Maryland’s Bait-and-Switch on Disability Funding: Don’t Be Fooled

The Moore-Miller administration is engaging in a deliberate misinformation campaign regarding their so-called restoration of funding for the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA). Their latest press release claims that they are only cutting funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 by 6%. To the untrained eye, that might seem like a reasonable compromise. But let’s break this down.

Maryland’s fiscal year ends on June 30. This means that this “restored” funding only extends for four more months—until June 30, 2025. What happens after that? FY 2026 begins on July 1, and the Moore-Miller administration has conveniently ignored that looming reality. There has been no commitment to restoring full funding beyond this brief window.

The Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) is Maryland's primary state agency responsible for funding community-based services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Established to ensure that these individuals have the support needed to lead fulfilling lives, the DDA collaborates with various stakeholders to provide resources that promote inclusion, participation, and active citizenship. In recent years, the DDA has faced significant financial challenges. Beginning in 2021, the agency started exceeding its annual budget, with notable spending surges in 2023 and 2024. Analysts have struggled to pinpoint the exact causes of this overspending, but contributing factors include new caregiver payment methods, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising program and administrative costs.

This is a classic bait-and-switch tactic. As someone who has spent my entire adult life working in Maryland politics, I can recognize the playbook: trick the disabilities community into believing that funding has been restored, run out the clock on the legislative session (and therefore the appropriations process), and then, when July rolls around, bury the issue under political distractions—most likely grandstanding against the Trump administration. By then, it will be too late. The General Assembly will be out of session, meaning there will be no immediate way to allocate more money for DDA programs.

I am a Democrat. When I ran for office, I was endorsed by progressive organizations, labor unions, and immigrant rights groups in part because of my fierce advocacy for disability funding and caregiver rights. I also personally know many people working in this administration. In good faith, I have remained silent on many political matters, hoping that—despite being some of the worst people I know—they would at least govern well.

But this is unacceptable. These are real people’s lives. Not being able to pay caregivers a living wage means families like mine will be forced to make impossible choices—giving up careers, sacrificing financial stability, and struggling to provide 24/7 care that no single person can reasonably handle alone.

Just last week, a program director broke down crying on the phone with me for an entire hour. They had to inform disabled clients that their DDA-funded services would soon disappear. Many of these individuals can barely speak, feed themselves, or move independently. They are disabled for life. The programs that serve them are not luxuries; they are lifelines. They provide dignity, community, and inclusion. The Moore-Miller administration is willing to rip all of that away—unless the press and grassroots activists fighting them today continue to hold their feet to the fire.

Let’s be clear: the Moore-Miller administration’s latest announcement is dishonest, manipulative, and condescending. This is nothing more than performative virtue signaling, meant to pacify critics without making any real commitment to our most vulnerable citizens.

We in the disabilities community will not be fooled. Additionally, I fear that by speaking out, my own family may face retaliation. My siblings, who rely on DDA-funded services, could be targeted through bureaucratic neglect or delays as a way to silence me. This would be an unforgivable abuse of power, and I will be watching closely for any signs of retribution.

Do better, Wes Moore and Aruna Miller. Not everything in life is a photo op.

For more detailed information on this ongoing issue, consider reviewing the following articles:

• Developmental Disability Budget Cuts Delayed for Now, but Still Loom for Next Year

• State of Maryland Proposing Historic $200 Million Cuts for DDA

• Moore, Legislators Delay Deep Cuts to Developmental Disabilities Services

• Advocates Fight Cuts to Maryland’s Disabilities Agency

These sources provide comprehensive insights into the challenges facing the DDA and the potential impact of the proposed budget cuts on Maryland's disability community.

Walking in Memphis: A Reflection on the Soul of America in Age of Trump 2.0.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

• President Trump's agenda has shaken the pillars of American democracy and the rule of law. But we’re not the first generation to face oppression. The key is not to give up simply because he made any of us blink.

• Was the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll a DEI hire? Elvis Presley’s life serves as an unexpected but poignant lens for understanding how Americans can stay true to who we are as a people while confronting the new Pharaoh in town.

