Gov. Wes Moore, doing his best to focus on the care and feeding of new housing units, no doubt keeps getting distracted by the blowback on the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk (such as bomb threats to legislative leaders). Then, too, the state highway department appears to be in trouble about accounting (or is it accountability), a chronic issue for them over the years. Nor is the state's hospital system exempt from error, with even more deadly consequences. So even while National Guard troops police the District of Columbia (veterans will recall that "police" means "pick up litter" in military parlance), the state scuffles on. We move on to our coverage of other states, where good and bad examples abound for comparison, plus our weekly report from the lair of Congress as they scuffle too, trying to decide how to avoid a government shutdown for lack of a budget and who to blame if it happens. Congress members and Senators want more of the vacation that... they just got back from. It's all News You Can Use.

HERE IN MARYLAND

Medical Errors Causing Death, Other Problems Rising In Maryland, Report Says

A Maryland Health Department report shows that preventable errors in hospitals, some fatal, increased for the fourth consecutive year. WaPo

General Assembly Leaders Targeted By Bomb Threats: The presiding officers of Maryland’s General Assembly were targeted by bomb threats on Thursday, amid rising concern about political violence in the nation. House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson, both Democrats, disclosed that they received bomb threats involving their homes. Baltimore Banner. via Md Reporter (9/12)

MD Highway Dept.  ‘Knowingly’ Charged $360 Million In Unauthorized Expenses To Federal Projects: State Highway Administration officials “knowingly charged” nearly $360 million in unauthorized expenses to federal fund projects in an attempt to hide a deficit in the state’s Transportation Trust Fund, according to a new state audit. Maryland Matters via Md Reporter

>>A newly released audit revealed the Maryland State Highway Administration could be on the hook for $358.7 million after classifying certain project expenditures as federally funded without prior authorization. WMAR 2 News. via Maryland Reporter

Forcible Removal of Filipino Workers from Carnival Cruise Ship In Baltimore Sparks Protest -- “A heinous act,” say advocates amid reports that dozens of Filipino seafarers have been detained by federal ICE or Customs and Border Protection agents and expelled from the U.S. without due process. Baltimore Brew

Moore Seeks To Speed Housing Construction: Gov. Wes Moore’s executive order this month to “supercharge” housing development came with a succinct mission: Prioritize speed over everything. In a state that’s fallen behind its neighbors and the rest of the country in building homes, Moore’s order took multiple actions aimed at getting shovels in the ground faster and in more areas of Maryland.  Baltimore Sun via Maryland Reporter

Public Criticizes Bay Agreement As Weak: The reviews are in, and they’re not good: Commenters had stern words in the just-closed public comment period for the newly revised Chesapeake Bay agreement, a voluntary clean-up pact between the states that surround the nation’s largest estuary. In more than 1,000 comments from scientists, advocates, regular residents, current and former legislators and even a former Maryland governor, the Chesapeake Bay Program was told that the proposed terms of the plan are too weak, especially considering that the bay states failed to achieve all the goals in the previous agreement. Maryland Matters.

Moore Appeals Denial Of FEMA Aid; Harris Says Fund Wasn't Warranted: Gov. Wes Moore (D) has appealed FEMA’s denial of nearly $34 million in disaster relief to help Western Maryland areas recovering from a devastating flood earlier this year. Maryland’s sole Republican member of Congress said Moore should look to his own budget before appealing to the federal government for help. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st) told Maryland Matters that the flooding is “a tragedy,” but said federal aid was not warranted in this instance. /Maryland Matters via Maryland Reporter

Cuts, Uncertainty Over NIH Grants Disrupt Innovation In Health Fields, Researchers Say -- A University of Maryland program that encourages undergraduate minority students to research communication sciences and disorders was making strides to help people learn and communicate better — until its grant, like 78 others in Maryland, was cut in May. UMD-REACH —Research, Equity, and Access in Communication and Hearing — was one of the lucky 47 projects in the state that have seen their National Institutes of Health grant reinstated since the initial May cut by the Trump administration. But program officials said the delay came with a cost. “We’re happy about the reinstatement, but at the same time, it’s taken a lot of time and work for a bunch of people who would rather be helping people learn things and helping people be healthier,” said a program co-leader. Maryland Matters

THE OTHER 49

 FL: 2026 health insurance premiums set to double for millions of Florida residents | Florida Phoenix

Long-term unemployment at post-pandemic high, straining workers and economy

The share of Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer reached a high last seen in the pandemic. WaPo

Occupations: Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Friday he has been in “constant communication” with the Trump administration about deploying the National Guard to Memphis as part of a crime crackdown, Tennessee Lookout reports. Lee added he plans to speak with President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon to “work out details of the mission.”  -- News from the States

Vaccines, State by State:

GLOBAL, NATIONAL AND THE FEDS

STOP AI SLOP? “Half the people on the planet will be AI”

An AI podcast company is releasing 3,000 new episodes a week, all generated in about an hour for $1 a go. Inception Point AI has seen more than 10 million downloads since September 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It has about 50 AI personalities, including the nominatively determined [work that out]  nature-show host Nigel Thistledown and food expert Claire Delish. Each episode takes a fraction of the time a human-produced podcast does to make, and as long as 20 people listen to each one, it turns a profit. CEO Jeanine Wright, former head of Amazon’s podcast division, said people calling it AI slop “are probably lazy luddites” and that “in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI.” Semafor

What do YOU think? Texting Times: The New York Times is beginning to incorporate text message-based opinion surveys into its polls, an attempt to solve for increasingly unreliable telephone polling. Semafor

And this week’s DC Report from Megan E, Federal Affairs director at People’s Action – our national affiliate:

Hello People's Action!

