Arguments in favor of liberal abortion laws have remained remarkably stable over time, centered on the rights of the mother rather than the humanity of her child.

To acknowledge an unborn baby is a person is a difficult admission for abortion advocates to make. To do so means they must argue a woman has the right to end the life of another human being, who in this case happens to be her own child. Ethically, that’s a tough argument to make.

So instead, advocates cloak abortion in high-sounding phrases like “women’s health care” and “reproductive rights.”

They talk about terminating a pregnancy, not a child, and refer to the unborn baby as a “fetus,” something that is not a separate person, but merely a part of the mother, effectively dehumanizing the child so ending its life is easier to defend from a moral perspective.

Abortion is said to be nothing more than a medical procedure, something akin to removing an unwanted growth, like a tumor. But tumors don’t feel pain, they don’t react to light and sound and they don’t have a beating heart.

The hard reality is, with each abortion, a baby is killed, which is true no matter what language is used to obfuscate that fact.

Even prominent pro-abortion Democrats seem to know this to be true.

When asked his thoughts on learning of the now-infamous leaked legal draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden responded, “The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard.”

Whoopi Goldberg, arguing passionately on The View in support of a woman’s right to an abortion, said, “But you won’t let me make my decision about my body. You are not the person to make that decision. My doctor and myself and my child, that’s who makes the decision.”

I’m not sure what input the child has regarding that decision, but be that as it may.

You might not like their position on abortion, but I commend both Biden and Goldberg for their honesty.

If society is going to condone abortion as a woman’s right, we should at least do so with our eyes open, honestly defining what exactly it is we are allowing, rather than framing the issue in ways that attempt to deflect the public’s attention away from what actually takes place when a woman has an abortion.

We hear chants of “My body, my choice,” but an unborn baby has a body, too. What the baby doesn’t have is a choice.

Democrats have proudly become the party of unfettered abortion, the party that favors giving a woman the right to end the life of her unborn child anytime she pleases. Ten weeks. Fifteen weeks. Forty weeks. It doesn’t matter.

But no matter how proud they may be, Democrats are still careful to avoid mentioning anything about the procedure itself, choosing instead to stick with the poll-tested euphemisms commonly employed when talking about the issue.

Ultimately Americans are going to have to decide. Do we want to live in a society that is ambivalent toward the practice of sacrificing one life to benefit another?

In what other area of life is it acceptable to resolve a problem involving two individuals by killing one of them?

With each pregnancy, we have a responsibility to respect and protect both mother and child. Denying the humanity of either is not morally ambiguous. It’s wrong.

But so is standing on the sidelines and casting dispersions against women who find themselves in desperate circumstances, which is no more compassionate than extinguishing the life of a child whose existence can no longer be denied.

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

Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee for president. She did not earn one vote to achieve that status. She just had to stab her boss in the back.

Under progressive leadership, we have become a nation of enablers. All kinds of crimes are no longer taken seriously. Progressive district attorneys refuse to prosecute criminals, and bail reform laws put dangerous repeat offenders back on the street almost immediately.

Antisemitic mobs are protesting in the street, burning the American flag, assaulting police officers and defacing public monuments with hate-filled graffiti. Harris would like to have their vote.

Progressives have cynically and intentionally fragmented this country into competing “identities” based on ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background and class, and then set about pitting each group against one another. The whole concept of being an American is being washed away by people who see the world in zero-sum terms.

We have a Supreme Court justice who says she can’t tell us what a woman is because she’s not a biologist, and we have a president who wants to “reform” the court so it is more easily subject to political pressure.

Millions of people cross the southern border illegally only to be granted an astounding array of benefits to which American citizens themselves don’t have access.

Progressive cities, which once proudly declared themselves “sanctuaries,” are now struggling to keep up with the cost of caring for illegal migrants and the crimes they commit.

Democrats have condemned millions of poor children to failing public schools, giving them no way out. Only the wealthy are able to make a better choice for their children.

According to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress, on a single night in January 2023, around 653,104 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States, a more than 12% increase from 2020.

Food prices are up sharply since Biden and Harris took office, and we’re being asked to applaud the fact prices are still rising, only more slowly than they were before.

Making matters worse, instead of promising to rein in the ridiculous level of federal spending, which caused the inflation in the first place, Harris says if elected she will institute federal price controls. That puts her in the company of socialist giants like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

At the same time she is proposing socialist strategies to deal with the soaring prices she helped create, Harris is asking you to believe she is no longer a progressive.

Americans are expected to forget everything Harris has ever done or said and accept the new version of the vice president her campaign is carefully crafting to perfectly align with the current political environment.

The level of contempt for the American people required for Harris to believe the electorate will accept whatever she pretends to be to get elected is astounding.