• Activism burnout is real. Like Elvis, sometimes we’ll need to forgive others being performative in their solidarity; other times, we ourselves must be ready confront the devil in the flesh.

The New Normal

We are now 21 days into the new presidential administration in the United States of America. So far, President Trump has wasted little time delivering on his campaign promises of quick and dramatic changes to Washington DC, pushing forward his policy agenda with a strong focus on consolidating power and authority. Much like Richard Nixon, whom Trump has openly admired, these early moves reflect a determined approach to reshaping Washington. Many across the land are filled with fear—not only for their future and livelihoods but also for the fate of our great nation. A sense of hopelessness is in the air, as I hear from friends on the left, right, and center alike, all of whom seem resigned to a grim future.

Shock & Awe

Trump Declares War on Dora the Explorer

Many point to President Trump’s harsh approach to foreign relations with some of our closest allies, and others are heartbroken by actions that seem to violate constitutional norms, like shuttering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the chaos resulting from the dramatic shutdown of USAID. Far from least on anyone’s mind are the Pharaoh-like hunting of children and parents born to the wrong family and in the wrong parts of the world by immigration authorities who are no longer restrained by the formalities of previous administrations, including deportations at sensitive public spaces such as churches, schools, and hospitals.

The fear gripping immigrant families in cities like Chicago—where ICE raids have forced children to stay home from school, and community life has come to a standstill—echoes the cycles of neglect and violence decried in Elvis Presley’s song In the Ghetto. It is a cruel irony that a president who so admires Elvis seems indifferent to the societal wounds that Presley’s music so poignantly captured. In just three short weeks, America’s massive federal government has awakened like a military parade—where goose-stepping is non-optional. Despondency seems to define the mood of our huddled masses, yearning for dignity, integrity, and freedom.

““Even if Judgment Day is upon you and you have a seed in your hand, plant the seed.” ”

— Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

A Moral Reflection

And yet, I am reminded of the wisdom in the words of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh): "Even if Judgment Day is upon you and you have a seed in your hand, plant the seed." This serves as a powerful reminder that even amidst despair, our small, hopeful actions can create ripples of change. Perhaps because of my open and public faith in God, I see things differently. Much as the preacher Paul saw beauty in the ugliest of Roman punishments (the crucifixion) for those who loved Christ’s life and words, I see a redeeming American quality in how we respond to the worst impulses of the Trump administration. Rather than allowing America to be defined by the new draconian militancy we see in Washington, I believe we can and should be defined by how we act consciously and collectively to protect our constitution and laws. A defining test for our generation of American policymakers and leaders is how we proactively reach out to those we disagree with, regardless of how vehemently.

As Moses confronted the oppression of Pharaoh, Christ condemned the Moneylenders at the Temple, and Muhammad spoke truth the powerfully unjust elites of Mecca, we too now have a moral obligation to directly serve due notice on the policies of the Trump administration. As the Gospel says, “Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Or as God instructs in the Quran, “Speak to [Pharaoh] gently so that he may take heed or show respect” (20:44 – Abdul Haleem Translation).

Elvis, Nixon and…Trump?

“People, don’t you understand The child needs a helping hand Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day...”

— In the Ghetto, Elvis Presley (1969)

A few days before Christmas in 1970, the King of Rock-n-Roll came to the White House to meet with one of Donald Trump’s personal heroes, President Richard M. Nixon. It was an odd meeting. A year earlier, Elvis had released the hit single In the Ghetto, openly lamenting America’s failure to invest in the working poor:

People, don't you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day...

The song continues:

And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight

The ballad concludes with the young man’s death after a life fueled by poverty, humiliation, hate, and societal indifference. Nixon, whose own farm boy youth was filled with tragedy and impoverishment, was known to lack sympathy for America’s urban poor. Despite this, Nixon received Elvis warmly, and the two discussed ideas on how to influence America’s youthful baby boomers to make better choices for their personal lives than the heartbreak offered by drug addiction. Less than seven years later, Elvis tragically died from his own battle with addiction to prescription drugs. He was only 42. In 2018, during his first term in office, President Trump posthumously awarded Elvis Presley the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Here lies the beauty of American contradictions: two conservatives admired a socially conscious celebrity with a libertine streak. In turn, Presley sought to save others from the dark path that eventually claimed his own life.

