Let’s cut to the chase – a full calendar ahead of actions, get-togethers and learning opportunities. Plus the most recent blogs.

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, a persistent critic of the long struggle for a living wage in Montgomery County and water-carrier for business interests, is still trying to chip away at the latest effort by Council members to help working families in a county of great wealth and significant inequality.

Progressive Maryland yesterday joined a coalition of progressive organizations pushing back against Leggett’s latest effort – a letter promising a veto of the new legislation without major pro-business concessions.

The [co-sponsoring] senators who shared a podium with [Sen. Bernie] Sanders understand this [Medicare For All] bill won’t pass in today’s Republican-dominated Congress. They signed on because it’s a good idea, and because they recognize that by doing so they can both reflect and reshape a shifting political landscape.

Prince George's County, one of if not the most affluent majority-black county in the US, has particular strengths and weaknesses -- both of which can be tackled as they should be by a more aware community and a more responsive elected leadership unencumbered by big-money campaign contributors. Progressive Maryland's organizers, Seanniece Bamiro and Charles Smith, are focused on those issues. See here how they can help your community in Prince George's.

New stuff in Congress on health care repeal to be watchful about; leadership training opportunities; statewide and chapter activism and calendar of events, and the most recent blogs nicely packaged for binge-reading.

 Much of the press’s discourse contains annual descriptions of labor’s decline, some sympathetic and some not.  Whatever its causes, the story is true: union influence over the economy and American quality of life has been shrinking for decades.  Maryland is not immune. In this re-post from Seventh State, Adam Pagnucco, a labor scholar, itemizes the damage.

Nothing going on in the fall? Think again. Congress is back and feuding with the president, but that does not mean the rest of us are safe. We’ll have to watch out for the collateral damage and keep pushing to make health care for all an idea and a reality that the GOP will have to deal with – or else.

And the Maryland General Assembly is only 120 days from the opening gavel. Watch out for legislative briefings in the meantime, including those sponsored or supported by Progressive Maryland and our allies.

Community control of our quality of life is a driving force in our activism. But community control, historically and even today, has its down side. The competing agendas of federal, state and local governments and officials create bad outcomes, because when laws get jostled by circumstance, the result often winds up favoring the wealthy and powerful even more.

A critical Prince George's County Zoning Examiner's Hearing may seal the fate of a controversial Concrete Batch Plant project being sought in Bladensburg, near the Anacostia waterfront and potentially threatening health and safety in the Port Towns. The Aug. 22 hearing was continued after lengthy debate until Wednesday, Sept. 6, when opponents of the plant hope to have, again, a large crowd to let the Examiner -- and County Council -- know that community control of local development is important to many of the county's residents.

ln this repost from the essential political blog Maryland Matters, a deep-dive account of the twisty history of the Purple Line leading up to the tent-revival groundbreaking on Monday. Gov. Hogan gets props (and needs them) for reshaping the path for this crucial piece of mass transit for Prince George's and Montgomery counties, which will serve largely working-class users and was blocked for so long by MoCo country-clubbers, their platoons of lawyers and even a judge or two who shared their class perspective. Maryland Matters founder and chief blogger Josh Kurtz, a seasoned Maryland political observer, provides this great overview.