To understand how Harris will govern if elected, one need only look at how she governed previously. What Harris says today means nothing. She’s a politician running for office, and like her boss, she will say whatever’s necessary to win in November.

That Bernie Sanders and the “Squad” are enthusiastic supporters of Harris should tell you everything you need to know about her true political leanings.

Harris’ campaign is based on “magical charisma,” as Jen Psaki put it, and pixie dust, rather than on competence and fitness to serve, which is why she is so hesitant to take questions from the press.

Her campaign knows that if the press ever had the opportunity and inclination to challenge Harris directly, the magic would quickly dissipate under the scrutiny, exposing just how unserious a candidate Harris really is. So, she hides behind an army of surrogates whom her campaign has retained to speak on her behalf.

Nothing in Harris’ past — her record as a California district attorney or U.S. senator, or her performance as vice president — gives me any confidence Harris is ready to sit in the Oval Office.

Right now, Harris strikes me as someone who is playing politics. She’s having a good time and enjoying her moment in the sun, but what she fails to grasp is the utter enormity of the job she is pursuing.

Harris will be overwhelmed and over her head on day one. Global events unfold very quickly and in unpredictable ways, and Harris has a nearly vertical learning curve.

Iran, Russia, China and a whole host of terror groups are all perched like vultures waiting for any sign of weakness or indecision they can exploit. To think Harris has the skill to lead this country through that kind of perilous global environment is wishful thinking — at best.

The world is on fire and I simply cannot see Harris being a match for Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This election is as consequential as any in recent memory, and the cost of blind partisanship has suddenly gotten very expensive.

Go ahead, vote for Kamala Harris and see what you get.

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

In a report Carroll County Public Schools filed in May with the state’s unelected accountability board, the school district acknowledged its plan for implementing the Blueprint is currently misaligned — the school system is spending more than is required in some areas and not enough in others.

For example, according to The Carroll County Times, “the system will exceed the Blueprint-required special education spending minimum by $14.6 million, and the system tops the current state-required special education spending minimum by $25 million in fiscal 2024.” Adherence with the Blueprint’s standards will require a massive reallocation of financial resources on the part of CCPS in order to meet spending minimums in other areas.

Further, while CCPS currently employs the approximate number of teachers it needs system-wide, many of those teachers find themselves in the wrong place under the Blueprint.

The Times reports, CCPS “would have to move around 470 full-time equivalent of teachers to schools with higher concentrations of poverty to fulfill the Blueprint’s mandate without a budgetary increase.”

It was just a matter of time before the Blueprint forced CCPS to move large numbers of its teachers.

Democrats were very deliberate in how they rolled out the Blueprint. The goodies came first. Higher teacher salaries. “Free” community college classes. Prekindergarten classes for 3-year-olds.

Only after teachers and the public became accustomed to receiving these goodies would they be presented with the bill.

But now it seems even Democrats are balking at the cost and oppressive nature of the Blueprint’s mandates. Maryland Governor Wes Moore has said there will have to be “difficult discussions” about the Blueprint, effectively acknowledging it was a purely partisan initiative from the beginning, passed by progressives who totally ignored the objections of lawmakers who represent millions of Marylanders living in large swaths of the state.

Moore needs local elected officials to raise county taxes to help pay for the Blueprint’s enormous unfunded mandates.

He seems to understand that in order for the Blueprint to have any chance of achieving the impact progressives have promised, it must have the buy-in of local boards of education and the citizens they represent.

However, I suspect his real concern is that without Republican support for the Blueprint, when the state and counties inevitably do raise taxes, he and Democrats alone will feel the full brunt of the taxpayers’ wrath.

As long as the Blueprint remains a purely progressive initiative, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves when the billions of dollars they are spending on the plan fail to meet expectations.

Perhaps the most immediate reason for Moore’s new-found willingness to make changes to the Blueprint is he is hearing from teachers and their union representatives who are upset that so many educators will be forced to transfer to new schools if something is not done.

So, Moore is adopting a “let’s work together” approach, hoping to make necessary “adjustments” to the Blueprint. It’s a shame his party did not have that attitude when it passed the legislation with no Republican support, overriding the veto of former Governor Larry Hogan.

Moore sees political danger ahead for himself and his party, and he is doing what he can to head it off.

Still, the governor’s admission that the Blueprint is flawed and needs to change is a welcome development.

Progressive lawmakers in Annapolis have made it plain they really don’t care what the citizens of Maryland’s conservative counties think about anything, so it would be understandable if state Republicans decided to just let the governor and his party twist in the wind. Democrats own this very expensive boondoggle. It’s all theirs. When it blows up in their face, they will only be reaping what they sowed.