Elvis: How Diversity Gave Rise to a King

I see Elvis’s inspiring impact on two Republican presidents and his call to policy action in his last decade of life as an important bridge across the chasms in America today. The quintessential American icon was defined and shaped by his role as the connector of diverse American communities. During his teenage years in Memphis, Elvis helped Jewish families on the Sabbath by performing tasks forbidden to them, like carrying groceries, turning electric lights on and off, and completing physical labor. His deep respect for his childhood home of Tupelo’s black gospel community and later Memphis Jazz musicians influenced his own ballads and melodies. He collaborated regularly with black musicians, and while he was publicly silent during the Civil Rights movement, he recorded If I Can Dream in 1968 as a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and message. Like all human beings, Elvis was flawed, but like most Americans, he tried to do the right thing when he could.

A Very American Lesson

Here is the lesson for the rest of us: we need not lead every protest, join every direct action, or challenge every act of institutional terror visited upon us in the days to come. We must simply commit to speaking truth to power on behalf of those who cannot, help those in need when and where we can afford to, and when possible, join forces with one another in public (and private) to do what is right. For perhaps, God will change the hearts of the oppressors. Insha’Allah.

Conclusion

I see today in America a beauty to behold in the painful stations of the collective crosses each one of us is being forced to bear. Like nearly all of Christ’s apostles, we are far from perfect. But even with our flawed approach to goodness, our belated efforts of collective action and lukewarm embrace of social justice and helping our fellow creations, we still keep trying to do the right thing. Elvis knew his addiction was killing him, and he sought save other from his fate. He was silent when John Lewis and other civil rights activists were beaten down on the Bridge to Selma. Yet he released If I Can Dream in memory of Martin Luther King Jr, and often violated segregation laws himself to spend time with his black friends in the Deep South. He never voted in a presidential election, but just as Richard Nixon won the White House, he released In the Ghetto, whose lyrics echoed slain presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy’s concern for the welfare of America’s most impoverished and ignored citizens.

As we face the coming weeks, months, and years, each of us must confront a defining question: how will we stand up to the excesses of the new Pharaoh, speak truth to power, challenge his stark vision for America, and still appeal to people of different thinking than ourselves? This is not just a matter for history books—it is a matter of who we are as a people and what we want America to stand for. We may not have all the answers, and we may not always act perfectly, but like Elvis—flawed, imperfect, yet striving for redemption—each of us has a role to play in making the country we love a better place. E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, we are (still) One.

WAMU 88.5 to Convene Emergency Staff Meetings via Zoom Today.

For those of you not following the shocking developments tonight at WAMU 88.5, the NPR affiliate ordered its online presence frozen, and all of it staff have been summoned to an emergency meeting at 9:00AM tomorrow.

They are financially sound as an organization. Last year they had a 750k surplus, which was the best in several years. They continued to grow membership, and their car donation numbers have been steady for the past decade. Details can be found here.

However, 88.5FM is *technically* owned by American University, which houses the legendary news station and public radio outlet on its campus. American University, like many universities save for a tiny segment of elite schools, is seeing dramatically shrinking enrollment. The university has a serious budgetary shortfall resulting from want of tuition dollars. If I had to venture a guess, the announcement set for tomorrow morning likely has to do with that relationship, and how it impacts the future of the radio station.

You can read more about American University's finances in this article by The Eagle.

But, I could be wrong. While WAMU is in a healthy financial position, and is only 7 weeks into the new fundraising year, there could be challenges resulting from rumored layoffs by National Public Radio (NPR) itself. WAMU is an affiliate of the NPR network. Or, perhaps a review or audit of finances has shown WAMU to be in not the healthy financial picture it has reported in its annual reports. Those reports can be found on their website. In the meantime: NPR’s offices will be locked and closed tomorrow, and most their internal systems’ functionality has been locked for all NPR staff. Odd behavior, to be sure.

