A Monday morning note from the Associated Press about the (according to Trump) affordability “hoax”: “A barrel of Brent crude [oil], the international standard, was trading at $79.41 per barrel early Monday, according to FactSet, up 9% from its trading price of $72.87 on Friday, at the time a seven-month high. Higher global energy prices mean consumers will pay more for gasoline at the pump and have to shell out more for groceries and other goods at a time when many are already feeling the impacts of elevated inflation.”

So, back to forever wars (see Megan E's national report below). It's a good distraction, if you are Donald Trump, from the failure of his claims of affordability, the continued fascist brutality of ICE in Maryland and elsewhere, and the menace of Trump's threats to take over the way elections are run (constitutionally a job that states do.)

Working families have learned to duck and cover to preserve their already shaky jobs and livelihoods while the wars of choice flicker overhead. Marylanders' control and influence over the work of their own government and lawmaking remain, so don't duck so far you miss opportunities to increase our power and agency at our own level. Those options are always there, as we see each week in the Memo.

It's News You Can Use, peacetime or not.

February is the perfect time to honor the incredible contributions of Black Marylanders throughout history. Test your knowledge with our Black History Month quiz! See how much you know—and maybe learn something new about the people, places, and legacies that have shaped our state.

Black History Quiz: How Well Do You Know Maryland?

1. This congressional district has consistently been represented by a Black member of Congress since the late 1980s.
   
   
2. A statue of this famous Marylander can be seen on Lawyers Mall in Annapolis.
   
   
3. The city of Cambridge on the Eastern Shore houses a museum and mural about this legendary Underground Railroad leader.
   
   
4. Of Maryland’s four HBCUs, this is the oldest.
   
   
5. This iconic blues/jazz singer spent her childhood in Baltimore and gave us the song Strange Fruit, still one of the most powerful civil rights songs.
   

Answers:

Want to check how you did? Here are the correct answers!

1. Maryland’s 7th Congressional District – represented by Kweisi Mfume, Elijah Cummings, and others over the decades.
   
   
2. Thurgood Marshall – the first Black Supreme Court Justice and a Maryland native.
   
   
3. Harriet Tubman – legendary Underground Railroad leader; don’t miss the museum and mural when you visit Cambridge and the Underground Railroad Trail!
   
   
4. Bowie State University – Maryland’s oldest HBCU, older than Morgan State, Coppin State, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
   
   
5. Billie Holiday (Lady Day) – Baltimore-born jazz and blues singer whose song Strange Fruit remains a powerful civil rights anthem.

The memo will be posted here after the email has been sent.

One of the peskiest problems that Gov. Moore and the General Assembly face in trying to balance the state's budget is protecting the Blueprint for school improvement against being chipped away or delayed in its implementation plan by other urgent priorities. Full funding for a critical area, Community Schools with wraparound child and family support, has been delayed several times. And that effort is related to many other child-centered concerns, such as the embattled foster-care system and professional support for kids in school (all of which see below). It's easy to get distracted by national arguments and the shenanigans of Donald Trump (the Master of Distraction; bombs may be falling on Iran as you read this).

But the kids who are coming up now need more help -- from us -- than they are getting, and that is a due-bill that we will keep on paying at considerable interest.

It's News You Can Use.

The Big Ugly Bill that Trump oddly refers to as "Beautiful" included quite a few provisions that added tons of tax deductions for the wealthy by looting state treasuries and their revenue systems. A number of bills are quietly getting traction in the Assembly to choke off that loot-fest, as noted atop our HERE IN MARYLAND roundup.

The Assembly has also passed, and Gov. Moore signed today, a measure preventing ICE and border control goons from co-opting the efforts of local law enforcement through an agreement that looks good for local governments but puts everyone at risk -- as we know from the depredations of those same masked, unidentified ICE goons around the country.

So far so good -- but, as one veteran legislator used to say, it takes three or four years to get a good bill through the Assembly -- but only one year for a bad one. How can you make a difference?

Many Marylanders find themselves surprised by how much they can learn, and do, at https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite  -- the website of the Maryland General Assembly. All the bills are there and all the hearings where the fate of those bills may be decided. You can be heard in those hearings, and without going to Annapolis to do so. The website language is carefully neutral and therefore a little deceptive about which bills are important and highly supportable. That's where outfits like Progressive Maryland and the Maryland Legislative Coalition step in. You can get weekly accounts of the bills that need passing at our Weekly Memo (you can get it in your inbox here ) or get our virtual Annapolis Task Force briefing on how to be heard on bills here. The Maryland Legislative Coalition's weekly roundups during session keep you up on the bills and hearings that really matter. Advocacy organizations in climate/environment, social justice, education and community solidarity all have ways of keeping you up during our top-speed legislative sessions. The legislature is entering one of the most active parts of their session, so don't get ambushed after April by bills that are bad for you and your community.

Below you can see how states (and the feds) are managing their governance, for better or worse. Might be some lessons there, pointing in both directions. That's why we call it News You Can Use.

Maryland, not heavily engaged with ICE enforcement at the battleground scale of Minnesota and some other states, is nevertheless ramping up its defenses. Trump's wholly vindictive assault against Minneapolis-St. Paul is showing signs of wear but state and national officials -- including some in Congress -- are still trying to temper the damage by legal means. Judges, however, are making long lists of the number of legal rulings that the mock-warriors of DHS are routinely ignoring. Congress is near-deadlock on funding the Department of Homeland Security unless Democratic requirements for controlling ICE tactics get some satisfaction. If it gets more intense we might have to do this twice a week. It's News You Can Use, but don't look away too fast or you might miss something.