But if the governor genuinely wants to work this out in a way that benefits Maryland’s children regardless of where they live, he and Democratic lawmakers must abandon the Blueprint’s one-size-fits-all approach and acknowledge that all children are not the same. Nor are the schools they attend, or the counties in which they live.

Whatever changes are made to the Blueprint must be flexible enough to allow local boards of education to develop their own plans for meeting the needs of the children they serve rather than being tethered to a plan that may be appropriate for some counties but wholly inappropriate for others.

State Democrats have gotten themselves into a pickle and they now need Republicans to help them avoid the looming fiscal disaster they created.

Carroll’s elected officials, and the officials of likeminded Maryland counties, need to leverage their new-found influence, not only to exact necessary changes to the Blueprint but also to ensure the voices of the people they represent are no longer ignored.

To that end, Carroll’s lawmakers need to make sure nixing the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, the proposed 70-mile 500,000-volt transmission line, is an important component of that discussion.

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

The problem is, there just aren’t that many reasons to vote for Harris, so expect her campaign to focus instead on convincing the American people to vote against former President Donald Trump.

Democrats have worked for years to portray Trump as the devil, the embodiment of everything evil. It’s no surprise, then, that the Harris campaign has picked up on that well-worn theme.

If Trump is elected to a second term, they will say, the world will end as we know it, or, as a local commentator recently put it, “In November, Americans will get to decide if we will continue to be the United States of America.”

Oh, my heavens. I guess I have no choice but to vote for Kamala Harris.

Democrats repeat this bilge so often that many actually believe it’s true. So, they keep saying it.

Trump will rule as a dictator, they say. If he wins, minorities will no longer be allowed to vote, abortion will be outlawed everywhere and the poor will be left to die in the streets.

Someone once said, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

What’s more, any criticism of Harris will be said to have its root in racism, misogyny or both. That Harris is all crown and no filling is irrelevant.

Even minorities are being told they better toe the line.

In a video she posted on TikTok, MSNBC’s Joy Reid said as much. “You’re going to look real crazy being on the other side of that line,” she warned, “particularly as a person of color, but really as anyone who claims to have any connection to the culture …You’re going to look real weird and real lonely on that side.”

I guess that’s Reid’s version of Biden’s “You ain’t black if you don’t vote for me.”

Harris is working hard to win the support of “Iran’s Useful Idiots,” who are fond of desecrating the American flag and defacing public monuments, as they chant hate-filled, antisemitic slogans. Her pitch seems to be, “If you’re antisemitic and support terrorist groups like Hamas, I’m the candidate for you.”

Harris’ pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was a nod to the progressive wing of her party, which made it perfectly clear Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish and a vocal supporter of Israel, would have been wholly unacceptable to them.

If my party bent to the will of openly antisemitic protesters and their supporters and actively courted their votes, I’d be very hesitant to call anyone else a fascist, as many on the left are prone to do.

Actually, the left no longer needs to use that kind of highly combustible language. It has successfully programmed its followers to hear “Nazi” and “Hitler” every time they say “MAGA Republican.”

“Ultra-radical right-wing MAGA extremists” works even better.

“Radical right-wing Christian Nationalist hate group” is a classic.

Harris’ campaign did not want the anti-Israel crowd protesting her VP pick in the streets or at the Democratic National Convention, so Harris rejected Shapiro and instead chose one of the most liberal governors in America to be her running mate.

Now that Biden is out of the way, much of the press sees it as its duty to do whatever it can to help Harris defeat Trump.

It’s why Time magazine put Harris on its cover, with a hard-hitting piece inside which begins, “The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd — more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain — resembled the early days of Barack Obama.”

It’s why MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell berated his own network for even covering Trump’s press conference.

It’s why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he can’t get an invitation to appear on CNN, MSNBC or any other left-leaning outlet.

It’s why the media never challenges the DNC to square its efforts to keep Kennedy off state ballots and the debate stage with its oft-made claim that Democrats are the “Saviors of Democracy.”

If there is one thing Harris seems to have learned as Biden’s vice president, it’s just how easy an obliging, friendly press makes avoiding public scrutiny and changing your position on any issue to meet the demands of the current political environment.

But nothing can change the fact that Harris is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who chose another dyed-in-the-wool progressive to be her running mate. Together, they will govern as dyed-in-the-wool progressives. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Anyone who wants to understand how the pair will govern if elected needs only look at how they governed previously. What they say now doesn’t mean a thing. They’re politicians running for office.

Moderates are not likely to be particularly impressed with the progressive bona fides of Harris and Walz, so her campaign will pretend the candidates are something they’re not, and redouble their efforts to paint Trump in apocalyptic terms.

Harris may be an empty vessel, but empty vessels make the most noise.