Either way, we’ll know tomorrow morning.

On Democracy & Governance

It has been over two years since I last wrote here. I am writing today to share some good news. I am now a Hoya.

The Hilltop at dusk

Earlier this month, I began my first semester as a graduate student at Georgetown University. Georgetown is the world’s preeminent school for the study for International Relations. My master’s degree will be in Democracy & Governance, a hybridized program that contextualizes the role of democratic government on a global scale. I was previously a visiting student with the program in 2019.

I decided to attend graduate school for several reasons. Having worked in electoral politics since I was a teenager, as well as legislative advocacy and governmental reform, I have become increasingly concerned with democratic backsliding and corruption here at home in the US. I believe the issues of political corruption, unethical judicial misdealings and political grandstanding with little meaningful policy progress are a clear and present danger to American democracy. Second, freedoms guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are in jeopardy across the world today. Third, I believe that to improve governance, one needs to study the art of governance. Together, those reasons brought me back to Georgetown.

To me, there is little doubt that democracy at home is in serious jeopardy. Abuse of power, corruption scandals and deliberate efforts to silence or intimidate the electorate have become the new political norm across the United States and even in my home state of Maryland. The very political prosecution of the exonerated Adnan Syed and the ongoing corruption sagas involving local governments across the state clearly make the case that democracy must be defended and protected, lest it be hijacked by dubious characters of ill-repute—a phenomenon called “state capture”. America’s place in the world hinges on whether we can master good governance and whether we can truly live up to the words “Land of the Free”. We have a lot of work ahead of us to restore our democracy and usher in good governance.

But, so too is democracy abroad. Earlier this year, Pakistan’s ineffective yet very popular prime minister Imran Khan was brought down and imprisoned by a cabal of Punjabi generals who were desperate to bail out their country’s economy. Several Western African democracies have fallen in recent months due to accusations of French imperialism and mounting domestic disaffection. Indian democracy has never been more imperiled as the ruling BJP continues its assault on freedoms at home, and now abroad (as Canada now alleges). Global democratic change all hinges on whether Americans can restore faith in our own institutions at home.

My brother Hassan is a major Georgetown fan.

He and my sister have insisted I go there for school for years.

I want American democracy to thrive. Here in Maryland, it is not, largely due to corruption. Last year, only half of Marylanders cast a ballot in our gubernatorial elections. Over the past summer, two Montgomery County Public Schools officials were convicted of theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school system. Just last month, the mayor of College Park (home to the University of Maryland) pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of child pornography possession. Less than a week ago, a Montgomery County Council staff person was put on administrative leave for theft of services and abuse of power. Meanwhile, an ongoing investigation continues into dozens of claims of sexual harassment and misconduct by a school principal who seemingly kept falling upwards in terms of promotions. Finally: nearly half of all of Montgomery County’s legislators have been appointed by a shadowy political body with a history of tax scandals.

I am of course leaving out several major scandals involving Maryland in the past year that have made national headlines, mostly because local reporting just doesn’t get enough coverage. The point I am driving at is this: a small, dangerously out of touch political elite is demolishing local democracy across Maryland, and are now bulldozing responsible governance, in order to maintain the illusion that they somehow have power. I believe I need an education in what a strong democracy and good governance looks like from Georgetown to help us right our listing ship back home.

And that is exactly what I intend to do.

This is what bad people do to coffee. #AllBlackMovement

I will be writing frequently going forward about Maryland, public policy ideas and the challenges we face to getting our state and country back on track. From time to time, I will also write about foreign politics and international affairs. I will try and not spend too much time talking about coffee and why Yemeni beans are the world’s finest, but it will come up.

I also will share more about my life, and case studies of my past work in electoral politics, media advocacy, and community organizing. Folks often ask “what is it exactly Hamza does again?” and “where the hell did Hamza disappear to?”. The answers my friend, are not blowing in the wind. They’ll be posted right here on my blog.

