The rope has finally disappeared for Ed Hale.  Canton Crossing is done for him.  With the sale of all the property in Canton to COPT, Ed Hale’s days as a developer in Baltimore are now done. It seems that COPT must have exercised its options from the September 2008 issue of mezzanine financing to Hale.  Eddie was up to ass in alligators over debt issues, between the previous mechanics liens on the tower and a loan default with Maryland Financial Bank.  Then there was the $10.2 million Confessed Judgement by Silverton Bank, NA. And now Ed is being sued by Whitney, Bailey, Cox & Magnani – both tenants of the Tower and an engineering firm that did work on the Tower as well as Venture Electric, LLC.

Lanny Davis, the chief hatchet man of the left during Bill Clinton’s philanderous administration back in the halcyon 90s, is a complete ass clown who lacks any principled understanding of history.  Witness his writing in The Washington Times today, where he writes:

So I can understand why the Obama White House would be angry at Fox News Channel's evening shows. Some of the hosts, such as Glenn Beck, and the guests attack the president personally at times, using over-the-top venom reminiscent of 1930s right-wing radio commentator, Father Charles Coughlin, who accused President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal of being socialist or worse. (Sound familiar?)

The problem is, he gets the facts all wrong. Coughlin attacked Roosevelt from the left. He thought FDR’s New Deal was not socialist enough.  So his metaphor here was either a deliberate attempt to link Fox News with the hateful Father Coughlin, or he was just dumb.

The stench of corruption, incompetence, and sheer stupidity continues to rise from the cesspool that is the City of Baltimore.  Like a lousy script out of Homicide: Life on the Streets or The Wire, the Baltimore Sun has done some yeomen work investigating the Baltimore City Foundation and its potential misuse as slush-fund for city agencies to avoid oversight rules.  My favorite takeaway from the article was that the head of Baltimore City Foundation – one Leonard M. Ivey – does not see it as his responsibility to make sure that Foundation dollars are spent legally and appropriately for a non-profit organization.  Like I said, the stench continues to rise from the cesspool.

Read it all here.

The promoters of substandard socialized health care that are pushing for individual purchasing mandates keep trying to use the auto insurance paradigm as a justification for forcing citizens to purchasing health insurance.  The problem is that that the comparison doesn’t hold, and continuing to push that metaphor is at best disingenuous and at worst, a feckless lie.  Why? Because auto insurance is typically broken into two components – comprehensive and liability – and is more about guaranteeing that you can pay for damages you CAUSE against OTHER PEOPLE or OTHER PEOPLE’S PROPERTY.  My body, and my health, are not the PROPERTY of the United States Government. 

Eddie Hale is running out of rope, having been forced into selling the crown jewel of his empire, the 1st Mariner Tower at Canton Crossing to Corporate Office Properties Trust of Columbia.  COPT was the holder of the second mortgage and now has assumed the primary lien of $77 million in exchange for the building.  Any questions about Ed Hale’s business acumen have now been answered: he has none.

With a second loss in a row, the Baltimore Ravens and Coach John Harbaugh need to pause and take stock of where they are and what they have left to do.  They lost today’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals because of poor game planning and really bad penalties by the defense.  It’s time to calm down.  All is not lost yet, but we’ve run out our string of luck.  The season only gets tougher from here on out.

Why won’t the Obama Administration release the report by State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh that forms the basis of the President’s misguided approach to Honduras?  There should be nothing in that report that would be covered by Executive Privilege.  There should be no classified information.  And according to those who have seen it, the report conveys none of the arguments between executive agencies that would fall under the rubric of “agency debate”.  In short, the cornerstone of this country’s foreign policy toward a very friendly ally in Central America is being hidden from public view.  For what purpose?

Paula M. Carmody, the head of the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, has written a letter to the Baltimore Sun to protest recent coverage by business writer Jay Hancock and the paper in general.  Carmody complains that the paper is paying more attention to the PR arm of Constellation than they pay attention to the evidentiary record.  Well, that is quite understandable, given Carmody’s comment that, “OPC does not have the funds, time or inclination to run a public relations campaign in the print media, on the radio and through an Internet petition campaign in an attempt to sway public opinion.”  Yes, because it is obviously a mistake to think that the Office of People’s Counsel would actually communicate with the People they claim to represent.

Last night at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, President Barack Obama promised that he would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as a sop to the massive support he received from the homosexual community.  The problem is, that the promise is meaningless.  I am not talking about the fact that every promise made by this president has an expiration date.  I am talking about the fact that the President alone cannot amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and how the President is using a confusing policy to confuse supporters into thinking he will actually do something.