One can only hope persuadable voters recognize they are being treated with contempt, and that they are not as easily deceived as Harris and her media allies seem to believe they are.

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

The problem is, there aren’t many reasons to vote for Harris, so expect her campaign to focus instead on convincing the American people to vote against former President Donald Trump.

Democrats have worked for years to portray Trump as the devil; the embodiment of everything evil. It’s no surprise, then, the Harris campaign has picked up on that well-worn theme.

If Trump is elected, they will say, the world will end as we know it, or, as a local commentator recently put it, “In November, Americans will get to decide if we will continue to be the United States of America.”

Oh my heavens. I guess I have no choice but to vote for Harris.

Democrats repeat this bilge so often, many actually believe it’s true. So, they keep saying it.

Trump will rule as a dictator. If he wins, minorities will no longer be allowed to vote, abortion will be outlawed everywhere and the  poor will be left to die in the streets.

Someone once said “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it.”

What’s more, any criticism of Harris will be said to have its root in racism, misogyny or both. That Harris is “all crown and no filling” is irrelevant.

Even minorities are being told they better toe the line.

In a video she posted on TikTok, MSNBC’s Joy Reid said as much: “You’re going to look real crazy being on the other side of that line,” she warned, “particularly as a person of color, but really as anyone who claims to have any connection to the culture.

“You’re going to look real weird and real lonely on that side.”

I guess that’s Reid’s version of Biden’s “You ain’t Black if you don’t vote for me.”

Harris is working hard to win the support of “Iran’s Useful Idiots,” who are fond of desecrating the American flag and defacing public monuments, as they chant hate-filled, antisemitic slogans. Her pitch seems to be, “If you’re antisemitic and support terrorist groups like Hamas, I’m the candidate for you.”

Selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate was Harris’ nod to the progressive wing of the party, which made it perfectly clear Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish and a vocal supporter of Israel, would have been wholly unacceptable to it.

If my party bent to the will of openly antisemitic protesters and their supporters, and actively courted their votes, I’d be very hesitant to call anyone else a fascist, as many on the left are prone to do.

Actually, the left no longer needs to use that kind of highly combustible language. It has successfully programmed its followers to hear “Nazi” and “Hitler” every time they say, “MAGA Republican.”

“Ultra-radical right-wing MAGA extremists” works even better.

“Radical right-wing Christian Nationalist hate group” is a classic.

Harris’ campaign did not want the anti-Israel crowd protesting her VP pick in the streets or at the Democratic National Convention, so Harris rejected Shapiro. She instead chose one of the most liberal governors in America to be her running mate.

Now that Biden is out of the way, much of the press sees it as its duty to do whatever it can to assist Harris defeat Trump.

It’s why Time Magazine put Harris on its cover, with a hard-hitting piece inside that begins, “The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd — more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain — resembled the early days of Barack Obama.”

It’s why MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell berated his own network for even covering Trump’s press conference.

It’s why Robert Kennedy Jr. says he can’t get an invitation to appear on CNN, MSNBC or any other left-leaning outlet.

It’s why the media never challenges the DNC to square its efforts to keep Kennedy off state ballots and the debate stage with its oft made claim that Democrats are the “Saviors of Democracy.”

If Harris has learned anything as Biden’s vice president, it’s just how easy an obliging, friendly press makes avoiding public scrutiny. Also, it’s OK to change your position on any issue to meet the demands of the current political environment.

But nothing can change that Harris is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who chose another dyed-in-the-wool progressive to be her running mate. Together, they will govern as dyed-in-the-wool progressives. It’s not more complicated than that.

Anyone who wants to understand how the pair will govern if elected needs only look at how they governed previously. What they say now doesn’t mean a thing — they’re running for office.

Moderates are likely to not be particularly impressed with the progressive bona fides of Harris and Walz, so her campaign will pretend the candidates are something they’re not. They will redouble their efforts to paint Trump in apocalyptic terms.

Harris might be an empty vessel, but empty vessels make the most noise.

One can only hope persuadable voters recognize they are being treated with contempt, and that they are not as easily deceived as Harris and her media allies seem to believe.

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

Between now and the end of his term, the worst possible scenario is one in which President Joe Biden is able to fein competence, but in reality is only mimicking the words and policy positions of others.

I don’t care how many smart people are working to compensate for Biden’s deficiencies, “Presidency by Committee” is not the form of government the Founding Fathers intended for this country, and for good reason.

Unelected officials should not be running the government in the absence of a competent president.

Being effectively leaderless is dangerous. Decision making is clumsy and infighting inevitable.

Making matters worse is Biden’s eagerness to impact how history will evaluate his presidency. The president almost certainly had his legacy in mind when he agreed to the recent prisoner exchange with Russia.