Before I go, a special thank you to my friends Asma, Bill, Rachel, Scott, Mike, Roni, Matt, Ashton, Rob and Yamil who have never stopped believing in me. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you. And finally: Alhamdulillah.

A Reflection on Media Trends & Millennials.

TLDR: Another Hamza ("Hot Takes") Insights on the World Post.

I like to divide my generation, Millennials, roughly into two segments:

-The Ren & Stimpy Cohort

-The Avatar Cohort

Let's start with the first group, The Ren & Stimpy Cohort.

For those of you unfamiliar, The Ren & Stimpy Show was a cartoon rooted in gratuitous violence, desensitization to unsanitary behavior, and riddled with stereotyping, and normalization of bullying. There are people who like the show, there are *a lot* of people who do not like the show. Regardless, it set the tenor & tone of social behavior for many middle & upper-middle-class young people in the US (it was only syndicated on cable). It originally aired in 1991.

The show's impact was huge, and cannot be understated. While there is truth to the idea that the show also took on adult hypocrisy, and the Sallingeresque phoniness of product marketing and American popular culture, it inculcated an entire swathe of young Americans with a sense of gross entitlement, "me" culture, and acceptance of bullying. My *very strict* parents banned it in our household when I was five, but school friends often referenced the show, and acted out its emotional abuse on people around them. It also normalized the "whining" or "take out your rage in any way accept constructive self-improvement" that older Americans often like to grouse about Millennials.

Now, let's talk about the Avatar cohort.

The Opening Credits to Avatar: The Last Airbender

14 years later, Nickelodeon decided to take a gamble on Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was the only time since the "Chan Clan" cartoons by Hanna-Barbera that the entire main cast of characters was of Asiatic background. It was the *first time* ever a person with a disability (one of the main characters is blind) was featured prominently. The show focused on major life lessons: friendship, team work, test-taking anxiety, responsible and irresponsible adults and teens, family problems, and personal redemption stories (the bad guys often change their ways after traumatic journeys that mimic real-life scenarios -- if we could control air, fire, water and earth with our hands lol). It also fostered a strong sense of cross-generational tolerance and friendships, something that was deemed "weird" by older Millennials.

While I was starting college during the original run of Avatar, I grew up in a family-oriented environment. My sister, brother and I watched the show every single week when I would come home, and loved the storyline. We also appreciated that as minorities ourselves, the cast of characters had names or racial demographics that made us feel included (even if we are not East Asian). The show ended with the major antagonist, who had been acting out because of childhood trauma, teaming up with the major protagonist to do good. When you're late teenager in college, you identify a lot with that, and the show fundamentally changed the way I viewed how to forgive and how to redeem.

These two very different models of American socialization, the pro-bully, pro-violence, pro-othering through taunts and abuse approach of Ren & Stimpy, and the pro-inclusion, pro-redemption, pro-pluralism approach of Avatar, have come to symbolize the very different ways Millennials communicate and operate in the world around us. Those with an affinity for the latter show (or who grew up watching it), generally seem to have a much more robust sense of self-responsibility, proactive service to others, and forgiveness. Those who were reared on the latter by largely irresponsible parents who didn't bother to monitor what their kids were watching (yes, I'm judging you), well you can take it from there just from that loaded statement.

The major theme to take away from reading this blog post is the following: words matter, media messaging matters, and responsible parenting always matter. It used to take a village to raise a child. Now it takes a smartscreen, and a whole lot of discipline & example-setting by the adults in one’s life.

America is Going Blue.

This was originally shared on my Facebook timeline at 11:08 am yesterday, Wednesday, November 4, 2020. It is shared here for the purposes of record.

GA will probably flip.

MI is going blue

WI is going blue

PA is likely going blue.

NV is going blue.

AZ had a very bad break-up w/ an abusive GOP and is going blue.

NE is throwing in one chip to blue.

Calm down, Democrats.

This was originally shared to my Facebook Timeline around 1:30am on Wednesday, November 3. It is posted on my blog for record.

