Mistake

Whenever a wayward politician (or staff member) nowadays gets caught, they never admit that they did something wrong. According to them they made a "mistake" ("Disgrace in the Senate," Feb. 19). They make this denial even though they did exactly what they intended. They didn't try to do one thing and it ended up as another, which would be a mistake. It seems that their "mistake" was they got caught. Frederick C. Lohn, Pasadena

I grew up in Dundalk and began my career in recreation, parks, and conservation with the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks. My career took me to Harford County and Los Angeles. I came home to Baltimore County in 1995 as the director of Recreation and Parks. Throughout my career, I worked with staff, elected officials, volunteers and numerous citizen organizations in the purchase and development of neighborhood, community and regional parks, and I do not understand how our current Baltimore County government can decide to sell off a major community park for development.

I'm very disappointed in Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz for nominating Arnold E. Jablon to become head of the new Department of Permits, Inspections and Approval. ("Conflict Feared in Jablon's Balto. Co. Posting," Dec. 12). I'm also disappointed in the Baltimore County Council members who have expressed support of Mr. Jablon, the former county zoning commissioner. Mr. Jablon is returning to Baltimore County after working for the Venable law firm in Towson. His contact there with developers brews a perfect storm for conflict of interest.

I was very much offended by Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff's statement in The Sun, "I have learned from this mistake. " Have you? ("Huff pleads guilty to DUI, says he's 'learned from this mistake,'" April 18). Eighteen years ago Mr. Huff pleaded guilty to a hit and run with injuries. Obviously he did not learn from that. I assumed Mr. Huff has continued this pattern for the last 18 years until he most recently got caught again. Now he's doing "treatment for alcohol abuse. " From what has been published in the papers and news media, he was extremely arrogant and tried to use his "public office" influence at the time of his arrest.

My response to your editorial "Citizens United II" (May 22) is get real. Do you really think that the justices "fail to grasp that spending by a super PAC on behalf of candidates amounts to something little different than giving them money directly," or, "surely the justices are capable of recognizing their mistake"? Citizens United is no mistake; the justices knew exactly what they were doing. Michael Brown, Columbia

I feel that the money Baltimore County and Maryland have decided to give to GM White Marsh will do little good for the county or state as a whole ("Council approves $6M for GM White Marsh expansion," Sept. 21). This gift will help only a very few overpaid United Auto Workers members. Taxpayers would get much more bang for their buck if these funds were used to train and mentor minimum wage employees so they might advance themselves toward making a living wage, or to train and mentor unemployed citizens of Maryland.

Just when you think that you have seen, heard, or read everything, you get another surprise. I was flabbergasted when I read that Anne Arundel County Councilman John Grasso is going to run for county executive ("Arundel Councilman Grasso to announce county exec. bid," Nov. 28). If we thought that Mr. Grasso was arrogant before, can you just imagine him as Anne Arundel County executive? We have had enough of this with the current county executive. Anne Arundel County does not need another dictatorship!

The U.S. sacrifices its own best interests with punitive laws that require defunding of vital U.N. groups who dare to recognize Palestine as a state ("UNESCO vote on Palestine shuts off funding from U.S.," Nov. 1). There can be no clearer example of the baleful influence wrought by our unconditional support of Israel — the "excessive entanglement" in foreign countries that George Washington warned about. The Obama Administration claims the UNESCO vote was a blow to U.S. efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table.

I am amazed that The Baltimore Sun is letting Mike Sragow leave his position as main film writer. All a medium size city can do today to compete with the big national newspapers is to cover local news well, and The Sun does do that in politics, crime and sports. Why not entertainment? As a home delivery subscriber and a reader online when I am traveling, it is important for me to keep abreast of what is happening in my hometown of Baltimore and how local media responds. I have written before about the baffling and irritating editorial decision to use an out of town film critic to review first run movies when they open here.

I was very much offended by Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff's statement in The Sun, "I have learned from this mistake. " Have you? ("Huff pleads guilty to DUI, says he's 'learned from this mistake,'" April 18). Eighteen years ago Mr. Huff pleaded guilty to a hit and run with injuries. Obviously he did not learn from that. I assumed Mr. Huff has continued this pattern for the last 18 years until he most recently got caught again. Now he's doing "treatment for alcohol abuse. " From what has been published in the papers and news media, he was extremely arrogant and tried to use his "public office" influence at the time of his arrest.

