Sharing a state line with the occupied District of Columbia is uncomfortable enough, but (as Governor Wes Moore knows) being in an extra-inning social media duel with the King of Calumny -- who also doubles as US president -- is even tougher.
Plus the state is battling the loss of jobs and income from implementation of Project 25 and resulting paralysis of a great many reforms that Moore campaigned on.
And school has begun, with the battle to reduce absenteeism (aggravated since the Pandemic) and cope with Artificial Intelligence, a tool for both education reform and serious escalations of cheating. It's all News You Can Use, from our state, the Other 49, and the woeful federal government with separation of powers in the authoritarian blender becoming a not-so-smoothie. And our guide to the feds, Megan E from People's Action, is back with a rundown on how an occupied, uniform-riddled Washington DC feels. Read on.
HERE IN MARYLAND
Maryland Struggles With Student Absences: ‘We Need To Stop The Bleeding’ : State education leaders will start tracking student absences on a monthly basis, continuing their efforts to address the massive spike in absenteeism following COVID-19 school shutdowns.“We need to stop the bleeding coming out of the pandemic,” Joshua Michael, president of the Maryland State Board of Education, said at a board meeting this week. “Every day matters for every kid.” The Maryland State Board of Education aims to reduce chronic absenteeism — defined nationally as missing 10% or more of enrolled school days — by 15 percentage points over the next three years. Baltimore Sun
And State Also Struggles with Using Artificial Intelligence in Schools: AI is being used in Maryland schools, but statewide guidance is a work in progress | Maryland Matters
Maryland Market Threatens to Push More Medicare Advantage Plans Out Of the State
As the new plan year nears, insurance carriers consider downsizing in the state, which could kick thousands of seniors off their health care plans. Maryland Matters
Moore Admin Frozen In Attempt To Rebuild State Government: When Wes Moore ran for governor, he made rebuilding state government one of his central promises. He said he planned to fill 5,000 vacant positions in Maryland’s executive branch during his first year in office, telling voters that restoring state capacity was critical to delivering services and rebuilding trust. Now, a little over two years later, Moore’s administration has frozen vacant positions and is reviewing nearly 1,000 voluntary buyouts. Baltimore Sun.
Health Officials Worry Federal Messaging Will Usher In Covid Rise: Five years after Covid-19 hit the United States, officials can largely anticipate how the virus will operate and, with available vaccines, antivirals and at-home tests, the natural seasonal rise in cases is more manageable than at the peak of the pandemic. But public health advocates and researchers worry that recent “mixed messaging” from the federal level on who should get the new batch of Covid-19 vaccines may disrupt that progress. Maryland Matters.
Moore Takes A Leadership Role in Resistance Fighting: At the outset of President Donald Trump’s second administration, Gov. Wes Moore vowed not to be “the leader of the resistance,” but, by last week, Moore was on television telling the leader of the free world to “keep our name out of your mouth.” He discusses how states can lead where Washington fails. He also opens up about clashes with Donald Trump, the challenges of navigating federal politics, and what Democrats must do to deliver real results for working people. WaPo
Moore Admin Falls Short on Climate Goals: When Wes Moore became Maryland’s governor in 2023, he pledged to lead the state into a climate-resilient future by lowering emissions and decarbonizing the economy — and leave no one behind in doing so. But two and a half years into his term, the Moore administration has fallen short on its climate and environmental justice commitments and notably backflipped on progressive policies, a pair of midyear assessments from the nonprofit Maryland League of Conservation Voters concludes. Inside Climate News.
Baltimore Homicides Continue To Drop As Trump Escalates Attacks: The seven homicides recorded in Baltimore last month were the fewest in the month of August on record, helping the city record its lowest homicide total through the first eight months of a year in over half a century, Mayor Brandon Scott said Monday. But that didn’t prevent President Donald Trump from escalating his attacks on what he described Monday in a social media post as “the crime-drenched city of Baltimore.” Baltimore Sun.
O’Malley Blasts DOGE Over 'Pirating” Of Social Security Data: Former Gov. Martin O’Malley, who also headed the Social Security Administration under former President Joe Biden, discusses DOGE employees' unprecedented “pirating away” of Americans’ Social Security data and how it could lead to the “largest class action in American history.” MSNBC.
