’s not about issues. It’s about attitude. It’s about loyalty. It’s about hate and scapegoating. I’ve never witnessed anything quite like this cult of personality. And I fear that I and others in my profession have not done enough to expose this fraudster for what he is. And that worries me most of all.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

That’s essentially the question that faced Del. Eric Bouchat, 56, a former Carroll County commissioner elected in 2022 to represent Frederick and Carroll Counties (District 5) in the Maryland House of Delegates. Last week, he announced he will not seek reelection. The Republican told a reporter for the Carroll County Times that he was frustrated by how little influence Republicans have in Annapolis. This is not a shock given that Democrats outnumber Republicans by a hefty margin (102 to 39 in the House, a nearly 3-to-1 advantage). But it’s what happens as a result of this imbalance that really got under Bouchat’s hide.

To be a Republican in the Maryland General Assembly essentially presented him with two choices. First, he could put his head down and work at the committee level to craft legislation that would draw bipartisan support. It’s tedious stuff, this detailed policymaking. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, that meant Bouchat would dissect criminal statutes and penalties, help set standards for police discipline or prison labor or illegal possession of firearms (all matters that came before the committee this past session). It’s detailed, exacting work that requires a level of nuance and judgment. It’s one thing, for example, to “back the blue”; it’s quite another to ignore flagrant violations of civil rights. This is not a place for absolutism.

The other choice was to be highly partisan, score political points whenever possible, and make speeches that would get a lot of “likes” on social media. The classic example of this is to wait on “second reader” floor votes on bills that have already been marked up in committee and offer last-minute amendments that have no chance of passage. Yet one can stand up and extoll the virtues of a major tax cut that you know can’t pass when the state is facing a budget deficit. Post that speech without necessary context and get adoring feedback on your YouTube channel. Of course, it will also mean that the Democrats who run the legislature will write you off as an annoying partisan hack, but what’s your incentive to care? Partisan hacks get more campaign donations than officeholders disparaged as RINOs or Republicans In Name Only.

This disincentive to act rationally can be vexing. “If you act pragmatically and productively,” Bouchat recently told me, “you are ostracized as not being a true Republican.” He said he just couldn’t bring himself to get worked up about LGBTQ+ kids in public school bathrooms or on regulating abortion instead of worrying about getting roads paved or schools built for his constituents. “I’m just not willing to sell my soul to anyone.”

The show-horse dilemma can be found in every political party, but it seems most vexing with Republicans these days. Members of the Grand Old Party dare not cross Donald Trump, or they’ll find themselves ostracized. Working with Democrats? That’s the sort of thing that can get a leader like Kevin McCarthy ousted as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, following similar clashes with the party’s right-wing by predecessors Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

Robert R. Neall heavily influenced my education on this topic. When I first met him in the 1980s in the State House, he was the House minority leader and a brilliant lawmaker who often knew more about state agencies than the men and women running them. He went on to be elected Anne Arundel County executive but soon found himself at odds with his party for not being quite conservative enough. A quarter century ago, he switched to being a Democrat and prospered. Even at age 76, he still believes that legislative workhorse is the correct approach. “Everyone is a minority when they enter the legislature,” Neall insists. “You have only your wits, your energy and one vote, yet one can emerge with expertise, influence — even power — in a legislative body through hard work and strong relationships.”

Let’s hope he’s still right.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

What would Mom and Dad make of this year’s presidential race? Well, it’s a given that they’d be horrified. Aren’t we all? They grew up listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio telling Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Young people today can turn on the TV and watch the Republican nominee for president proclaim that his opponents are “radical left” and “heavy into the transgender world,” whatever that means. Donald Trump said those things and more at his unhinged news conference last Thursday at his Florida resort. Sure, FDR was rich, too, but at least his chats were sane and fireside, not at an opulent Palm Beach resort with a club boasting a $200,000 initiation fee.

