MovementPoliticsTeambannermay2018.jpgAt Progressive Maryland (and with our progressive allies) we work for environmental justice, reform of the criminal justice/policing system  and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth.

 

PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND DAY IN, DAY OUT

Our ideals are broadly and concretely represented by the campaigns we wage. At Progressive Maryland (and with our progressive allies) we work for environmental justice, reform of the criminal justice/policing system  and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth. We are formulating our part in campaigns for Medicare for All (see below) and for education reform in the path being laid out by the Kirwan Commission; Progressive Montgomery recently kicked off its participation in the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools (AROS), a statewide initiative with county-level focus. Progressive Prince George’s has been working in parallel with PGC Educators Association on the AROS agenda and the important Kirwan focus on community schools – there are forty-plus schools in Prince George’s that will become Community Schools in the next two school years. Watch for the next public meeting of the AROS coalition and learn more about the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools at https://reclaimourschoolspg.org

Progressive activism around the Free State, both Progressive Maryland’s action and those of our allied organizations and individuals, are in the Weekly Memo early every week (usually Monday unless a holiday intervenes). It’s a clearinghouse for folks who are building power together; and you can be in that environment of collective action. You can get the Weekly Memo by email; just sign up here.


Medicare for All – progress report

Medicare just turned 54 years old so Join other progressive activists and call to request a hearing on HR 1384

Call the House Committee on Oversight and Reform (chairman is Rep.
Elijah Cummings, Maryland 7th Dist.) Committee: 202-225-5051

And House Committee on Energy and Commerce: 202 225-2927

In late July Rep. Cummings’s oversight committee held a hearing on the impact of exploitative drug prices on patients – a huge factor in the outrageous cost of US health care in the era of wild-west Wall Street unregulated health care. Read the excellent testimony of MoCo resident David Mitchell, who also directs a nonprofit advocacy group for lower drug prices, HERE.

 


OUR CHAPTERS AROUND THE STATE

Progressive Prince George’s

On Saturday, Sept. 7 join Progressive Maryland and 2018 Gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous in Prince George's for an organizing conversation on the issues in our criminal justice system, mass incarceration and the current realities of structural racism in our legal system.

 PMD Montgomery  --  Progressive Montgomery Upcoming Events

A list of power-building events with Progressive Maryland in Montgomery County. Find one that works for you and join us!MovementPoliticsTeambannermay2018.jpg

Frederick County Progressives

Take Action Anne Arundel County

Progressive Howard County

Talbot Rising

Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

PMD Baltimore


EVENTS FROM OUR PROGRESSIVE ALLIES

Monday, September 2 March for Full Employment and Economic Justice 11 AM-2 PM -- demanding that Congress pass a Federal Job Guarantee. Start at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Memorial, 1964 Independence Ave, S.W. to Federal Reserve Headquarters, 1850 K Street, N.W. Sponsored by Our Money; info here.

Wednesday, Sept 11 Greenbelt Climate Action Network A Just Transition from Coal in Maryland 7:00 - 9:00 pm conversation with Matt Dernoga, Maryland Sierra Club Beyond Coal rep, about Maryland's six remaining coal fired power plants. We will discuss their impacts on public health and the climate, and how we can lead the way in Maryland with a just transition to clean energy.  Greenbelt Community Center, Room 114 15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt, MD https://www.facebook.com/events/878344449197887/

For more info, contact Lore Rosenthal, Greenbelt Climate Action Network, [email protected], 301-345-2234

SAT Sept. 14 – 350MoCo town hall on climate action, 11 AM t 1:30 PM, Silver Spring Civic Center https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-emergency-montgomery-countys-response-tickets-66570745893

Sunday, September 29 – The path to single payer health care in Maryland, 1:30 - 4:30 PM at Elkridge Library - 6450 Washington Boulevard, Elkridge, MD 21075 -- Join Senator Paul Pinsky, Chair of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee in the Senate, and Delegate Terri Hill, of the Health and Government Operations Committee in the House, for a discussion of the road map to Single Payer in Maryland.

https://www.facebook.com/events/361641874764169/

Sunday, October 6-- Eastern Shore Environmental Legislative Summit, 1- 4 PM (Doors open at noon) hosted at Washington College - 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620
The Eastern Shore is ground zero for climate change in Maryland. It is here where we need to make a stand for ourselves and our children. Explore the issues that face the Shore (and the state), what steps have been taken, and what obstacles we must overcome to defeat the existential crisis of Climate Change and other pressing environmental issues. https://www.facebook.com/events/361641874764169/


Baltimore progressives, Check in on Max Obuszewski’s highly useful activist calendar and tip sheet at http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/


 Reading the Progressive Maryland BlogSpace: our blogs for the previous week are shown below, but if you want a handy way to keep track – and never miss a blog post – you can sign up to get this Weekly Memo by email. Remember this is your blogspace and your participation is heartily invited. See something going on that you don’t like – or that you do like and hope to see more of? Send us your thoughts; submit to the moderator at [email protected]

We recently published these blog posts:

August 23, 2019 Panel to fight high drug prices in Maryland stalled by Hogan while activists nationwide call for #PeopleOverPharma

While activists fight around the country to lower the prices greedy Big Pharma charges for high-priced drugs, an innovative panel in Maryland to cut those excessive prices is stalled by the governor's refusal to release its appropriated funding.

August 20, 2019 BATTLE LINES DRAWN FOR STRUGGLE FOR BETTER SCHOOLS IN MD -- $$$ AT ISSUE

Gov. Larry Hogan has waved the no-tax flag in front of his base at the Maryland Association of Counties beach blast in Ocean City. Assembly Democrats are digging in for a fight to improve the state's schools in spite of Hogan's resistance.

August 19, 2019 Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, August 19, 2019

Medicare for All remains atop this week’s agenda as we tackle the deep need in Maryland and around the nation for comprehensive, universal health care – and the three Maryland members of Congress who have not joined the 118 Democratic co-sponsors of HR 1384, Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersburger and David Trone. We challenged Rep. Hoyer to sign on at our Town Hall this past Saturday, as you see below (and you can watch it preserved on livestream).


>>REMEMBER – these blog posts are frequently expressions of political opinion from our wide-ranging membership and circle of allies. They are not expressions of opinion by Progressive Maryland. Don’t be surprised if they sometimes vary in their political content. You might even disagree with them – a good reason to contribute a blog of your own. Send it to the moderator, Woody Woodruff, at [email protected].

>>Keeping up with the blogs is easier with the index. The blogs published in the PM BlogSpace from June 2015 through December 2016 are all available with descriptions and links here. You can follow blogs for 2017-18 starting from here

 

 

 

woody woodruff

About

M.A. and Ph.d. from University of Maryland Merrill College of Journalism, would-be radical, sci-fi fan... retired to a life of keyboard radicalism...