"Keep looking up. That's the secret of life." Snoopy
July 31, 2019
By: Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
They say it's not a problem if you can solve it by writing a check.
But Baltimore has received plenty of money and the problems are still there.
"Whoa! You can smell the rats...Oh, my God. You can smell the dead animals."
That's what former Mayor Catherine Pugh said when she took a tour of her city in 2015.
"What the hell," she exclaimed, looking at endless, vacant and decaying houses. "We should just take all this s**t down."
That was before she resigned in May of this year amid a corruption scandal.
And there were photos.
Baltimore looked like San Francisco. Los Angeles. New York City. And Detroit. Garbage, rats, feces and abandoned buildings as far as the eye could see.
But why? It doesn't make sense. These are big cities. Important cities. Cities that do not lack for big players in Congress.
Sen. Schumer and AOC represent New York; Speaker Nancy Pelosi San Francisco; Rep. Adam Schiff Los Angeles; and Rep. Rashida Tlaib Detroit.
Some of these elected officials have served in Congress for most of their adult lives, yet their cities are a disgrace.
Rep. Elijah Cummings has represented Baltimore in Congress for nearly a quarter of a century. Before that he was in the Maryland Legislature for 14 years.
His Congressional bio states that he "has dedicated his life of service to uplifting and empowering the people he is sworn to represent."
But he hasn't.
As of this date, no students -- none -- were found to be proficient in math in one-third of the city's high schools;
The city's murder rate is worse than Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala;
And the Baltimore Sun reports that Baltimore has had "a decades long battle against rodents."
Rats. The carriers of the bubonic plague, the Black Death, the disease that killed 25 million people in Europe in 1347.
Baltimore is in deplorable condition. Shameful, Third World condition.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders thought so.
Bernie toured Baltimore in 2015, showing up because of the Freddie Grey affair. And because it gave him the opportunity to bash capitalism. And the cops.
"Anyone who took the walk we took around this neighborhood would not think you were in a wealthy country," Socialist Bernie said. "You would think you were in a Third World country."
"Half the people don't have jobs...and there are hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable."
Corruption and disinterest create cities like Baltimore. Connecting with the people can solve it all. But the "leaders" of these cities never go to the districts they were elected to represent.
Cummings draws his paycheck, but has done nothing to make Baltimore better. This leaves him time to berate others for what he thinks they didn't do.
Last week, as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings told Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan that he was doing a rotten job in handling illegal immigrant children in border detention centers.
"You feel like you're doing a great job, right?...When a child is sitting in their own feces, can't take a shower," Cummings falsely accused, voice shaking.
"Come on, man. None of us would have our children in that position. They are human beings!"
Like the residents of the poor side of Baltimore.
So Trump took him on.
"Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully," Trump tweeted. "Shouting and screaming at the great men and women of Border Patrol about the conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous."
Trump was called a racist for it, because he broke The Rule: When a Congressman is black, and a Democrat, you are not allowed to notice rats and garbage in his district.
Mayor Pugh and Elijah Cummings were surprised someone noticed their city was a dump.
But that never stopped them from asking for more and more money. And Baltimore has gotten plenty, according to Lynne Patton of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"President Trump has given $16 billion dollars in 2018 alone to Elijah Cummings' district in federal grants," Patton told FOX News. Homeless funds, and community development grants.
"My question is this," she said. "What are you actually doing with the money so that it actually benefits residents in the community for once, instead of deep-pocketed, crooked politicians."
Corruption and indifference is destroying our country's cities, along with a lot of phoney baloney we're being fed and then told to believe.
Such as that Cory Booker is dating a woman.
That Nancy Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez are "just like family."
And that Congresspeople like Cummings are actually doing their jobs.
Hold the line, America.
Where We Go One, We Go All
Stay strong, Patriots