Russia released more than a dozen individuals it had wrongfully detained, the most prominent among them being Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

In exchange, the United States and its allies agreed to release convicted criminals and people the Kremlin now acknowledges were spies.

By far, the most significant individual returned to Moscow was a high-ranking officer in the Russian secret service. Vadim Krasikov was serving a life sentence in a German jail for the 2019 murder of an opponent of the Russian regime in a central Berlin park.

Everyone should be happy for the Americans who were released, but I fear the exchange has only encouraged Russia and other bad actors around the world to take American hostages. The strategy clearly pays off for them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin knows nothing prevents him from kidnapping a few more American citizens anytime he wants to replace those he just gave up.

Biden is chasing a legacy, and for all intents and purposes, the U.S. government is on auto-pilot. America’s friends and enemies alike are right now assessing how they can take advantage of the situation.

Is it just coincidence that in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s forcible removal as his party’s nominee, Israel decided to bomb and kill a senior Hezbollah leader in Beirut, and the head of Hamas’ military wing in Tehran?

The American government is currently distracted and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw an opportunity to act.

But if Biden offers our adversaries short-term opportunities, a Kamala Harris presidency would be a gold mine for any country or group eager to diminish America’s global influence.

I’m glad Biden is out of the race. He is a lousy president and was an even worse candidate, but to replace him with Harris, whom GovTrack, a government transparency site, in 2019 rated the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate is hardly a positive development.

Biden is a self-proclaimed moderate who governed as a progressive for purely political reasons.

Harris is an authentic San Francisco progressive who will govern as a San Francisco progressive, regardless of what she pretends to be today.

Hardly the third choice I was hoping for.

Voters are being told they should forget everything they know about Vice President Harris and replace it with the new version of the candidate her campaign is in the process of creating.

Still, I have to believe there are very few Americans who don’t already know who Harris really is, and what kind of president she would be.

But hate is a powerful motivator, and Democrats have been conditioned for years to believe Donald Trump is a monster who must be stopped at all costs.

That hate is now so ingrained in their thinking, Democrats will even accept a candidate as obviously inept as Harris.

George Orwell wrote, “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

It must be apparent to most Americans that Harris’ candidacy is an effort to give the “appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

In so many ways, progressives have pushed this country to the precipice. I can’t help but think a Harris administration would lead us right off the edge, with loyal Democrats like lemmings following right behind.

The sad truth is that most Democrats will accept and defend whatever persona Harris decides to adopt for the coming election. When you get right down to it, most people really don’t care whether they’re being lied to or not, as long as it’s their own party and their own candidate doing the lying.

We’ve reached a point now where it is irrelevant to most Democrats who their nominee is. Like Joy Reid, they would have voted for “Biden in a coma.”

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Porky Pig — it doesn’t matter.

The question is not how many Democrats will buy the farce, but rather, how many will choose to ignore what they know are lies and vote for Harris anyway.

“The problem is people are being hated for being real and loved for being fake.” — Bob Marley

Chris Roemer is a retired banker and educator who resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com

Understandably, the proposed line has created quite a stir in all three Maryland counties where it will be constructed.

The projected path begins in northern Baltimore County, runs southwest across the entirety of Carroll County, eventually ending at the Doubs substation south of Frederick.

The contract to build the line was awarded to a privately owned diversified energy company, Public Service Enterprise Group, Inc. (PSEG), headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.

Apparently few knew anything about the project. Elected officials, regulators, environmental activists and the public all say they were in the dark about what was being planned until just a few weeks ago.

The proposed line is likely to require the government to invoke its power of eminent domain to complete. That means property owners in the path of the new line will be forced either to sell their land, farms or houses outright or sell the rights of way necessary to allow the transmission towers to be built on their property.

Some have suggested the new line should follow the same path as the existing line, which could be dismantled and upgraded. According to the PSGE website, projects of this type are “typically” not done that way.

I suspect most critics of the proposed line would tell you they really don’t care what is typically done.

PSGE says dismantling the old line and rebuilding a new one in its place “may pose reliability concerns during peak periods of energy demand.”

I’m sure there are steps PSGE could take to mitigate that concern, and even if there isn’t a way, that is a temporary inconvenience that doesn’t justify the government doing something as drastic and oppressive as forcibly removing people from their homes and land.

According to PSGE, “the project will have some temporary and permanent impacts on the environment.” I appreciate the candor, but I’m not sure what that means.

I’d like to know, specifically, what environmental impact studies have been done? If the answer is none, why not? If there have been studies done, how can the public gain access to them?

What will the impact be on Carroll’s farmers, who already face an array of economic pressures threatening, not only their income, but their way of life?

