When I first started paying attention to the news in Maryland, I was awash in a veritable sea of information.  There were so many news sites, so many blogs, and so many wastes of my time.  A little over a year later, I have whittled my list of sites down to a handful.  I thought that I would share them with you in case you might be looking for new sources of local political commentary. I realize that not everyone has a Twitter account and so isn’t privy to my daily updates (reminder: they are on Facebook as well).  Please note that these are my personal recommendations, and nothing more.

First: the news sites.  This is a relatively short list.

·         Maryland Reporter -- the best part of this site is their daily email newsletter that they send every morning (before 9), which includes links to their hottest articles and a “Daily Roundup” of news links for all manner of Maryland issues.

·         NewsTrust Baltimore -- this site also has a daily email newsletter, although it comes later in the day than the Maryland Reporter one.  If that suits you, I recommend subscribing.  This site collects articles from around Maryland and allows users to rate them and leave comments.

·         Center Maryland -- this is the site I check most often.  It aggregates a ton of different Maryland news sites each day and sorts the articles in categories.  They also publish some original content each week, much of with worth a visit and a read on its own.

That should help you stay on top of the “goings-on” around the state.  But what if you want more commentary than we can provide in our daily blog posts, frequent news articles, media appearances, and occasional policy reports?  Fear not!  Here’s a list of blogs I recommend, in no particular order:

·         Jay Hancock’s Baltimore Sun Weblog -- This guy flexes the seldom-used “common sense” muscle when analyzing government policy.  He updates his blog a few times a day, and gets some interesting comments on his posts.  Recently, he wrote a post defending our State Center Policy Report, which incited the wrath of the MDOT.

·         Josh Dowlut’s blog and Kevin Waterman’s Questing for Atlantis -- I put these two blogs in the same category because both writers are good at cutting to the heart of an issue and writing something utterly sensible (and thus rarely seen) about it.  Great example from Josh: this post giving affordable alternatives to the Baltimore Red Line.  Great example from Kevin: this post about why the DREAM act is not going to discourage legal immigration efforts.

·         Cross Purposes -- Although he doesn’t post as often as I would like, Richard J. Cross, III nearly always has something interesting to say about current events.  Case in point: comparing the recent outcome of the Casey Anthony trial to the ongoing Maryland robo-call case.

·         Red Maryland -- This blog has several very talented writers and journalists that contribute to it, most notably Mark Newgent and Richard Vatz.  I know from having spoken with Newgent that a lot of research goes into their posts, and that they don’t just repeat what the media is saying.  Their most recent post on O’Malley’s supposed “budget cuts” is a great example.

·         Michelle Malkin -- This woman is no light-weight.  There are people who pull no punches, and then there’s Malkin.  Some of her posts may shock you, but she does her homework and backs up her words with links and attributions.  And she’s not afraid to dig back further than last month, as this post about Obama’s contradictory words in 2009 shows.

·         Monoblogue -- This one is for you if you like well-reasoned and fully-fleshed out policy analysis.  Posts on Monoblogue are generally longer than you see elsewhere, but they are also quite well thought out and go deeper than you might expect.  Perfect example: the series the blog’s sole author started on the 2012 presidential candidates, which is definitely worth a read.  Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

I hope that gives you some decent links to add to your favorites.  Just remember that you can also see the best of the best each day by following us on Twitter or liking us on Facebook.