One of Maryland's intractable problems -- the shortage of affordable housing and the (therefore) increasing rental hikes across the state -- got tackled by Gov. Moore in his keynote speech at the Maryland Association of Counties meeting last week. It'll be a heavy lift for the state government and private sources to provide more "social housing" but that is emphatically what is needed, and our regular readers should not let him or others off the hook. The private sector is not going to pull this load by itself -- it is not actually in its interest.

Maryland (with the help of its judiciary, which Trump has come to hate) is fending off some of the worst of Trump's assault on human freedoms -- but it's a constant battle, also being fought by some other states.

It's all News You Can Use.

As we rouse ourselves this week we find that we are not alone in suffering under escalating power bills -- and that there seems to be a pattern in the ways mega-corporate power companies keep their ratepayers struggling. Their fellow big tech corporations' data centers, however, get kid-gloves treatment by utilities and by the job-hungry states where they might land.

Meanwhile, Maryland's well-intentioned tax break attempting to get every school kid in appropriate clothes and with needed supplies may have a downside. But just a temporary one, like the tax break. More serious would be the permanent loss of the Beltsville Agricultural Research center as a result of another brainless reorganization-for-its-own-sake move by the Trump gang, all chosen to be as brainless (and compliant to the Big Boss) as his own self. Those with a brain are rallying to keep it here.

Meanwhile, another episode of brainlessness, Trump has taken over law enforcement in DC, his latest attempt to distract attention from the Epstein Mystery. Even with Congress on vacation, it's News You Can Use.

Dear Friend, 

We have a short memo today we we'll get right to the point – Trump’s latest actions in Washington, D.C., are a chilling escalation of his authoritarian agenda. Deploying the National Guard and federal law enforcement under the guise of addressing ‘crime’ is a direct attack on immigrants, unhoused individuals, and those exercising their right to protest. This is a full-on assault on DC residents, businesses, communities, and a violation of its fundamental rights as a city to govern and run itself. Read our full statement on this dangerous overreach and what we’re calling on Congress to do. Let’s stand together to protect our communities and our democracy.

In some better news – yesterday, we were proud to be part of the Renters United Maryland Housing Justice Summit, a powerful and transformative gathering where renters and advocates from across Maryland came together to set the housing agenda for 2026. The energy in the room was inspiring, and the vision we built together will help drive real change for communities across the state.

Read on for more updates and ways to get involved.

In solidarity,

The Progressive Maryland Team

People in the DC suburbs  -- northern Prince George's, specifically -- are breathing a sigh of relief because a pretty unnecessary but locally disruptive sorta-rail pilot project has had its federal funds pulled. It would have meant a VERY expensive 15-minute ride from DC to Baltimore at a construction price ticket of $20 billion; in the sweet buy and buy a one-hour trip DC-NYC for a sum (and a ticket price) one can only imagine. Gov. Moore was a "magnetic levitation" fan, having seen such a wonder in everyday use in Japan, where they know how to do this stuff. Perhaps some improvements to the existing Amtrak right-of-way to NYC and Boston would allow Amtrak's trains to go as fast as they are actually able to. That would be a start.

Also in Maryland: superhot weather, superthunderstorms and flooding (and don't swim in that water); the state's plan to hire laid-off federal workers is crosswise with a state hiring freeze and buyout offers; the race to build solar renewable power while extremely dirty backup generator plants have to be turned on in the hottest of high-demand weather. 

Maryland, like many states, avoiding losing population because of immigration, but the fastest-growing states are in a battle to redistrict House seats to improve their chances in 2026. It is more exciting than baseball (some consider that a low bar).

And speaking of Congress, they have gone home exasperated, having been blocked from mass-appointing Trump Chumps to the federal bench. GOP warriors aim to change the Senate rules to make those appointments debate-free; that sword cuts two ways, election to election, so stay tuned. 

It's News You Can Use, as always. 

TrumpWorld has more and more ways of poking at our sore spots in pursuit of retribution for his imagined insults and injustices: refusal to provide disaster aid to flooded Western MD communities; grasping attacks from public and private right-wing minions on states' lists of registered voters; hyper-aggressive ICE tactics right here in Maryland; two years and out for the housing-threatened; cuts in workplace safety and wage theft enforcement. Whew And EPA is working on a plan to pretend carbon dioxide has no effect on our climate (ask flood victims in Westernport). Plus, as you will see, everyday people in working families pushing back. The beat goes on, and so does the weekly News You Can Use...

Maryland is having to defend its permit for offshore wind development, having kinda let it slide for some years thanks to the good businesspersons of O.C. Now Trump's puppet feds are after them, along with anyone else nationwide who is trying to shift from fossil-fuel dependency. Not a good look. Another bad look: Trump's puppet House committees crashed housing availability to the tune of 400,000 fewer available Section 8 vouchers for low-income renters, making homelessness much more common and throwing big burdens on the states and cities -- that's becoming a clear trend for the Trump forces. 

And Trump wants to see the NFL Commanders change their name back to that racist original or he's promised to intervene in D.C.'s elaborate stadium deal. Maybe Gov. Moore will get to keep the team in Maryland after all. We can imagine how many people will be happy about that.

It's all News You Can Use, palatable or not. 

