Winners and losers are still fresh news in the primary election results every day because Maryland makes election offices wait to process mail-in ballots until the polls close. So last Tuesday’s primary was just the beginning. Larry Hogan, having guaranteed that election results would trickle in slowly just in case yahoos needed time to fan claims of fraud, now dismisses his party's chances in the gubernatorial general election and moves serenely on to preach Maryland-style "moderation" with a side of presidential aspirations. But some other news you can use is fighting its way through the muddle. Read it here.

Winners and losers are still fresh news in the primary election results every day because Maryland makes election offices wait to process mail-in ballots until the polls close. So last Tuesday’s primary was just the beginning. Larry Hogan, having guaranteed that election results would trickle in slowly just in case yahoos needed time to fan claims of fraud, now tells a credulous mainstream media that he plans to move on to what reporters straightfacedly describe as “his long-term fight to pull the Republican Party in a different direction.” He has washed his hands of the state party’s chances in the gubernatorial contest now that his hand-groomed successor, Kelly Schulz, was soundly trounced by a Q-Anon fan, Dan Cox, who was endorsed by the master of Mordor – er, Mar-a-Lago. Hogan trundles on to pursue his presidential fantasies with tough-minded press characterizations like “seeking a path for his brand of pragmatic conservatism.”

Marylanders who have had it up to here with eight years of anti-worker and business-coddling GOP administrations peopled with Bob Ehrlich wannabes will be glad to see Hogan’s exit, trailed by the cluster of Facebook labels he constructed for himself through two elections, now being repeated by a fawning media.

Non-election news that is wriggling through the jello-wrestling coverage:

Pa Commits To Bay Cleanup: Pennsylvania’s commitment of $220 million to a new fund dedicated to reducing pollution flowing into state waterways could prove “a remarkable turning point” in Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts, a senior official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. Maryland Matters

Maryland remains a net importer of trained teachers – our universities do not train enough teachers to fill our own needs and after COVID, teachers are leaving the profession around the country in large numbers, cutting our import opportunities. Soooo. Looking For Teachers: School officials in Baltimore City and County are scrambling to fill 1,200 teaching positions before students return to the classroom Aug. 29, 2022. Officials attribute the shortage to plenty of available jobs nationwide, the pandemic, the financial challenges of getting a master’s in education, and the demands of being a teacher. Baltimore Banner

Unsurprising news of last week: Howard Wealthiest County In State; No. 6 Nationwide: Howard County is the wealthiest locality in Maryland and the sixth wealthiest nationwide, according to the U.S. News & World Report. The report analyzed median household incomes and ranked the top 15 localities with the highest numbers. Howard County, Maryland’s sixth-largest county with 332,317 residents in the 2020 census, was reported to have a median household income of $124,042. Baltimore Sun Media.

The push to lift diaper taxes: To help inflation-plagued and struggling families ease the burden of buying necessities, several states are joining Maryland in scrapping the sales tax on infant and adult diapers. , Maryland Matters.

News from the Federal compound in DC as Congress rushes to get something – anything – done before the August recess:

Anyone stepping outside Sunday knows the revenge of the climate has us in its sights, more every day. Activists who hoped Biden would declare a climate emergency argue his response falls far short and are demanding more. Megan Essaheb, People’s Action’s director of federal affairs, said Monday “After the climate and tax provisions of the budget reconciliation died [thanks, neighbor Manchin], there were news reports that Biden was maybe going to declare a climate emergency. Instead, he issued an executive action to boost wind energy production and help low-income families keep cool. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced $2.3 billion in funding for its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program for Fiscal Year 2022 and  Here is People’s Action’s statement calling on the President to declare a climate emergency. 

Homes Guarantee Campaign tenant delegation met with Biden administration officials to push their demands for federal protections for tenants nationwide “Congratulations to the Homes Guarantee campaign for a very successful delegation to DC,” People’s Action reports, “where they met with Consumer Finance Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marcia Fudge and staff at the White House and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Secretary of HUD Marcia Fudge tweeted about her meeting with Homes Guarantee tenant leaders.” Marylanders, where tenant protections and eviction remain a crisis after two terms of a real-estate magnate in the governor’s chair, can join in the demands here

...Also in the Fed file this week,

The Senate is planning to pass its “chips” bill this week, which will invest in semiconductor production in the U.S. It was originally a bigger package of policies framed around “competition with China” with some particularly ugly policies in the Senate and some more progressive pro-labor provisions in the House. The Senate has decided to slim down the package to items that are deemed “not controversial” so the bill is now mainly focused on easing supply shortages of microchips used in computers and cars. Senator Bernie Sanders opposes the bill for being “corporate welfare.”

AND “Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a fierce critic of Amazon’s market power, is urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the e-commerce giant’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of primary health care provider One Medical.” Meanwhile Dem legislators are fighting to keep a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate drug costs in that reconciliation bill mentioned at the top.