BUILDING POWER – Lots and lots of canvass and phone banking opportunities around the state to build power and unite your neighbors for action in your community. And that’s just in May.

See the full events list – with RSVP links – on our Facebook page.

Why are we doing all this? To fix our broken politics in Maryland by electing people who will blow past the business-as-usual governance style -- one with which way too many officials have gotten way too comfortable.

The Washington Post promises to avoid conflict of interest and even the appearance of conflict of interest. It failed to abide by this laudable pledge, however, when it issued endorsements in the upcoming Democratic primaries in Montgomery County, as Hal Ginsberg outlines here. Even worse, it does not even acknowledge how its owner’s financial considerations may contravene the interests of county residents.

Here's the Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo -- one stop activist shopping, with events calendar, activism opportunities and links to our recent blog posts.

Even if you're a rock-ribbed Republican, not a bleeding-heart like me, I don't get how you can be indifferent. Is there any doubt that the quality of life for all of us is diminished when a few or - as in this case - many lack a safe place to rest their head every night?

TODAY, MONDAY, MAY 7, IS CHARGED WITH EVENTS. So the Weekly Memo is going out early to alert our activists.

MORE about the upcoming week will be added to this, our online Memo, as it comes in. Click here to catch up throughout the week.

WHAT’S HOT TODAY (Monday, May 7)

Prince George’s District Council – concrete batch plant in Bladensburg may get a decision today (1:30 at CAB, Upper Marlboro)

And in Capitol Heights, a State’s Attorney candidate forum at 6 and a debt free college event at 7 with Ben Jealous and Sen. Bernie Sanders at 7 – both at Oakcrest Community Center.

Teachers across the country have shown the rest of us how to fight back. Now the organized, moneybags Right Wing is ginning up a propaganda mill to slander the teachers. Jeff Bryant reports on Progressive Breakfast that “teachers are not making their pay the defining issue of their uprising. Contrary to what [right-wing propaganda] asserts, they’re focused on improving the lives of their students.” Progressive Breakfast is the blog from People’s Action, national affiliate of Progressive Maryland.

A bill that would have provided safe consumption sites for drug use in Maryland -- proven to save lives and reduce opioid addiction mortality in other counties -- failed (again) in the General Assembly this year. “We know that Maryland will eventually see the demonstrated benefit of safer drug consumption spaces and pass the legislation necessary to establish them here,” says Harriet Smith, the Baltimore Harm Reducation Coalition’s executive director. “We need brave policy makers who are willing to set aside their fears of reelection and do what’s right for Maryland.”

May Day tomorrow -- less than two months till the June 26 Primary Election in Maryland – a crucial time for mobilizing on behalf of not only progressive candidates but on the progressive issue stances to which we will hold them when they are elected. Make sure your neighbors and your community are energized on both counts by joining our canvasses across the state. Become part of our Movement Politics team.

Plus recent blog posts and info from around our state chapters and our allies.

Rather than have a fair, honest primary election, the DCCC "selected" the Colorado candidate ahead of time and have been shuttling money and resources to a corporate lawyer they favor. Hoyer tried to get the progressive candidate to withdraw. This is back-door, anti-democratic politics, says Drew Langlois.

Polls show that education is a top state and local concern of voters as the 2018 elections approach, and the state has a process in place to develop the most comprehensive educational reform package since the Thornton Commission of 1999-2002. The Kirwan Commission will be even more closely watched as it gets closer to polishing the package – and discussing how much it should cost.

Few reporters have paid more sustained attention to the evolving Kirwan report than veteran Len Lazarick of the online Maryland Reporter. Here he refreshes our memory on the group’s process as it resumes work after the General Assembly session.