Republicans plan to release the text of a Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend funding at current levels through Nov. 20th this morning. Democrats have demanded negotiations on the CR but have not been at the table. House Republicans plan to vote on the CR later this week and will likely pass it without any Democrats voting for it but they can only afford to lose 3 votes (2 Republicans are currently voting no) if everyone is in attendance. House Republican leaders are working to attach increased lawmaker security funding to the stopgap bill in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Assuming it passes, there may not be enough time according to Senate rules to take up the bill before they are scheduled to go on a weeklong recess next week for Rosh Hashanah so they’ll likely have to extend the session somehow because there’s only two days when they get back before funding runs out. 

Minority Leader Schumer has said they’ll oppose the funding bill without an extension of affordable care act tax credits and Senator Sanders and others are demanding to restore the Medicaid funds cut by the Big Ugly Budget bill as well. 

It’s not clear if Schumer has the support of his whole caucus to vote no on the bill. If Republicans promise to negotiate on the ACA tax credit extensions, then a shutdown may be averted. 

Republican leadership agrees that there needs to be some extension of tax credits though they do not want to fully extend the credits at current levels. 

An opinion writer in the NY Times, Jonathan Alter, writes that Democrats can win the shutdown fight and argues that they ought to fight for more. He compares the fight to a shutdown under Clinton where Clinton clearly made the fight about Medicaid, Medicare, education and the environment. Alter argues that Democrats ought to make the fight about health care, tariffs and troops. I would leave out the tariffs and add housing. Democrats can fight to cut military and ICE funds for deployment in U.S. cities. People’s Action Institute plans to share talking points on the shutdown soon. 

Last week, the Supreme Court greenlit racial profiling by ICE agents in the “emergency docket.” The decision is temporary in that it will continue to be fully litigated in courts and likely return to the Supreme Court for full consideration. However, it signals overturning court decisions that find that the due process provisions of the Constitution bars racial profiling and will have implications for racial profiling in state and local policing as well as policing by ICE. 

Congratulations to Missouri Jobs With Justice for a 5,000 person action flooding the Capitol to protest the legislature’s plan to gerrymander the state’s Congressional districts at Trump’s request. 

Feel free to invite other staff and leaders to this email list by reaching out to me at [email protected]. 

WHAT'S HAPPENING: NEW RESOURCES

Tax the Greedy Billionaires is releasing new polling today that found strong majorities of voters in congressional battlegrounds and key states want to raise taxes on the very rich. The poll from Impact Research, a prominent Democratic firm, also found wide support for a wealth tax, among other possible policy options.

Data for Progress & Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Casar out with new polling on progressive populist messaging 

From the AP: “A new Gallup poll finds that while U.S. adults overall are more likely to have a positive view of capitalism than socialism, Democrats feel differently. According to the survey, only 42% of Democrats view capitalism favorably, while 66% have a positive view of socialism.” Overall, positive views of capitalism dropped from 60 percent in 2021 to 54 in Gallup’s most recent poll.

March with us in NYC & Across the Country on 9/20 Make Billionaires Pay

Everywhere we turn, the crises are piling up: record-breaking heat, wildfires, skyrocketing rents—and a tiny circle of billionaires is profiting off the mess while the rest of us scramble to keep our families safe.

The Trump administration just rammed through a mega-bill defunding our communities to give handouts to billionaires. Money that should fund childcare centers and paid family leave is instead funneled into tax breaks for the very corporations pouring carbon into the sky. On September 20, people across the country are taking to the streets to take on the billionaires. In New York City, we’re hosting an anchor march as political leaders from around the globe arrive for the UN General Assembly. This is a critical moment to show the world the U.S. will defy Trump and Make Billionaires Pay.

March with us in NYC on 9/20 – or Organize a march in your community

ISSUE UPDATE: ELECTIONS

Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) came out Saturday with an endorsement of NY-Mayor Democratic candidate Mamdani, saying people are sick of “spineless Dems.” Van Hollen is a recovering establishment Democratic who has been fighting for laid-off government workers and immigrants. His position on the ongoing genocide in Gaza has also evolved over the past year to vote against the U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. NY-ers Schumer, Jeffries and Governor Kathy Hochul have been slow in endorsing Mamdani. Hochul published an oped endorsing Mamdani yesterday. 

Citizen Action of NY endorsed Lieutenant Governor Antionio Delgado in the Governor's race to challenge incumbent Hochul from the left.

ISSUE UPDATE: IMMIGRATION

Army base used for WWII Japanese internment will be nation's largest ICE detention center

In solidarity, 
Megan