Congress

North County High School freshman Jack Andraka stood on the auditorium stage, speaking about the invention that earned him the $75,000 grand prize at the recent Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Behind him stood Dr. Anirban Maitra, a professor in the Johns Hopkins University's department of pathology who gave Jack use of his lab to craft his invention, a cheap and effective "dipstick-sensor" method of testing blood or urine to identify early-stage pancreatic cancer and other diseases.

That pop you may or may not have heard the other day was the bursting pipedream of a centrist presidential candidate outside the establishment parties. The organizers of a group calling itself Americans Elect decided to close shop after failing to find anyone who would qualify to be its standard-bearer in November. No one who met the group's eligibility requirements to become its presidential nominee was able to corral the threshold 10,000 endorsements needed from "delegates" in an online nationwide convention.

Congress' full-throated adulation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an embarrassment and made me fret for the future of our nation ("Congress lauds Israeli leader", May 25). Bloody and expensive foreign misadventures stemming from our uncritical support of an ethno-religious state bent on expansion and control are bound to follow. John G. Bailey, Edgemere

Helen Delich Bentley served five terms in Congress, was chairwoman of the Federal Maritime Commission and has the Port of Baltimore named for her. So you'd think that at the National Maritime Day celebration last Saturday (5/19) in Baltimore everybody would be on board with that chunk of information, right David Matsuda? Not quite. The head of the U.S. Maritime Administration called her, “Helen Detrick Bentley,” before handing off to his boss, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who entered Congress in 1995, the year Bentley departed.

Recent articles and editorials have noted the ineffective role Congress is playing in guiding the nation's affairs and the abysmally low level of confidence the public has in the institution ("Keeping Congress clean," Nov. 28). These problems could be resolved if all members of Congress were willing to look out for the good of the country instead of looking out for themselves. If they would do what's right for America, most voters would back them. With a $14 trillion national debt, taxes must rise and federal spending programs must shrink.

With the recent revelations regarding insider trading by members of Congress, citizens expect an explanation and disclosure of lawmakers' financial records ("Keeping Congress clean," Nov. 28). I cannot find words to describe how despicable I find lawmakers' actions. If lawmakers would eliminate the fraud, misappropriation of funds and corruption that goes along with all the money they are spending and wasting, that would be a step in the right direction. Richard LaCourse, Forest Hill

As a fifth grader, I agree that compromise is needed to rebuild America ("A resolution for 2012: Restore American values," Dec. 28). But it was amazing to see how people in the Congress could not get along in 2011 and blamed President Obama for everything. Congress took more breaks than the average elementary school child. For example, from August to September I was working hard in school and the Congress was, like, out watching Happy Feet. America's national debt is more than $14 trillion and people who need jobs don't have them.

I don't have strong enough words, without using profanity, to describe how disgusting the actions of Congress are and have been for some time now. The latest action was the near-shutdown. Congress is too involved with mudslinging, one party against the other, ignoring the real people out there who would have been seriously impacted by a shutdown. For Congress to play games and threaten to shut down the government, but still expect essential employees to come to work is ludicrous.

I was sorry, but not surprised, to hear that the Republican/tea party is content to see the airline industry benefit from uncollected taxes while ignoring the needs of union members, construction and support workers and the flying public ("In other congressional idiocy…" Aug. 3). While these workers are on furlough due to the inaction of Congress, I hope they will make sure they are registered to vote so that they can help these members see what it is like to be laid off. Alma T., Baltimore

Last Monday night at midnight, the Maryland General Assembly recessed without having passed a balanced budget for the next fiscal year. So now, either a special session must be called, certainly at some expense to the Maryland taxpayer, or a "doomsday" budget will be enacted automatically, certainly not something Maryland citizens want or need! Why can't lawmakers do the jobs they are elected to do? Why can't they pass balanced budgets? Why can't they complete their work on time?

The Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia, was named the nation's "most endangered" waterway today by a Washington-based environmental group. American Rivers put the Potomac atop its annual list of endangered rivers.  Though cleaner than it used to be, the "nation's river," so named because it flows through Washington, D.C., still faces threats from urban and agricultural pollution, the group says, and from cutbacks being pushed in Congress of federal environmental regulations.

A proposal to speed the approval of new prescription drugs has patient advocates and biotech firms — including many based in Maryland — hoping that Congress will deliver a rare dose of bipartisanship this year. Lawmakers are proposing a 6 percent increase in the fees that pharmaceutical firms pay the Food and Drug Administration to offset the cost of approving new drugs. If the measure is not signed into law by the end of September, the FDA would lose the ability to charge any fees and be forced to lay off 2,000 workers, significantly slowing review times.

Last Monday night at midnight, the Maryland General Assembly recessed without having passed a balanced budget for the next fiscal year. So now, either a special session must be called, certainly at some expense to the Maryland taxpayer, or a "doomsday" budget will be enacted automatically, certainly not something Maryland citizens want or need! Why can't lawmakers do the jobs they are elected to do? Why can't they pass balanced budgets? Why can't they complete their work on time?

President Barack Obama's vision for health-care reform could have resulted in a much better law had it not been for congressional decrees at the start that a single-payer system was "off the table. " But guess what has appeared back on the table during the thoughtful pondering of the problem by the Supreme Court? Justice Anthony Kennedy said on March 27: "Let's assume that it could use the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single payer. How does that factor into our analysis?

Criticism of the Supreme Court is neither new nor unprecedented ("Obama and judicial review," April 6). However, what is unprecedented is criticism coupled with a challenge to the court's authority to overturn unconstitutional laws passed by Congress, particularly coming from President Barack Obama, who is supposedly a constitutional scholar. Jerrold L. Brotman, Timonium

The argument that Leslie Meltzer Henry and Maxwell L. Stearns make in a recent op-ed piece in support of the Affordable Care Act ("Individual mandate is constitutional," March 22) is based on the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause, which they claim, gives the government the right to pass laws to make other laws work. Under this logic the government can justify the passage of any law regardless of its constitutionality. In fact, the Supreme Court has routinely overturned federal laws that are not based on an enumerated power.

Why is the Baltimore Sun and all major newspapers and news networks ignoring the bipartisan bill H.R. 1212, the "Restoring Essential Constitutional Constraints for Libyan Action Involving the Military Act"? Thirteen members of the House have already added their names as co-sponsors of H.R. 1212 in order to improve its chances of getting out of committee and being debated and voted upon in the full House of Representatives. Is the White House pressuring media outlets to ignore this challenge to the president's war making freedom?

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.  Thankfully, Congress yesterday ended its collective denial and admitted it is completely irrelevant.  Senate leaders on Tuesday abandoned plans to force a vote on authorizing the U.S. war in Libya. You know, the war that the White House creatively calls a “kinetic military action” to avoid calling it a war. The one that’s included nearly 5,000 raids in which NATO shot missiles or dropped bombs.  “If the resolution we’re debating is debated and passed, it would not affect one iota what we’re doing in Libya,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, according to AP. The sad part is: He’s right.

Milad Pooran was honeymooning in the South Pacific last summer as politicians in Washington were turning a deadline to raise the U.S. debt limit into another opportunity for partisan brinkmanship. A critical care physician from Frederick County, Pooran has never held elective office. But as he watched the spectacle in Washington, he asked his wife for permission to run for Congress. "To see in the newspapers the American politicians airing our national dirty laundry was frankly embarrassing," he says.

Two years ago, state Sen. Rob Garagiola took up a bill that just about everyone else in Annapolis considered a lost cause. The proposal, to require large retailers to offer employees 15-minute shift breaks every four hours, had languished for years under pressure from business groups. So the Germantown attorney locked lobbyists on both sides of the issue in a room until they emerged with a deal everyone could live with. Three months later, the governor signed the measure into law. "He took all the opposition out of it," state Sen. Thomas "Mac" Middleton, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said of the behind-the-scenes wrangling.