Midday

In the 2022 US elections across the country, more than 160 Republican primary candidates for offices up and down the ballot are election deniers who have embraced Donald Trump’s malicious fiction about the 2020 Presidential contest.

On Monday (Aug 1), the Brennan Center for Justice in New York reported that 12 election denier candidates in swing states with secretary of state races this year have raised $7.3 million dollars for their campaigns. Overall, more than twice as much money has been raised in this cycle than was raised in 2018.These campaigns are premised in the deliberate fallacy that elections in America are rigged, a fallacy perpetrated by Donald Trump over the last several years.

Tom's guest for the hour today is a seasoned Washington reporter and author who has covered Mr. Trump for the Associated Press, POLITICO and MSNBC. Jonathan Lemire has written a terrific new book that examines the origins and the legacy of Donald Trump’s prevarication.

It’s called The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020. 

Jonathan Lemire is the host of Way Too Early on MSNBC, and the White House Bureau Chief for POLITICO.  He joins us on our digital line from New York…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Last Monday, we talked here on Midday about a proposal by a coalition called Renew Baltimore to have voters approve two charter amendments that would dictate a dramatic reduction in the property tax rate in Baltimore city. The proposal would reduce the rate by 44% over a period of six years, from 2.248% to 1.25% per $100,000 of value.

The property tax rate in the city of Baltimore is roughly twice as high as any other jurisdiction in MD. For decades, candidates for public office in the city have feigned interest in reducing taxes for homeowners and businesses, and some modest reductions have taken place from time to time.

Renew Baltimore thinks that decisive, dramatic action is needed, and they want to enshrine it in the city charter so the annual reductions can’t be reversed by whomever happens to be in elected office at the time.

Last week, Tom spoke with Andre Davis, a former federal judge and Baltimore Solicitor, and the economist Anirban Basu, the CEO of the Sage Policy Group, who are members of the Renew Baltimore Coalition. They spoke in favor of the proposal.

They have been collecting signatures on a petition to bring the matter to referendum in November. They need to collect 10,000 signatures. The deadline for that effort is today (Monday, August 1).

We'd like to continue that conversation today on Midday with two people who oppose the specific plan put forth by Renew Baltimore.

Robert Cenname is the Budget Director of Baltimore City…

Matt Gallagher is the former Chief of Staff for Gov. Martin O’Malley. He’s the President of the Goldseker Foundation...

They both join Tom in Studio A..

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time again for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she spotlights the new production of the hit 1966 Broadway hit musical, Sweet Charity, on stage now at the Cockpit -in-Court Theater, on the Essex campus of Community College of Baltimore County.

Directed at CCBC by Eric Potter, using the original choreography of the show's legendary creator, Bob Fosse, Sweet Charity is a romantic comedy centered on a hapless but determined young woman named Charity Hope Valentine, who is seeking love — and her identity — in 1960s New York City. The Tony Award-winning musical (Best Choreography) has a powerful pedigree, with book by Neil Simon, music by Cy Coleman, and lyrics by Dorothy Fields.

It's based on an original screenplay by visionary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, with Tullio Pinelle and Ennio Flaiano.

Cockpit in Court Summer Theatre presents Sweet Charity now through August 7. For more information and ticketing, follow the theater link.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Next, it's Midday's "Back to the Garden," our seasonal guide to home gardening and plant care...

Joining us now is Carrie Engel, the Greenhouse Manager at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville…

And Farmer Chippy, the founder and farmer at Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm in Northwest Baltimore.

They both join us on Zoom...

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

In health news, more than 100 cases of monkeypox, a rare contagious virus, have been reported in Maryland. More than 4,600 cases have been reported across the US. Vaccines against the disease are effective, but here in the Baltimore area, they are in short supply.

Dr. Letitia Dzirasa is the Health Commissioner of Baltimore City.

Dr. Dzirasa joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest for the hour today is the award-winning author and journalist Mark Leibovich. He was the Chief National Correspondent for the New York Times for 10 years, before moving to The Atlantic three months ago.