How many farmers will be forced off their land, in whole or in part, as a result of the new line? What impact does a 500,000-volt transmission line crossing a farm have on its livestock?

Is living near a 500,000-volt transmission line safe for people? Studies exist that link these lines to higher rates of cancer, especially among children.

Dr. David O. Carpenter, director for the Institute for Health at The State University of New York (SUNY) and co-editor-in-chief of the academic journal Reviews on Environmental Health, has said he believes up to 15% of all childhood cancers come from exposure to high-voltage power lines.

The PSGE website simply references a 10-year-old World Health Organization study that says, “Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, [we conclude] that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields.”

Does not confirm? That’s hardly reassuring.

I know I wouldn’t want to live or work near a 500,000-volt transmission line. Would you? Would you expose your children or grandchildren to the electromagnetic fields and radiation that emanate from these lines?

What will the new transmission line do to property values? I can’t imagine having a 500,000-volt power line near your home will cause its value to rise. Studies have shown just the opposite is likely to happen.

Finally, Carroll County taxpayers have made significant investments over many years to preserve the county’s farmland and maintain the countryside we all enjoy. That countryside is core to our quality of life and what makes Carroll County such a desirable place to live.

We have all seen these steel gray towers that can be up to 200-feet high. Imagine a 70-mile long procession of these towers, with all the accompanying wires they carry, scarring the countryside as it snakes its way, mile-after-mile, through the rolling hills of Carroll County.

It’s hard for me to fathom how we reached this point in the process — if there even was a process  — without anyone knowing about it.

It is also hard for me to fathom how the ultimate decision whether to build such an objectionable structure through Carroll County is not up to the people who live here and who will be most affected by it.

If I understand correctly, unelected state bureaucrats will make that decision for us.

The planned transmission line is just further evidence the people of Carroll County are losing the right to govern themselves.

It’s time we do something about that.

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation.” — James Madison

Chris Roemer is a retired banker and educator who resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com

In the weeks after Biden’s dreadful debate performance, the coordinated effort to push Biden out of the race had all the hallmarks of a well-thought-out plan rather than something that sprung up organically in the aftermath of the debate.

Ask yourself, why was there even a June presidential debate in the first place, in the nick of time to allow party leaders to take steps to replace Biden as their nominee? There are never presidential debates in June.

And if you were planning a debate for Biden, would you negotiate rules that denied him the use of notes? Over the last three years, the man has not been allowed to go to the bathroom without pre-printed instructions.

Stand here. Go there. Say this.

Yet, for a do-or-die event, one 50 million Americans would watch, Democrats agreed to send the president on stage, one-on-one against Donald Trump with nothing more than a blank piece of paper and a bottle of water?

They knew it would be a disaster — wanted it to be a disaster — so they would have the “crisis” they needed to push Biden out of the race.

Former President Barack Obama inexplicably took Biden by the hand and led him off stage, giving everyone the impression Obama needed to come to the president’s rescue.

What better way to ensure the press and the American public would be fully focused on Biden’s mental acuity at the debate and nothing else?

The man was set up to fail.

At first, the effort to replace Biden as the party’s nominee was measured. A carefully chosen congressman here. A key senator there. A major donor or two to say how worried they were.

If Biden didn’t bow out, the chorus calling on him to step aside would grow larger and louder until the president would no longer be able to resist the pressure.

And that is exactly what happened. With each passing day, another Democratic lawmaker, each more prominent than the last, called on Biden to go.

Then the flood of timely “leaks” began hinting Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other party leaders were onboard with his removal.

A prominent retired Delaware newspaper editor and columnist wrote an editorial opining that “Biden could go down as a near-great president, close behind the likes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt,” but to achieve that legendary status, Biden would need to step aside for the “good of the country.”

It was this argument Democrats used to convince Biden to go. They would give him a face-saving way out by promising to do everything in their power to ensure he goes down in history as the man who saved American democracy from Trump.

Indeed, within hours of Biden’s announcement, The Sun’s Editorial Board published a commentary with the headline, “Joseph R. Biden Jr. seizes upon his moment of grace.” “He put his country first,” it declared. The campaign to canonize the president had begun.

But Biden didn’t step aside for the “good of the country.” He stepped aside because the leaders in his party gave him no other choice.

Over the last 3½ years, Democrats literally sucked the life out of the man, and when he had nothing left to give, they tossed him aside like an old glove.

It didn’t matter that Democratic voters had overwhelmingly chosen Biden to be their nominee, awarding him 3,904 of the 3,949 available delegates. He needed to go, even if that meant nullifying the votes of 14 million Democratic voters.

It is not what one expects from the self-described “guardians of American democracy.”

