A possible end to the cursed shutdown may be looming, though it is still uncertain as we write if the Democrats in the Senate can extract any help on health care costs before letting the GOP’s “continuing resolution” return the airways, government payments and other things we didn’t think we would miss to a state of Normal. With Trump, and the cowed collection of legislators with the majority in both houses, the only sure outcome is falsehood. How many federal workers will actually return to work? What is “Normal" and who makes the call? It should be the voters, if we can keep our wits about us. We have a great, timely update on all this from People's Action down below. Stay tuned. It’s News You Can Use

NATIONAL –  Yesterday, Color Of Change and Progressive Maryland, in partnership with over 25 civil rights and democracy organizations, hosted a press conference at the State House of Annapolis, MD, to urge Senate President Bill Ferguson to hold a special session and advance a redistricting plan.

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THE SHUTDOWN drags on, heading for a record tomorrow night (!) and hammering Maryland's multitudes of federal employees and contractors. Maryland -- and other states, we see -- are taking special note of the Nov. 1 lapse of SNAP benefits for a total of 42 million folks nationwide -- which, despite several Federal judges' rulings, the Trump administration said Monday it will not fully replace with emergency funds, meaning eligible recipients will get about half the usual SNAP allotments during the Congressional impasse. 

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As the shutdown continues (thanks to the House GOP vacation, jamming the Senate), states suffer more losses, expecially for low-income residents. The "Healthcare Heist," as PA's Megan E ttags it below, is the most long-term cost to everyone who has Affordable Care Act coverage. More immediately, SNAP benefits (food stamps) are due to run out for millions in our region alone when the month ends. And, of course, the DMV is especially burdened by the large numbers of federal workers who just missed a paycheck.Republicans fashioned a skimpy and self-interested bill to pay SOME GOP-favored federal employees, but Dems were incensed about its one-sidedness and wouldn't provide the necessary votes to pass it. 

And Maryland lost a last-ditch appeal to get FEMA help for Western Maryland families swamped by the floods of late spring.

Nevertheless, as also noted below by Megan, polls show that the coming health care catastrophe was the right fight to pick in Congress. She suggests numerous tools for fighting back -- at its best, in groups -- on the skyrocketing premiums.

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Marylanders and another 7--8 million folks around the country raised hell quietly and peacefully at No Kings events ranging from hundreds of thousands in Times Square (NYC) and the Capitol in DC to dozens standing up for freedom in a deep-red, pro-Trump hamlet in rural Georgia. Funny costumes and quite serious signs announced that the millions mocked the posturing MAGA mouthpieces who slurred their motives while seriously demanding respect for the rights of free speech and action, and the right to go out in public without being profiled and hustled by ICE. 

The shutdown is having its effect on the lives of everyday Marylanders -- and not only the laid-off federal workers: when they hurt, we all hurt. But, as Megan E reminds us below in the PA weekly notebook, the increases in Affordable Care Act premiums will be in everyone's mailbox by Nov. 1, and the hundreds of thousands effectively thrown off health care programs in deep-Red states will get full evidence of their betrayal by the paid-off, Trump-fearing politicians they elected. It will not be pretty. But, alas, it is News You Can Use.

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