He’s the author of four books, including the number one best seller, This Town, in which he chronicles the incestuous relationship between Washington media and the political class.

His latest book, published this month, is another number one best seller that examines the unprecedented and often inexplicable spell cast on the Republican party by Donald Trump, whose demands for fealty and obsequiousness know no bounds. As Leibovich deftly observes, official Washington not only curried favor with Mr. Trump, it groveled with a degree of servility unmatched in American political history.

Leibovich offers an insightful glimpse into a world where Trump’s supporters remain enthralled, despite the revelations of the January 6th Committee, or the ignominy Trump continues to heap upon himself as he repeats, over and over, a medley of malicious lies about the election he lost.

The book is called Thank You for Your Servitude:  Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission. 

Mark Leibovich join us on Zoom from Washington, DC.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

And now, a story about determination and cooperation that led to a good outcome for a city resident, her neighbors, and the city’s plan to redevelop one of Baltimore’s historically Black neighborhoods.

Almost 20 years ago, Sonia Eaddy and her husband Curtis’s home in Poppleton, on Baltimore’s West Side, was scheduled to be demolished to make way for new development. But last week, Mayor Brandon Scott and other city officials announced an agreement had been reached that would allow the Eaddys and some of their neighbors to keep their homes, and make possible a different kind of development that enjoys the support of the community.

Sonia Eaddy joins us on Zoom…

Also with us today is Dr. Nicole King. She is an associate professor and chair of the Department of American Studies and director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC. She is an activist who worked with members of the Poppleton community to help broker the deal that was announced last week. She joins us on Zoom.

And Alice Kennedy is the Baltimore City Housing Commissioner. She also joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It took a few days, and even now, there are some results in the primary election of July 19th outstanding, and races that haven’t been called. The deadline for jurisdictions to report their results is Friday, but historically, that deadline has been somewhat malleable.

In the Republican primary for Anne Arundel County Executive, Jessica Haire has a lead over Herb McMillan of about 1,000 votes. In the Democratic primary for Baltimore County States Attorney, incumbent Scott Shellenberger is still ahead of progressive candidate Robbie Leonard by about 2,000 votes, with about 11,000 votes left to count as of yesterday morning.

The races in primaries to determine the candidates who will oppose 7 of the 8 incumbent Congressmen in the MD delegation have all been called. In the fourth district, Democratic Congressman Anthony Brown did not seek re-election. He has been nominated in the race for Attorney General. The other 6 Democratic incumbents all cruised to easy victories. The lone Republican in the delegation, Andy Harris, ran unopposed.

Joining Tom now is Jean Marbella, an investigative and enterprise reporter for the Baltimore Sun.  She joined the paper in 1987, so she’s seen an election or two.

Jean Marbella joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's next guest is Anthony Barksdale. In 2013, he retired after a career as an interim Commissioner and senior commander in the Baltimore Police Department. Earlier this month, Mayor Brandon Scott appointed him Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. In that role, he will oversee several city agencies including the police department and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. He will be in charge of implementing the Consent Decree between the City and the Justice Department, and he will also implement the Mayor’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan.

Anthony Barksdale joins us on Zoom...and by telephone... from City Hall.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, conversations about reducing violent crime in Baltimore. A little later in the broadcast, Tom speaks with the city’s new Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Anthony Barksdale, who oversees the police and fire departments, the Office of Emergency Management, and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.

But Tom's first guest is Sean Kennedy. He’s a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. He’s written a new report called Baltimore’s Preventable Murders: The Role of Prior Convictions and Sentencing in Future Homicides. which calculates that a number of murders that have taken place in Baltimore in recent years would not have occurred if the perpetrators of those crimes had been incarcerated according to statutory guidelines.

Many of those perpetrators received lesser sentences because of plea bargains, which according to the Vera Institute,“make up the vast majority of criminal justice transactions today.” The Brennan Center reports that we already imprison 2 million people and that “83% of the world’s population of life-without-parole prisoners is living behind American bars.” Would extending sentences for violent criminals make us safer?

Sean Kennedy joins Tom in Studio A…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.