THE OTHER 49
High on supply at the nearby beach? Not yet… Delaware Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer vetoed a bill that would have loosened regulations dictating where marijuana businesses can locate in the state, likely delaying the growth of the weeks-old industry. The bill would have overruled the decisions of county governments that created more restrictive zoning regulations, Spotlight Delaware reports. This was the first major veto by the first-term governor. Stateline
CALI GIG PACT: Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft have reached an agreement with labor unions in California in a deal that will allow gig workers to unionize. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced the deal that will pave the way for passage of legislation allowing drivers to unionize, and another bill to repeal a requirement that drivers carry certain levels of insurance coverage. (Pluribus News) (paywalled) details in this AP account
BUT: PA: Uber would help fund Pennsylvania transit in exchange for classifying its drivers as independent contractors | Spotlight PA via Stateline
GREEN FEE: A major trade group representing cruise lines from around the world is suing to stop key elements of Hawaii's landmark green fee, which will soon start charging their passengers for time spent in port to help the state combat environmental harm and climate change, Honolulu Civil Beat reports. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the Cruise Lines International Association, argues the new fee is unconstitutional. Stateline
VIRGINIA ‘Dreamers’ now excluded from enrolling in ACA Marketplace, other changes ‘up in the air’ News from the States
States begin to see job losses from Trump’s cuts, housing and spending slowdowns
Virginia and New Jersey have been hit especially hard, a Stateline analysis shows.
Pluribus --- “By the Numbers”
17: The number of states that officially sanction a championship event in high school girls flag football. Another 17 states are operating pilot programs to test the popularity of one of the fastest-growing high school sports in America. (Pluribus News)
21: The number of states, plus the District of Columbia, that are at risk of falling into a recession, according to Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi. (X) [Maryland is called at-risk but the 10th most resilient in Zandi’s chart]
GLOBAL, LOCAL AND THE FEDS
American kids are less likely to reach adulthood than foreign peers Firearms and premature births are among the leading causes of death. Stateline
Labor Day? May Day? The two international days for workers seem in competition, but have very similar origins, as this essay from The Conversation shows.
BUT Labor Day is over, and Megan E of People's Action is back to keep track of Congress (which took August off, tough life) and the unrelenting minions of TrumpWorld, who are unsleeping in their pursuit of public misery and would definitely not be missed if they also took a Euro-length vacation. She's Federal Afffairs director for People's Action and has a substantial catch-up agenda here:
Hello People's Action!
Unfortunately, I came back to an occupied neighboring city. National Guard troops have now been deployed to Washington, DC for 23 days with no end in sight (see take action section for planned actions).
[Early this morning, Tuesday, a momentary hitch in the occupation: "L.A. deployment: A federal judge in California said President Trump broke the law by deploying roughly 5,000 Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June in response to immigration protests. The judge said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Defense Department had violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military to enforce domestic law. NYT Read more ›
In addition to creating police state vibes, inflicting fear in DC residents and assisting ICE with kidnappings of immigrants, the National Guard has been breaking up homeless encampments and arresting unhoused people - at least some are being involuntarily committed to hospitals. An estimated 49 homeless encampments have also been broken up since August 7th, residents having nowhere to go. Encampment residents are given no warning to collect their things and some are being arrested for minor violations such as selling a single cigarette or an open container. One service provider described on a Zoom call described how her coworker witnessed federal agents trying to get an unhoused woman to say she was off her meds as justification for committing her when she was neither mentally ill nor had been prescribed medication.
While some guard members are carrying M4 rifles and patrolling passenger platforms at Union Train Station (an area that has been safe since the early 2000’s), other National Guard members from as far away as Mississippi are landscaping for the National Park Service. The Institute for Policy Studies estimates that the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the national guard being in DC is $1 million a day and that is 4.3 times the daily cost of housing ALL of the unhoused people in DC.
The administration is clearly not interested in solutions to the housing crisis. On July 25th Trump signed an awful executive order on homelessness, adopting policies from Project 2025 that seek to punish unhoused people and move away from the evidence-based housing first approach. The EO calls for reversing policies that prevent the forcible and involuntary commitment of people living with mental illness. Trump also revoked $11.4 billion in funding for states to support mental health and addiction services and proposes to cut the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Just like the cruel and dehumanizing attacks on immigrants, we should expect the attacks on unhoused people to continue and expand to other cities. Targeting, scapegoating and othering of vulnerable communities is core practice of fascist regimes. This Al-Jazeera op-ed “Trump and the global rise of fascist anti-psychiatry” by Eric Reinhart, a psychiatrist and anthropologist, connects the housing EO to HHS Secretary Kennedy's mental health policy and compares these to plans of other far-right regimes (“Far-right politicians often use anti-psychiatry to justify privatisation, eugenics and incarceration.”) “Kennedy’s proposal for federally funded ‘wellness farms”, where people, particularly Black youth taking SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors primarily used to treat anxiety and depression) and stimulants, would be subjected to forced labour and “re‑parenting” to overcome supposed drug dependence.” I encourage you to read the whole piece.
Tech-billionaire Joe Lonsdale (made his money off of Palantir like Peter Thiel) and the Cicero Institute give us further inside looks into how privatization fits into the attacks on people who are unhoused. The American Prospect noted that Cicero’s state model legislation they are pushing includes protections against liability for for-profit entities and their employees operating camps for the homeless that includes grossly negligent conduct (ex. being drunk and causing an accident) or intentional conduct (ex. beating someone up). Under this language a homeless person could basically never sue for being harmed at the camp. On the upside our friends at the National Homelessness Law Center say that 4 out of 5 of these bills have been defeated in the states. The VOCALs and Hoosier Action have been working to defeat these bills in their states.
