A packed main room in the ATU union hall in District Heights saw many testify from personal experience Saturday about the need to reduce incarceration, end cash bail, stop enabling ICE, get a grip on police misconduct and many other reforms.

As this Maryland Matters report indicates, headliner Ben Jealous became the news simply because he came back in public view – even though he was fighting for the same social-justice principles he has espoused whether a candidate or not.

We told you. All those local governments, city and county councils, that were taking a leisurely summer off have started their new sessions. Big money doesn’t sleep during the summer, though, and there are early alarms out about what local governments may be doing with big money on the sidelines urging them on. As you see below, it’s never too early to push back – and sometimes it’s getting late

"Make no mistake, those profiting from the status quo have been pitting workers against each other for centuries, and it is a strategy designed to stop us from realizing our collective power," union leader Lisa Brown writes. "There is a good reason that those on top want to stop workers from building this collective power – because when we organize together, we win."

Our role in the progressive movement in Maryland is to build power for working families and workers in the workplace – hence the observances of Labor Day. Now that Labor Day has passed, most schools are back in session and … local governments are back in business and need to be checked by grassroots progressives. Read about a bill hearing in Anne Arundel County Council TONIGHT, below.

After a successful Town Hall in Prince George’s challenging Rep. Steny Hoyer to get on board with Medicare for All (HR 1384) or get out of the way, the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition is revving up plans for Montgomery County and Baltimore action. In this account from Progressive Breakfast, Sameena Mustafa describes the kind of grassroots, engaged activism it takes to move the needle when the people’s needs are set aside for the profit of big corporations and the political system they have captured.

At Progressive Maryland (and with our progressive allies) we work for environmental justice, reform of the criminal justice/policing system  and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth.

While activists fight around the country to lower the prices greedy Big Pharma charges for high-priced drugs, an innovative panel in Maryland to cut those excessive prices is stalled by the governor's refusal to release its appropriated funding.

Gov. Larry Hogan has waved the no-tax flag in front of his base at the Maryland Association of Counties beach blast in Ocean City. Assembly Democrats are digging in for a fight to improve the state's schools in spite of Hogan's resistance.

Medicare for All remains atop this week’s agenda as we tackle the deep need in Maryland and around the nation for comprehensive, universal health care – and the three Maryland members of Congress who have not joined the 118 Democratic co-sponsors of HR 1384, Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersburger and David Trone. We challenged Rep. Hoyer to sign on at our Town Hall this past Saturday, as you see below (and you can watch it preserved on livestream).

On Saturday, August 17^th, 2 - 4pm, The Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition will convene a Medicare For All Town Hall in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s Congressional District 5. Doctors and policy experts will highlight the pitfalls of the current system and explain Medicare For All. As a coalition of healthcare activists and progressive organizations throughout the state, our goals are to educate the public and challenge the Congressman to stand with his constituents, not with the healthcare industry.