America is home to 3,000-some counties, each with their own peculiar way of doing things, like how often they update their ballot counts, who updates them and where they update them. One of the most fiercely fiesty jurisdictions in America is Delaware County of Pennsylvania. Indeed, all of Pennsylvania's counties have the tendency to just not follow directions well. It's why New Jersey's turnpike is so strict--they want to punish Pennsylvania joyriders for making their lives miserable all the time. This really bad tendency to not take directions well also drives producers at national news outlets insane every four years, because no one really knows how that crazy place will end up voting. I blame the Shoefly Pie.

But I digress. Basically, millions of the potentially 7 million ballots in the state that Maryland lost a war to *right before* independence (lolz) have not been tabulated. Many of those votes are in blue constituencies or constituencies that don't exactly leap at the idea of a man grabbing their cheerleaders by their genitals. The point is: there is likely a red mirage at work.

Look closely at vote totals and trends nationwide, they generally follow the pattern of 2018--that southern states that should never have been in play are much closer than usual, and that increasingly the paths for Trump to win are not materializing.

Take it easy, and please: *STOP* texting me for political updates. I am sleeping. I have gotten out of bed twice now, and found 121 messages (seriously, what the hell is wrong with all of you?!). I want to sleep. God didn't give me Brad Pitt's looks or Salman Khan's abs. I must sleep to earn either.

Georgia Election Update (10:55:45AM)

Georgia’s state election officials are holding a press conference right now, as we speak.

“An accurate & fair count is much more vital than having a fast count.” - GA election official

-This is the first time in 20 years that Georgia has used paper ballots.

-"Like all of you, [election workers] are tired." -GA state elections official

-There are absentee ballots from our overseas military voters and provisional ballots that need to be tabulated

-60,000 ballots remain uncounted.

-"No one is involved in voter fraud." -- emphasized with emotion by a very tired state director for elections right now in Georgia.

-"Accuracy matters. The only way any side will be satisfied is by us being as accurate as possible with these votes."

-Every county in Georgia has been supplied a "high-capacity" ballot scanner in anticipation of how much interest there has been in this election.

Elected Officials Call on Maryland Governor to Cancel Rent & Mortgage Payments

Just over a third of Maryland’s State Delegates have signed a letter organized by Silver Spring’s Delegate Jheanelle K. Wilkins calling for rent and mortgage payments to be suspended by Maryland’s Governor Larry P. Hogan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maryland is currently under a state of emergency thanks to the Novel Corona Virus, during which time the state governor (arguably one of the most powerful governorships in the land) has the authority to stay derogatory debts from causing real harm to tenants and homeowners.

Currently, foreclosure actions and evictions have been stayed by the Maryland Court of Appeals and a separate decree by the Governor, who is using his emergency powers as laid out by law to do so. However, staying these legal proceedings does not waive their due payment on the first of every month. In other words, rents and mortgage payments remain due, will compile with interest and late fees, with derogatory credit all but guaranteed. This situation is what has triggered the call by Delegate Wilkins and others for Governor Hogan to further use his emergency powers to waive the collection and due payment of rents and mortgages.

Progressives Lead the Call for Change

Nearly half of formerly prosperous Montgomery County’s state legislators signed on, with a number of signatories being from neighboring, economically ascendant Prince Georges County. Last year, Gorgeous Prince Georges County became Maryland’s dominant economic engine after 12 years of stagnant growth and mismanagement at the highest levels of Montgomery County’s government. The mismanagement of the county’s government led to the arrest and conviction of then-County Executive Ike Leggett’s Chief Economic Advisor for embezzling millions.

Past Foreclosure Crises & Political Indifference

Montgomery County’s economic future has been hazy for some time. Some 12,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the aftermath of The Great Recession. Moreover, during the same spell of time, Maryland was the country’s foreclosure capital as the O’Malley administration did little to assist struggling homeowners through administrative or legislative means. A second wave of the foreclosure epidemic struck in 2014, again with Governor O’Malley doing little to assist Marylanders as he tried to raise his profile for a run for president. Countless Marylanders lost their homes while elected officials looked on at posh fundraising dinners for the re-election campaigns.