It's Bastille Day, and in Maryland, state government and its agencies – and people, especially in solidarity mode – fight back against cuts and assaults from TrumpWorld. There are cuts in education already being felt, future cuts in SNAP and Medicaid to brace for and a loss of support for homeless K-12 students even as Maryland’s number grows. Our local states have to hang their heads as the Chesapeake Bay clean-up program lags, but other states are hitting the mark, Maine with new ways to cancel regular-debit subscriptions (while the FTC is bottled up in court) and Oregon with measures to use microgrid technology to make power supply more resilient. So states’ independence has a place. Meanwhile Congress is working on taking back money it already appropriated. Can the states figure out a way to keep revenue at home to replace canceled federal support? That might be next, and it sounds uneasily like 1861,  eh? Allons, enfants de la patrie...

The bill that Trump signed on July 4 is a beast from the pit and will dump extra requirements on state and local governments -- unless they, too, give in, hang their heads and let low-income workers fend completely for themselves. Some will do that; we feature here some who are not. Maryland is making its own moves, other states are also looking for ways to avoid housing market collapse, nutritional and health-care deficits and other human-rights abuses in many locations. The carnage in Texas floods, in which the National Weather Service's huge DOGE staff cuts may have contributed to lack of warning and preparedness, just amounts to the most jarring examples of what the cuts in this bill will do in order to fatten the tax benefits that the rich can send their platoons of lawyers out to reap. We hope this blog post will illustrate both the worst consequences and the most inventive responses of local governments and outraged working people to this devastating Trump assault. It is important now, as noted below, not to be fooled by the GOP timeline that puts off the worst damage until after the 2026 elections. The congressional jellyfish who knuckled under to Trump and voted for this casino-carnival of inequality have got to start paying the price today, and every day. Gear up.

As July 4 approaches, MDOT offers guidelines on how to get to the beach with least traffic. But somehow the holiday is haunted by the threat posed by Congress (with Trump behind them like a Simon Legree, flogging those who stray from the coffle) as it approaches the biggest transfer of wealth from the working class to the already-rich in the history of the United States. Trump's "biggest ever" mantra is not limited to the recently dropped mega-bombs; the limited damage done to Iran's nuclear program ranks as nothing compared to the long-term damage to Americans' well-being brought on by Trump's high-velocity assault on the rights and constitutional protections previously afforded to us. As shown below, Republicans (opponents of bureaucracy) nevertheless "have turned paperwork into one of the bill’s crucial policy-making tools" to knock "people who are legitimate and qualified for Medicaid" off the rolls, enabling the big tax bonus for billionaires. Is it good to be the king? It is, apparently, if GOP members of Congress can be convinced that that's what you are.

In Maryland, the budget morphs with every twitch of Trump's Truth Social trigger finger (imagine announcing a war on social media...). More unemployed Marylanders, vanishing grants and federal funds, more irritating behavior from Himself's hired fan club. Meanwhile Gov. Moore has managed to put himself on a tightrope by vetoing a reparations (study) bill (Boo from the Black Caucus) and proposing grants for impacted communities (Boo, faint with echoes, from GOP legislators). The lawsuit seeking open primaries is a first peep but could have big consequences in the state' VERY closed-in politics. The Bay cleanup is in reverse, as feared, as Trump's EPA averts its gaze. And the state gas tax has "declined" but you have to squint. Other states continue to provide good and bad examples; the Ten Commandments are a popular new decoration for public schools but a judge in Louisiana has squashed it on constitution grounds, imagine that. Mississippi is tired enough of fighting off its own history to exempt high schoolers from getting tested on the past. Moves to say "no thanks" are on in Oregon, which has banned mobilization of the state's National Guard by the feds; in New Jersey concern about data centers that don't bring their own power source, and Montana mulls a ballot measure to forbid corporate money in state elections if the corp. does biz in the state.

National: in the midst of all the bomb-dropping in faraway places, a skill Trump has assimilated from the IDF, the Senate's parliamentarian has given a thumbs-down to significant parts of the GOP's Big Beautiful Ugly Bill that pretty plainly don't have anything to do with making a budget, such as revenge moves against the safety net. See Megan E's roundup, below, for details. The bad news is that it strips out money the GOP faithful were hoping to give to the rich; they'll be prowling for it somewhere else.

Each week brings new fights, which are very tiring when undertaken alone. Be sure to get your community involved, because solidarity is, well, just everything. 

While US Army soldiers paraded downtown in a history pageant illustrating the service's 250-year tenure (reviewed by the 79-year-old Prez, who basked in the reflected glory) Marylanders were declaring independence from kings of any sort throughout the state.

The reverberations of savage federal budget cuts are felt in the state's universities, in housing aid for the poorest, and continued ICE raids. Around the other states we find similar struggles among the Red and the Blue; quite a few Biden energy projects were scratched despite the economic potential they promised in... Red states. Measles spreads from Texas, where folks seem to have caught on about the effectiveness of vaccines, to North Dakota, which hasn't got the memo.

And in DC, while the House is away, the Senate appears inclined to play with the precariously devised Big Beautiful Bill, meaning it might be legislative ping-pong right up to the budget and debt-ceiling deadlines. Do the Dems have an answer? They retain the monopoly on disarray, it seems. The parade continues, with the cars packed with clowns up front.