Politicians lose elections all the time. There’s no shame in it. In fact, someone loses a presidential election every four years. Biden should have been allowed to finish his last campaign. Even if he lost, he would have walked away with his head held high and his dignity intact.

Instead, Biden will go into retirement a broken old man who will live out his days wondering why his friends and colleagues all turned their backs on him when he needed them most.

The whole sorted affair stinks, but it does provide valuable insight into how Democratic lawmakers go about governing.

They will do anything they have to, to get what they want. In this case that meant stabbing in the back one of their own, a man who has been a loyal member of the Democratic Party all of his life. A man who served six terms — 36 years — as a senator, eight years as vice president and four years as president.

In the end, none of that mattered. Biden was no longer of any use to the party, so its leaders, having deluded themselves a Trump victory means the end of everything, sent the president packing.

I’m sure those responsible for bringing Biden down are right now patting themselves on the back and congratulating each other on how clever they are.

I’m also sure they would not have disposed of Biden without first knowing what they would do after he was gone. Enter Kamala Harris.

One can only hope Pelosi, Schumer and everyone else who treated Biden so disgracefully meet similar ends.

This is today’s Democratic Party. Anyone affiliated with it needs to ask if it still represents their values, and if they are willing to reward this kind of scheming, heartless behavior by voting for the party’s new handpicked, unelected nominee.

Chris Roemer writes from Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com

Somehow this country made it more than two centuries before it became necessary to bring the matter before the court.

Perhaps prior generations of Americans had more self-control or a better appreciation for the concept of “country before party.”

Either way, it’s a sign of the times.

Still, none of this would not have come as a surprise to the country’s Founding Fathers, who brilliantly designed a system of government capable of checking such abuses of power.

They knew this sort of thing would happen eventually.

Each branch of government is in a never-ending power struggle with the others. This struggle creates a tension that keeps the whole system in equilibrium and prevents unscrupulous office holders from using their authority inappropriately.

The Founding Fathers’  understanding of human nature led them to create a a system of government designed to constrain humankind’s irresistible lust for power by giving us three equal branches of government, each capable of checking the power of the other two.

Currently, it’s Democrats who are using the courts to damage a political opponent. Tomorrow, it could be Republicans who use the courts to go after President Joe Biden or some other political opponent for political purposes.

I suspect, with the passage of time, as partisan passions subside, even the harshest critics will come to realize how fortunate this country is that the Supreme Court allowed it to avoid that fate.

Democrats might be trying to create a panic about the “end of democracy,” but the truth is, our system of checks and balances seems to be functioning as the Founding Fathers intended.

The problem is that a growing number of partisans think unless the Supreme Court is bending to their will, it is somehow corrupt.

As for Donald Trump, even if he had ambitions to be a dictator, as Democrats have been breathlessly and irresponsibly warning, the same Constitutional protections  preventing Democrats from abusing the criminal justice system will prevent Trump from becoming an autocrat.

From a political perspective, I understand why Democrats are upset the Supreme Court has thwarted their efforts to use the Judiciary to eliminate an important political opponent, but the Supreme Court does not care about the political ambitions of either party. It exists to make sure in the never-ending jostling for power, all three branches of government are acting in accordance with the Constitution.

So, Democrats have set about to destroy the credibility of the Supreme Court. They slander any justice who votes in a way they don’t like, and pronounce the court corrupt at every opportunity.

Here’s a sampling of the current slanderous and dangerously inflammatory remarks being made by Democratic politicians and their talking heads in the media:

MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow said, “This is a death squad ruling.” According to the Huffington Post, Maddow said “Trump has activated ‘pro-Trump paramilitary groups.’ ”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said “Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.” To that end, Ocasio Cortez says she plans to impeach the justices she doesn’t like.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal complained that his “stomach turns with fear and anger that our democracy can be so endangered by an out-of-control court.”

MSNBC host Joy Reid asked Democrats to let her know “who I got to vote for to keep Hitler out of the White House … If it’s Biden in a coma, I’m going to vote for Biden in a coma.”

Finally, Rep Illan Omar opined, “In recent years, we’ve seen growing public mistrust as the court has become increasingly ideological.”

What Omar fails to mention is, it is the Democratic politicians who are largely responsible for the “growing public mistrust” of the court. They have worked tirelessly to breed that mistrust.

However, Democrats are not upset with the court because it is ideological and partisan. They are upset because it is not ideological and partisan enough. They seem to believe the court is obliged to align itself with Democratic priorities.

It is not only where progressives are trying to take this country that has me concerned. I am equally concerned about how they are going about getting us there.

If we needed any more evidence of just how dangerous the political rhetoric has become, we have last weekend’s attempted assassination of Trump to drive the point home for us.