Millennials & Diversity Rising

That all began to change in the wake of the 2016 election of Donald Trump. A new, diverse cadre of elected officials emerged victorious in the state’s 2018 elections with a mind to challenge the state’s image as an establishment heartland. Progressive voices in the House of Delegates like Joseline Pena-Melnyk, Wanika K. Fisher, C.T. Wilson, Jheanelle K. Wilkins, and Vaughn Stewart have begun an aggressive campaign to change the harsh unequal realities that Maryland has become known for throughout the country thanks to HBO shows like The Wire and Netflix documentaries such as The Keepers and Dirty Money, not to mention NPR’s Serial Podcast. Few states of Maryland’s population size have had that much continuous negative national coverage in so short a time.

Economic Malaise is now the Maryland Way

Maryland’s economic health is ranked 37th out of 50 in the country by Wallet Hub, and the state’s foreclosure rate was well above the national average months before the COVID-19 crisis. Per the federal government, nearly 5 in 100 homeowners with a mortgage were in foreclosure during the height of the Great Recession a decade ago. Mortgage industry data strongly suggests another foreclosure crisis far greater in scope than the 2008 one is on the horizon as we speak. That suggests that Delegate Wilkins and her colleagues have made the right call to put public interest above private profits.Millennials and Gen Z Marylanders have essentially never seen economic stability in their lifetimes.

Read the letter here.

Merry Christmas

Christmas—western and traditional (orthodox) is my favorite holiday of the year. 

The scant historical evidence strongly suggests Jesus Christ was born in springtime. Muslims believe the Anointed One was of a monophysite human nature (he wasn’t divine). The Quran states Mother Mary gave birth to him under a palm tree. 

What does not change from faith to faith, and culture to culture is the miracle that a young man taught the universality of God’s love, and the rejection of accumulating wealth without social and political justice.

The story of Jesus Christ is perhaps the greatest parable in the Western canon of the power of the oft-maligned professions of teacher (rabbi) and community organizer (messiah). Christ faced down corrupt social institutions, indifferent and unrepresentative government, crushing poverty and a broken justice system that penalIzed women and minorities out of spite and political convenience. Even after an unjust death sentence, he rose again to prove that the arc of history is long—but it will always bend to Justice.

In these trying times where a literal King Herod and Jezebel occupy the White House, we would do well to ponder how we will honor the Christian spirit of the season. 

Merry Christmas.

Montgomery County Has a Chance to Lead the Country on Comprehensive Police Reform

Despite the rather ominous title, the proposal I favor in this post is more or less conciliatory in nature rather than confrontational. As the grandson and nephew of policemen, I understand and value the role law enforcement play in helping keep everyday people safe. But we live in times where intentions, actions, missteps and reactions thereof can all have potentially deadly consequences for citizens. Some might say that has always been the case. However, as a democratic society, we are supposed to praise the idea that no one is above the law—including those who enforce it.

That is why I support the Young People’s Amendment to County Council Bill 14-19, which would ensure that at least two young people under the age of 35 would be included in any future Policing Advisory Commission (PAC), as proposed in the original bill. The fact is that in any given month, a majority of stops and arrests in the county by MCPD are of people belonging to that particular age range (under 35). As a millennial myself, I have a hard time believing that I am somehow more inclined towards criminality than someone over the age of 35. Therefore, I see the value in making sure people of my age and background have a voice in helping to advise our police force on how we can work together to both reduce crime and the likelihood of young people spending the best years of their lives behind bars.

While one elected official tried to make claims that young people should instead be placed on an imaginary youth council that does not exist, others like Tom Hucker and Will Jawando have been strong champions of the proposal. I think it merits our attention as county residents, and it would be a positive first step for Montgomery County.

Tunisia's Democratic Experiment

While in Tunis, I stayed in an old mansion owned by the former Bey of Tunisia, just footsteps from Ibn Khaldun’s childhood seminary.

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Tunisia along with a group of brilliant academics from the Democracy & Governance program at Georgetown University. The country has undergone some immense changes in the past decade, not the least of which is that it alone has emerged from the smoldering ruins of the “Arab Spring” as a democracy. The experience was incredibly rewarding for me personally, as I have been fascinated with Tunisia since my time at a journalism startup, called Cont3nt (pronounced “Content”), where I recruited and handled confidential news sources from within Tunisia during the Jasmine Revolution.

