Columns

    Last week, WSLS TV, Channel 10, presented what was the first televised debate between two of the three Fifth District candidates for Congress.

    It really wasn’t much of a debate in the real sense; both men simply sat at a news desk alongside each other and moderator Jay Warren for a little less than 30 minutes.

The effects of the health care law — passed by Congress this past March — are now being felt by just about every American in some way, though most of the provisions have yet to actually be implemented.

Earlier this week, I joined several hundred individuals attending a meeting to express their concerns over EPA’s recent draft Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulation.  The TMDL mandate sets strict limits on the amount of nutrients that point sources, such as water treatment plants, and non-point sources, such as farms, can discharge.  The limits that EPA is proposing have far-reaching consequences for everyone who lives, works, and farms in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. 

    Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Snyder v. Phelps, a lawsuit. The Phelps in the case is Fred Phelps, the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, in Kansas. The Snyder is Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine who was  killed in Iraq in 2006. Phelps and his followers showed up at the funeral waving protest signs with slogans that included “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God hates Fags.” They also displayed a sign, because the Snyders are Roman Catholic, stating “Pope in Hell.”