Perhaps now we will consider the ramifications of calling a political party fascist, and telling the American people time and again a presidential candidate is Adolf Hitler.

What’s more, moderate Democrats and Republicans have a responsibility to forcefully call out the people in their respective parties who are making these kinds of reckless remarks, rather than enabling them with their silence.

To date, our system of checks and balances has worked to protect the system of government the founders bequeathed to the American people. That is something we should all celebrate, but when we begin treating government institutions like the Supreme Court with contempt, and our political rhetoric leads to assassination attempts on political rivals, we are playing with fire.

There are some things more important than winning the next election.

Chris Roemer writes from Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com

Recently, I was referred to as an “extremist hack and a MAGA cult member” because I criticized Biden.

I guess the world is one big binary choice for some people. Perhaps we should abandon “E pluribus unum” as the traditional motto of the United States and replace it with “You’re either with us or against us.”

It seems impossible for many people to admit their preferred candidate can be flawed in any way.

I’m a right-wing MAGA extremist to the left and a namby-pamby “never-Trumper” to the right.

It is the extremes in both parties who command all the attention, and who always scream the loudest. If you’re a centrist, the attacks come from all sides.

That’s how you end up with a failing old man as the presidential candidate for one party and an obnoxious blowhard as the candidate for the other.

I’ve made no secret of my contempt for the former president, and have often expressed a fervent desire for a different set of choices when it comes to voting this November.

Trump’s perspective on Russia’s invasion and the continuing war in Ukraine is not only misguided, it’s dangerous, as are his views concerning NATO generally. I’m much more aligned with Trump’s views concerning Israel, China and Iran.

His  economic policies, his tax policies, his position on the southern border are all on the mark as far as I’m concerned.

But Trump is a mean-spirited narcissist. He is divisive, petty and vengeful, and will run over anyone who gets in his way without giving it a second thought.

Some people think these qualities are what make Trump an effective president. Even if that’s true, Trump does more harm than good.

Trump makes it easy for his political opponents to paint him in the worst possible light, preventing him from becoming the unifier this country desperately needs.

He, too, champions a “You’re either with us or against us” approach to governing, turning every decision by an elected official into a measure of their personal fealty to him.

That said, the left’s hyperventilating about Trump wanting to be a dictator, that he’s a fascist, that he’s Adolf Hitler, blah, blah, blah is risible.

People who say these things are no less cult members then anyone on the right. They are unwitting victims of a deliberate, years-long strategy by the left to paint Trump as pure evil, a kindred spirit to the worst mass murderer in human history.

As for Biden, I’ve never been a fan. He is an opportunist and always has been. A moderate who’s not really a moderate. A Catholic who’s not really Catholic. A “nice guy” who hides a nasty streak beneath a veneer of folksy charm.

His life is a series of apocryphal stories stitched together in a way that creates more of a fictional character than an actual person.

In that respect, he is the polar opposite of Trump, who makes no pretense about being anything other than what you see.

For better or worse, Trump is what he is. I wouldn’t buy a used car from Biden.

As president, Biden has been little more than a conduit through which progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders have advanced their agenda, and the progressive agenda is one bad policy after another. Social, economic, tax and foreign affairs, they’re all bad.

Ironically, Biden has proven every bit as divisive as his predecessor, which is diametrically opposed to what he was elected to do, and what he said he would do if the American people made him president.

Progressives took advantage of Biden’s diminished mental capacity to test the bounds of executive authority. They convinced Biden to ignore the Supreme Court and to act contrary to its rulings. They have weaponized the government to attack political opponents, and co-opted judges and prosecutors to behave like politicians.

Biden has taken this country down a progressive road that most Americans did not want to travel in the first place. But they were convinced by Democratic strategists they had to support Biden because Trump is the devil incarnate.

You can expect these “the-world-lies-in-the-balance” attacks to be the central theme of Democratic campaigns everywhere. With candidates as damaged as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, portraying Trump as the embodiment of everything that is evil is all Democrats have left.

It’s why every time someone asks a Democrat about Biden, the answer invariably begins, “Donald Trump … ”

To that end, expect to hear more about “Project 2025.” Using that plan, written by the Heritage Foundation, to attack Trump is a talking point that has now found its way into the script Democratic officials and pundits are using here and at the national level.

If that doesn’t work, they’ll move onto something else, desperately  trying to find something  anything — to convince the American people their only choice is to vote for the Democratic nominee, whomever that’s ends up being, no matter how bad they are. Otherwise, it’s the end of American democracy as we know it.

All Americans need to strive to see Trump and Biden as they really are by looking beyond the portraits painted by their political opponents and their own campaigns.

Vote for whom you please, but do it with your eyes open.

Chris Roemer writes from Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com