I fear I’ve inherited a bit of my parents’ sensibility. At least that explains why I was so glad to read that the newest member of the Democratic ticket, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is decidedly not a member of the 1%. Indeed, financial disclosure forms show he and his wife, Gwen, earn only about $166,000 a year with the bulk coming from the governor’s rather modest salary of $115,485. In much of the country that would make them upper middle class. They don’t own any stocks. They currently don’t own a home. Compare that to his GOP counterpart, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance who, despite humble origins, is estimated to have financial assets in the eight-figure vicinity, including six-figure residuals from his bestselling book and movie, “Hillbilly Elegy.” His $174,000 annual salary as a senator alone puts him ahead of the Walz family.

And look at the top of the tickets. Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff have reported assets of $8 million, including a home in Brentwood worth $4.4 million. Now, that’s pretty good, but California real estate prices run high. Your idea of a $4.4 million home is probably grander than one in the Golden State. In any event, Donald and Melania Trump are the ones sitting highest on the hog. While Trump’s wealth has often been in dispute, we would simply fall back on Bloomberg’s estimate (if only because we think a billionaire media type should be the one passing judgment on a billionaire real estate type): $6.5 billion. I can just hear Mom and Dad rolling over in their graves. Or perhaps that’s just the sound of “tut-tutting.”

My parents weren’t communists, they were just suspicious of excess. They certainly believed in capitalism. They worked long and hard for what they earned, much of it in civil service which is not highly paid. They volunteered for community and charitable work in their free time (including as election judges). But one thing they never did, even in their more financially comfortable years, was spend wastefully or to excess. No fancy clothes or jewelry, no lavish furnishings or artwork. Their biggest indulgence was a one-bedroom condo they bought near the beach. Tim and Gwen Walz could have been neighbors had they lived in Maryland.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald once observed, the rich are different from you and me: “They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.” As much as I hear about Vance being from humble origins or Trump being connected to the blue collar, I see men who went to Wharton and Yale, who fly private, who buy bitcoin and wear tailored suits. They feed us what they think we want to hear — about immigrants taking our jobs, about the LGBTQ+ taking our identities, about the poor taking advantage of us.

Mom and Dad would not have approved.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

But one element that hit me hard is often absent in subsequent accounts about that fateful day. After it was clear that a shooting had taken place, as agents tended to the ex-president, several people in the crowd turned to the television cameras and raised their middle fingers. They appeared to be shouting epithets that no microphone recorded but their message was clear: They blamed those behind the cameras for whatever injury their candidate had just suffered. Their first thoughts had not been to seek protection for themselves or render aid to others, or even to look around to find the perpetrator. No, they hated the “Fake News” and wanted that known.

Why aren’t you reading much about this? Most likely because the reactions of a few are deemed trivial when a potential leader of the free world is attacked. But it’s also because reporters instinctively try not to make themselves a part of any story. Yet that also poses a problem. When Trump decries the “mainstream media” (meaning all outlets that do not bend their coverage to his benefit) as Fake News, there is no official media spokesperson to counter it. How could there be? There are newspapers, magazines, websites, TV and radio, and more. Some offer opinion to the political left or right while some try not to. Their levels of experience, accuracy and resources vary widely, too. They do not speak with one voice.

The problem here is not simply about media antagonism, it’s about a lack of a shared reality. People don’t get their information in the same way they did 43 years ago when I first walked into a professional newsroom. Most don’t have a daily newspaper dropped off at their door with its breadth and continuing coverage. They get bits and pieces delivered most often to their cellphone or perhaps their browser. And it creates a silo effect. People show interest in a certain point-of-view and articles that reinforce that view soon follow. Same on television where, in the world of a Fox News or Newsmax, you will hear a lot about President Joe Biden’s cognitive issues but not the 78-year-old Trump’s. In such a landscape, Trump can make all sorts of patently false claims about the 2020 election or the legal system or his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol without fear of fact-checking.

How curious that in a world that has better information technology than ever, people are so vulnerable to falsehoods. And, of course, the irony is that they don’t want to be told about it either. News has become like sports. Fans of Baltimore’s Orioles and Ravens love to hear about the players from individuals they know are rooting for their team. Viewers know when they tune into Bret Baier on Fox that he’s on Trump’s side. And Baier probably knows full well where his bread is buttered. He listed his home in Washington, D.C., last year for $31.9 million. The average reporter, the more traditional journalistic variety, makes about $50,000 per year. No mansions for them.