This week, the folks at Georgetown University were kind enough to allow me to publish my thoughts about Tunisia’s third election since becoming a democracy on the website of the Journal of Democracy & Society.

Earlier this week, the Arab terrorist known as Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was killed in the troubled region known as the Eastern Arab World. For the past 100 years in that part of the world, several millenarian movements have attempted to set up a universal Sunni Caliphate headed by an ethnic Arab to rule over all Muslims and do war with non-Muslims. That effort has largely opposed the idea of democracy, spurning it as an unholy form of government devoid of divine sanction. Baghdadi was famous for bringing together religious extremists with secular Arab nationalists known as the Ba’ath to further his goals for a Caliphate based in the Arab world.

Tunisia was once home to Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam’s greatest legal scholars and historians. He also happened to be one of the fathers of the Western Arab World (the “Maghreb”)’s philosophical tradition. While in Tunisia, I was lucky enough to pray daily in the mosque where Ibn Khaldun studied theology in the old medina of Tunis. While there, I spent a great deal of time chatting with the locals about the challenges the country has faced regarding the country’s democratic transition.

Arab Extremist Movements Don’t Reflect the Reality of Islam or the Arab & Muslim World

Extremists largely from the eastern regions of the Arab World have tried to steer Muslims away from democracy. They believe that only a pure-blood Arab can rule over Muslims as the Caliph of Islam. However, despite the success of extremists at global terrorism, most Arabs & Muslims across the world revile these extremists.

The battle between Islam and Democracy that Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and other Arab millenarians have sought to paint is a bit of a nothing-burger. In the 1940s, Islamic religious leaders in Indonesia (home to the world’s largest Muslim population) formed a union across the country’s 17,000-island archipelago which openly declared Islam to be in favor of democracy and social pluralism. In India, two major figures in the democratic movement to establish the country were Islamic religious scholars: the first Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah of Jammu & Kashmir and India’s first Education Minister & president of the Congress party, Maulana Azad. Turkish religious scholars have long signed off on democracy and political pluralism—including the exiled Fethullah Gulen as well as pro-government religious leaders. Before their overthrow by Arab nationalists, both Egypt and Syria experimented with democracy in the mid-twentieth century, with religious parties and figures vying for seats in their respective legislatures. All in all, more Islamic religious authorities of merit have supported democracy rather than have opposed it over the course of the past 100 years.

Tunisia’s Hopes

Many Tunisians expressed their hope that their country could become the “halal alternative” to the jihadism that is rife in Libya, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab World. On multiple occasions and across Tunisia’s very fragmented political landscape, Tunisians insisted their society and culture represented the guardianship of traditional Islamic jurisprudence and religious doctrine which favored democratic pluralism (as argued by Sacheddina, Ahmed and others).

However, there is also increasing frustration at the failure of successive parliaments to parley meaningful reforms into law. Tunisia’s welfare-stye economy is highly statist, and the currency has devalued as much as 1/3 since its democracy came into being. While corruption is down, European tourism vanished after terror attacks brought the country to its knees in 2015. Reforms allowing for limited federalism in the country have been pushed through—and were badly needed: Tunisia is physically the size of the entire Atlantic seaboard. However, the country still does not have any justices appointed to the constitutionally-mandated supreme court as a result of years of division and mistrust by factions in the previous parliament who agreed only to legislate through consensus. This has meant that while the country is stable, its economy is on life support.

Still, in comparison to a time where the former Ben Ali regime actively used rape as a sanctioned tool of government policy, things are looking much better. Despite a terror attack this summer only steps away from where I had gone for a stroll with a fellow American ex-pat in the capital, Tunisians seem undeterred in their attempts to consolidate their democracy. Time will tell if the rest of the Arab World will adopt Tunisia’s approach, but there are signs that Malaysia, Pakistan, and others are following in the footsteps of Ibn Khaldun.