If there were any remaining doubts that what the CIA did to captured terrorist suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was torture, a report last week by an independent investigative panel should put them to rest. According to the report by the Constitution Project, an independent legal research and advocacy group in Washington, not only did the Bush administration indisputably engage in torturing prisoners to extract information, a practice banned by both U.S. and international law, but the nation's highest officials knew about the abuses and condoned them.

Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff pleaded guilty Thursday to driving under the influence, telling a judge that he's learned from the February incident and is in treatment for alcohol abuse. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Timothy Martin said he needed time to think about the case before sentencing Huff. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped charges of negligent driving and a headlight violation. Huff, 44, told Martin that his arrest has been difficult for him as a person in the public eye. He said he wanted to apologize to his family, colleagues and constituents.

Just when it was starting to look like cable news might have actually learned something from its rush-to-judgment sins in covering the Newtown massacre, John King, CNN and Fox News showed Wednesday how shaky and journalistically confused even the genre's biggest dogs are these days when confronted with a major, ongoing news story. It doesn't get much worse than it did for CNN Wednesday afternoon when quoting unnamed sources it reported that police had arrested a suspect in the Boston marathon bombings.

Baltimore officials announced Tuesday that they have suspended the city's troubled speed camera program amid fresh reports of erroneous tickets, this time involving a new multimillion-dollar camera network. The Baltimore Sun found that a recently installed camera on The Alameda has wrongly issued tickets, citing motorists for exceeding a 25 mph limit when the posted limit is 30 mph. The development is a setback for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's goal of achieving a "zero error" program, announced after The Sun documented widespread problems with the city's automated enforcement system last year.

For taxpayers who work best under the pressure of a deadline ... well, that's now. Returns must be filed by the end of Monday. But there's always a risk when scrambling to get returns in under the wire. You might make a mistake or overlook a valuable tax break. To avoid that, here are some tips for last-minute filers: File for free: The Internal Revenue Service partners with tax preparation companies to provide free online filing of federal returns if your adjusted gross income is $57,000 or less.

Lawyers for the man convicted of killing Phylicia Barnes are again seeking to undermine the credibility of a small-time criminal who provided key state testimony in his trial, citing a letter from Montgomery County prosecutors detailing James McCray's removal as a witness in a separate murder case. The information, sent to Baltimore prosecutors on the day after Michael Maurice Johnson was found guilty of killing the visiting North Carolina teen, contains statements that the defense says shows McCray — whom they described at trial as a "jailhouse snitch" — is not reliable.

Gov. Martin O'Malley thinks that if you don't pay taxes, you shouldn't get an auto license ( "Driver's licenses, vehicle registrations may be denied over owed taxes," Feb. 2). Result: many drivers without licenses, unregulated by the Motor Vehicle Administration and without liability insurance. Maybe there's a good reason why Maryland would be one of the few states to approve such a law. Jim Astrachan, Baltimore

The Sun's editorial regarding President Barack Obama's possible choice of Susan Rice for secretary of state is on the mark ("Obama's conundrum," Nov. 30). Why should one statement destroy the reputation and credibility of a hardworking government official? This may be the time to recall that famous appearance of Colin Powell at the United Nations when he confirmed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. His information was supplied by a Bush administration that conjured up the lie so that such weapons would offer them an excuse to pursue the horrible war that drained our armed forces and national wealth.

The recent editorial on the Keystone XL pipeline shows a preponderance of politically correct rhetoric and very little research on the subject ("Say no to Keystone" Jan 29). There are reasons to question the tar sands projects but they are not included. A quick Google search will show that the U.S. is laced with pipelines and that Canadian tar sands crude has been moving into the U.S. by pipeline since the 1960s with no major incidents. Far from entering the existing pipelines as a dirty, viscous liquid - which, incidentally wouldn't flow in pipelines - the bitumen extracted is upgraded on site in high-temperature, high-pressure hydrotreating processes to remove nitrogen and sulfur to produce a high-quality light synthetic crude.

The Baltimore office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is the slowest in the country in processing disability claims for servicemen and servicewomen - averaging about a year - and makes more mistakes than any other office. The failures locally are a symptom of a national breakdown: Across the country, more than 900,000 veterans wait an average of nine months for the agency to determine whether they qualify for disability benefits, according to the VA. Even as the VA says it is working to fix problems in Baltimore and nationwide, Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, calls the situation "shameful.