Hey, reporters make mistakes. They are human. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some reflect the sensibilities of the college-educated whites in their late-30s or early 40s because that’s the demographic many of them fit.

Still, it’s likely the call from Milwaukee for unity from Trump or his vice presidential sidekick, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, will fall a bit short when it comes time to admitting to reality — that the 2020 contest wasn’t stolen, that Trump didn’t produce the country’s greatest economy the last time around, that the daily COVID death toll was actually higher while he was president, and on and on. Hopefully, there will still be reporters around to set the record straight — at least for those Americans willing to listen, watch or read with an open mind.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

Now, I have nothing against standardized aptitude tests. Personally, I can think of quite a few individuals in government posts who ought to demonstrate they have the ability to, for example, not secretly take millions of dollars worth of luxury vacations from a major GOP donor while serving on the nation’s highest court (Justice Clarence Thomas, please remember to pay for your own No. 2 pencil prior to the quiz). U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is more than deserving of a sanity test to, at minimum, demonstrate she’s not hearing voices that the rest of us can’t quite discern. And U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez merits some form of gold bar test wherein he has to prove that he’s capable of refusing a payoff whenever one is offered — especially if the New Jersey Democrat somehow avoids a guilty verdict in his ongoing bribery trial.

But hearing a late-stage septuagenarian knock an early-stage octogenarian is the kind of “Are you listening to yourself?” personal attack you expect to encounter in a nursing home hallway, not a presidential campaign. What set this off? A bad batch of tapioca pudding? By the way, I believe I’m entitled to make such ageist observations because I’m on the verge of Medicare eligibility. These are my people. Or at least I recognize they will be my people in the not-so-distant future. I’ve lately been cleaning out closets, tossing 30-year-old receipts, magazines, expired food and generally downsizing. Oh, and on the topic, let me give a few words of advice to fellow boomers: Make trips to the dump in the early morning and drop-offs to Goodwill on Sundays, not Saturdays. You will so thank me later.

Where was I? Oh, right, I’m writing a column. In most Asian cultures like Japan, China, Korea and Vietnam, the elders are revered. In the United States, the peak years for respect are generally whatever age Taylor Swift currently inhabits, which I’m informed is 34 years old. This is probably because she was born in 1989. I suspect Biden and Trump still wear ties and pocket squares they bought in 1989, so there’s that connection. Personally, I cringe a bit when either gentleman tries to be hip. Better that they can both claim they still have their original hips. Biden may walk with a bit of a stiff gait and sometimes show balance problems, but Trump can’t accurately recall what happened in the last election or on Jan. 6, 2021. Plus his major ambition for a second term appears to be getting revenge on Americans who don’t bow to him. Better that Gramps gets around a little slow than slowly getting around to a dictatorship as my kids always say.

Historically, most U.S. presidents have been in their 50s when they are inaugurated. It looks like the next one will be the oldest in history. It’s fair to give greater scrutiny to vice-presidential candidates this year given the greater possibility they may have to lead (as the average life expectancy of a U.S. male is slightly under 75, it’s fair to say both these guys are in overtime). Polls show a lot of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Vice President Kamala Harris, but the list of candidates being touted by Trump doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Excited about North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a 67-year-old rich tech guy who bent the knee by calling Trump’s hush money trial election interference? Didn’t think so.

The challenge here is not that we have older folks running for president, it’s that we can’t recognize disordered thinking when we see it. Stuttering isn’t dementia. Someone who rambles isn’t necessarily cognitively impaired. No, the mental disorder I’d be more apt to find disqualifying is narcissism characterized by grandiosity, entitlement, attention-seeking, manipulation and lack of empathy. So which of the candidates appears to be suffering that ailment? Let’s wish him a belated happy birthday.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

My own views are not quite so extreme, but they have been consistent. I vote, but I do not lend any direct support to a candidate, not a campaign contribution, not a yard sign, not even a petition signature. And my wife has followed suit. This was true even when a close family friend ran for office. And keep in mind that for the last 20 years or so, I’ve been an opinion writer. My role is to assert my point of view, not to be neutral. Yet even so, I don’t believe I should be actively campaigning for a candidate, a party or a cause. My job is more like that of a judge — to weigh the pros and cons of any circumstance and then render an opinion.

