Commentary

The Maryland Democratic Party is giddy. Two national political handicapping websites, The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, recently took early assessments of the 2022 political landscape and rated the Maryland gubernatorial election as a very good pickup opportunity for the Democrats. The state Democratic Party and the Democratic Governors Association last week sent out fundraising emails boasting about it.

You may have heard of the toxic chemicals used in Teflon, but you may not know that these largely unregulated “PFAS” (short for polyfluoroalkyl substances) can be found in many products you use every day, and even in your body. FAS are a class of more than 9,000 chemicals used to make products grease- or waterproof. These man-made chemicals don’t break down in the environment, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.” The toxins build up in our blood over time, a dangerous and potentially lethal combination.

In their heyday, nearly 1 million Black farmers in America tended crops and raised livestock with ownership of total farmland peaking at 14% a century ago. The story is vastly different today, and farming as a strong livelihood for African Americans is now a distant memory. The same land enslaved people from Africa were forced to work to the benefit of a generation of wealthy white landowners is now out of reach for most Black families, thanks to decades of systemic racism and discriminatory practices by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others.

It may seem, at long last, like money is raining down on our underfunded public schools. Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of the landmark Blueprint for Maryland’s Future funding has been overridden. A trifecta of federal COVID-19 relief and recovery packages is here or on its way (the two so far total over $1 billion in aid to Maryland schools). On top of that, the General Assembly has already enacted a supplemental budget bill, in advance of the full state budget, that adds $150 million in state funds for schools.

President Biden’s approval rating sits daily somewhere between 52% and 60%. His American Recovery Act is supported by 75% of the American public, including 59% of Republicans. And 70% support the president’s response to COVID 19. To put these numbers in perspective, the host of “White House Celebrity Apprentice” never surpassed 50% during the show’s four-year run. As Buffalo Springfield once suggested, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Well, it may be clearer than we think.