Last week Trump issued an illegal “pocket rescission” of $5 billion in foreign aid. Congress is coming back from recess today and we’ll see Democrats actually do anything about it. The rescissions whether the clearly illegal administrative rescissions or Congressional passed rescissions (at a 50 threshold in the Senate) are making a sham of the appropriations process. Congress must pass a government funding bill by September 30th with 60 votes in the Senate. It’ll likely be a continuing resolution at this point. Democrats could demand language that blocks rescissions for FY2026. Leader Schumer sent a letter to Democrats that outlines where things stand and says a whole lot of nothing about his strategy moving forward. Senator Elizabeth Warren said they should demand the Medicaid money that was cut out of the Big Ugly Betrayal Act.
If Democrats think young people will save the country, they appear to be wrong. The NY Times reports that more people are registering as Republicans than Democrats, including young people.
“In other words, Republicans went from roughly one-third of newly registered voters under 45 to a majority in the last six years. The story is even bleaker for Democrats in some key states. In Nevada, which releases particularly detailed data, Republicans added nearly twice as many voters under 35 to the rolls as Democrats did last year, state records show. Nearly 49 percent of men newly registering with a major party chose the Democrats in 2020. In 2024, that figure was down to roughly 39 percent… In Florida, a slim 52 percent majority of new Latino registrants who chose one of the two major parties had aligned with the Democrats in 2020. By last year, the party’s share of new Latino voters had collapsed to 33 percent. Democrats fared only slightly better in North Carolina: The party’s share of Latino registrants picking one of the two major parties declined from 72 percent in 2020 to 58 percent last year.”
After the Democratic Farmer-Labor-Party (Minnesota’s branch of the Democratic party) went through their 4 hours delegate voting process to endorse socialist candidate for Minneapolis mayor Omar Fateh, a committee of board members overturned the decision to endorse incumbent candidate, Mayor Jacob Frey. Progressives are seething.
In NY where socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani won the democratic primary, many establishment Democrats are refusing to endorse him, including Democratic minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and current mayor, Eric Adams are running against him as independents.
In better news… Progressive Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is retiring seat joining Rep. Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Evans (D-PA) and Rep. Davis (D-PA) who all represent solidly blue districts. Senators Durbin (D-IL), Peters (D-MI), Shaheen (D-NH) and Smith (D-MN) are also in making way for a younger generation in the Democratic party. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) also joined Senators Tillis (R-NC), Tuberville (R-AL) and McConnell (R-KY) and declining to seek reelection next year. A full list of House members who are retiring or seeking other office is available here.
A new progressive candidate has emerged in Maine to run against tough-to-beat Senator Collins (R-ME). Graham Platner is an oysterman who is Bernie aligned and wants to represent working people and take on the billionaire class. He’s also called out American complicity in the Gaza genocide.
Copied from Ryan Grim’s Dropsite News newsletter:
“Wesley Bell and Cori Bush Eye Rematch: In St. Louis, AIPAC spent more than $10 million last cycle to oust Cori Bush, who was one of the early, leading critics of Israel’s genocide. A recent town hall descended into chaos as Wesley Bell’s security and local police beat constituents who challenged Bell over his support of the genocide.
Casar v. Doggett Match Averted: In Texas, Republican redistricting has attempted to cram Democrats into primaries against each other, and a backroom fight played out in Texas. Austin Rep. Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a critic of Israel, was jammed in with Texas icon Lloyd Doggett, who initially said he’d run no matter what Casar did, pointing to his $6 million war chest. His first mistake came when he suggested that Casar should run in a different district, because he was Hispanic and so were many of the voters—a tone-deaf move that inspired fence-sitting Texas pols to voice public support for Casar. Then David Hogg, who was booted out of the DNC over his plans to support lefty challengers to incumbent Democrats, vowed that he would raise and spend outside money to back Casar dollar-for-dollar against Doggett. Seeing the writing on the wall, Doggett announced he’d instead be running in a Republican-leaning district. That’s great news for Democrats, as Doggett may actually be able to win there, and it means Casar more than likely returns to Washington.
Adelson Money Flooding Dem Texas Senate Race: Texas Democrat James Talarico, a state House member running for Senate, has been showered with money by Miriam Adelson, one of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s [and Trump’s] most generous financial backers… Talarico is facing Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker and member of Congress who has regularly voted to arm Israel, but doesn’t take money from Adelson. (She gave at least a million dollars to Allred’s 2024 opponent, Ted Cruz.)
Allentown: Pittsburgh populist Chris DeLuzio and Sen. Bernie Sanders have gotten behind the head of the local firefighter union leader, Bob Brooks, who is squaring off against a centrist candidate backed by groups like EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect Democratic pro-choice women.”