I mention all this because I am flabbergasted that any member of the U.S. Supreme Court — or their significant other — could have even the slightest doubt about the importance of neutrality. Yet that seems to be the case with Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Outside his home in Alexandria, Virginia, an upside-down American flag, a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” protest, was flown for some undetermined period of time. It was even photographed flying on Jan. 17, 2021, the image shared with The New York Times by a neighbor. The act was clearly meant to show solidarity with the Jan. 6 rioters, although Justice Alito told the Times that it was “briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

That’s not much of an explanation. First, it seeks to casually justify an act of pettiness, a behavior ill-suited for a justice on the highest court in the land. But second, it suggests that either his wife was unclear about his day job (unlikely) or just didn’t care. Oh, and the family seems perfectly fine with claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Who thinks for even a nanosecond this is appropriate? Happily, my neighbors aren’t given to posting obscene messages on signs, but if one did, I feel confident it would wind up before the homeowner’s association, not escalate into a demonstration of who can sink lower faster.

Granted, there’s no shortage of incivility and nastiness in the public square these days. From graduation ceremonies to congressional markup sessions, the nation seems to be on something of a streak of churlishness with a bit of racism and misogyny thrown in. And that’s without mentioning Donald Trump’s bizarre tribute to the fictional Hannibal Lecter, a mass-murdering cannibal he apparently prefers to immigrants. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Judges aren’t supposed to be like that. Since this incident was first reported by the Times last week, there’s been a call for Alito to recuse himself on pending cases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection. That’s reasonable. How can Americans have any faith whatsoever in the justice’s impartiality? This isn’t just about what might be in his heart. It’s also about appearances. And it’s pretty hard to display bias quite as flagrantly as an inverted flag.

But I would go further and suggest that the 74-year-old jurist ought to step down from the bench entirely. Judges aren’t politicians. They aren’t even journalists. They’re supposed to be above all that. This is not a new standard. Judicial independence is a longstanding tradition in this country. Supreme Court employees aren’t even supposed to display bumper stickers on the back of their cars. This didn’t just cross a line, it obliterated it and then hung it upside down for the world to see. Or have we stopped caring about judicial impartiality?

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

This gives them a feel for just how beloved they will become with the readership (as well as to my trademark awkward syntax). Incidentally, I don’t recommend this technique with easily terrorized grade-schoolers — or English majors — but other college students, those foolish enough to set their sites on a career in newspapers, seem to handle it just fine.

Still, there is at least one consolation to a life misspent and that is that you do meet some interesting people. Now, some of these interesting people are jerks and some, an admittedly smaller subset, are people you wouldn’t mind spending time around. I won’t name names, but the good and the not-so-good aren’t confined to one political party or the other. Jerks can be Democrats or Republicans, young or old, male or female, and same with the good folks. Frankly, it’s often surprising who turns out to be a nice person behind the scenes. Same with the not-so-nice.

All this comes to mind as Maryland approaches a primary election on May 14 without a familiar name on the ballot. U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin is not running for reelection. Apparently, holding elected office for 58 years straight (he started in the Maryland House of Delegates at the tender age of 22 while he was still in law school) is considered enough. Choosing his successor has become national news. Not just because of the record sums being spent in the Democratic primary featuring U.S. Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks but with the late entry of former Gov. Larry Hogan and the possibility the Maryland Republican, if elected (and early polls suggest that’s quite possible) could tip the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. Easily lost in this excitement is that it also marks the official beginning of Cardin’s departure.

Have you ever been dazzled by a larger-than-life personality who walks into the room and suddenly commands it? A John F. Kennedy? A Bill Clinton (before he started seeming a little creepy)? Well, Cardin is nothing like any of those guys. He’s the opposite. He’s the good-natured policy wonk who knows more about the arcane structures and interests of the federal government than many a veteran Capitol Hill staffer. Whether in the State House or the U.S. Capitol, he’s less likely to be posting on social media, than digging into the nitty gritty of regulations. And he does so with humility. On the first day of the Maryland General Assembly session, he stopped by my desk in the basement of the State House to say hi. No security. No aides. No agenda. Who does that? No actual state lawmakers I can tell you. Cardin is ego-free.

Let me assure you this lack of egocentricity in the political class is not just rare, it’s practically non-existent. I first met him when he was Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates in the early 1980s and I was a lowly reporter for an Eastern Shore daily. I might as well have been from The New York Times. He was happy to talk. And he was always deeply knowledgeable, whether it involved his native Baltimore or some arcane matter of property tax assessments or wildlife management. Think of him as the polar opposite of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who is all hat and no cattle. Cardin is not just about the cattle, he can offer tips on hoof-trimming. Just don’t expect him to produce a TikTok about it.

It’s easy to write nice things about Cardin now. He’ll be out of a job next January so it doesn’t feel like I’m cozying up to some newsmaker. But I would dare you to find anyone else who works in public policy in Maryland (or in the halls of Congress) who wouldn’t say something similar about “My friend Ben” as his campaign slogan once described him. We need more Cardins and fewer Greenes, not just for the sake of bonhomie but to get actual work done.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.

Brace yourself.

Tell me, do you know what this country’s best-selling condiment is? You’re probably thinking ketchup, right? Or maybe mustard? Possibly mayonnaise? Well, you’d be completely wrong. And, since you’ve surely read the headline on his column by now, you probably know the truth. The sad reality is that ranch dressing is the single best-selling condiment in the United States. And it’s been true for a half-decade or more, according to Nielsen data — a circumstance now widely touted by Hidden Valley, the leading producer (and, appropriately, a subsidiary of Clorox, maker of cleaning products). Ketchup may produce $1.26 billion in sales this past year, but ranch dressing squeezes past that figure with total sales of $1.3 billion. Barbecue sauce trails far behind with sales of less than $1 billion.

You know what ranch dressing is? Parents know it’s the one salad dressing that kids will eat because it’s rich but more or less flavorless. Ranch dressing is made from a collection of neutral-flavored things you probably have sitting in the back of your refrigerator. Most recipes call for equal parts mayonnaise, sour cream and milk or buttermilk. Seasonings can include salt, pepper and possibly a bit of chives, dill and/or parsley. No vinegar. No lemon or lime juice. No olive oil. No basil. It has that slightly sweet, slightly sour taste to which young children can relate. But adults? What self-respecting grownup orders ranch dressing with any meal (aside from a crudité platter or possibly cooling your mouth after a really, really hot chicken wing)?

Listen, I’m not closed-minded about food. I’ve eaten Cincinnati-style chili, for heaven’s sake. You ever tried that? Even some residents of the Queen City are reluctant to go full five-way over spaghetti. I’ve eaten Philly cheesesteak “wit” (meaning with onions) and fully-loaded Chicago-style hotdogs with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, a small pickled pepper and a dash of celery salt. Whew, it’s exhausting just recalling all the condiments. Did I mention the hotdog has to have a natural casing, preferably the Vienna Beef brand? Not a trace of ranch dressing on any of them. They’d probably shoot you at any Chicagoland Portillo’s if you even tried.

The problem is ranch dressing isn’t just reserved for toddlers. It’s being eaten by adults. And not just on salad. According to The Wall Street Journal, the folks at Hidden Valley want people to use it on cheese crackers, pizza, nachos, pretzels, hot dogs, and on and on. Here’s my suggestion: Don’t. Seriously. Don’t. If you must come up with a dipping sauce for your fast food, keep a 16-ounce bottle of Chick-fil-A dipping sauce in your refrigerator (just $3.48 at Walmart) and squeeze away. (Pssst, not to give away any chain’s secret recipe, but I believe it’s mostly barbecue sauce and honey mustard mixed together). It’s not gourmet but it’s not entirely bland either. And kids eat it, too.

What happened to our national pride? What happened to expecting our kids to eat food the way it was meant to be which is freshly cooked on a McDonald’s flattop before inserted in a bun and loaded with ketchup mustard and a slice of pickle so thin you can see through it? If it was good enough for us boomers, it’s good enough for zoomers. We let our standards down and the next thing you know we’ll become health conscious. And what a betrayal of the Trump era norms that would be.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.