NAACP
Shows Its
Irrelevance
by Recommending Trump's Impeachment
At the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People's annual convention in Detroit, delegates unanimously
recommended that the House of Representatives impeach President Donald Trump.
For what?
Derrick Johnson, the NAACP's
president, said: "The pattern of Trump's misconduct is unmistakable and
has proven time and time again that he is unfit to serve as the president of
this country. ... This president has led one of the most racist and xenophobic
administrations since the Jim Crow era." Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who
introduced an unsuccessful motion for impeachment, argues that the President's
"racist comments" constitute sufficient grounds for impeachment.
Just how much harm has
"racist" Trump done to blacks?
President Barack Obama presided
over the worst economic recovery since 1949. As to black unemployment,
then-chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.,
said in 2011: "As the chair of the Black Caucus, I've got to tell you, we
are always hesitant to criticize the president (Obama). With 14% (black)
unemployment, if we had a white president we'd be marching around the White
House." That same year, at a jobs forum in Detroit, Rep. Maxine Waters,
D-Calif., said: "We're supportive of the President, but we getting tired,
y'all. Getting tired." Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., said,
"President Obama got 96 percent of (the black) vote but he isn't dealing
with our biggest problem -- unemployment -- which is more than twice that of
whites."
In August 2012, the Associated Press reported:
"Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery
that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by
just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest. ...
Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending
has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower. More than in any
other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks
have fallen behind inflation."
In January 2016, black liberal commentator Tavis Smiley said: "Sadly, and
it pains me to say this, over the last decade, black folk, in the era of Obama,
have lost ground in every major economic category. Not one, two or three
(categories), but every major economic category, black Americans have lost
ground." Under Trump, black unemployment is near historical lows. Robert
Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television, became America's first black
billionaire and supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Johnson
recently said: "I think the economy is doing absolutely great, and it's
particularly reaching into populations that heretofore had very bad problems in
terms of jobs, unemployment and the opportunities that come with full
employment, so African American unemployment is at its lowest level. I give the
president a lot of credit for moving the economy in a positive direction that's
benefiting a large amount of Americans."
The "racist" Trump
also wants to do something about illegal immigration, the downside of which is
virtually ignored by Democratic politicians, including black politicians. About
the impact of unskilled illegal immigration, Harvard economist George Borjas
wrote in 2016: "Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the
influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants
have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and
Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is
sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually.
According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a
high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by
roughly 25%. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group
dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year."
Enter President Trump, who pursues pro-growth
policies. He cut personal and corporate income tax rates, reduced regulations
and halted the march toward "Medicare for All." Black unemployment
fell. Income is growing, and the unemployment gap between whites and blacks is
narrowing. About the black-white gap, Bloomberg wrote in August 2018, "In
the three months through July, the gap between the black and white
employment-to-population rates averaged 4.3 percentage points, the smallest
since 1979."
Then there's education. Many
urban high schools suffer dropout rates of nearly 50%, and many of those who do
graduate cannot read, write or compute at grade level. President Trump supports
education vouchers that, according to polls, urban black and brown parents want
for their children. What's more important than jobs and quality education?
By focusing on racism even as it
declines as a factor in American life, the NAACP demonstrates its continued
irrelevance. The No. 1 problem facing the black community is not racism,
"voter suppression," the need for reparations or alleged police
"institutional racism." It is the absence of fathers, a condition
aided and abetted by a welfare state that incentivizes women to marry the
government and allows men to abandon their financial and moral
responsibilities.
Larry
Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show
host.
BARACK
OBAMA, LA RAZA FASCISM and the CULTURE of DEM CORRUPTION
They
Destroyed Our Country
“They
knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was
a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great
injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an
egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic
(perhaps irreparable.)”
THE RISE TO POWER OF BANKSTER-OWNED BARACK
OBAMA
'Incompetent' and 'liar' among most frequently
used words to describe the president: Pew Research Center
The larger fear is that Obama might be just
another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim
to be all for the common guy.
OBAMA'S
ASSAULT ON AMERICA -WHY WALL STREET, ILLEGALS, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and the 1%
LOVE HIM, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE SHAFT TO PAY FOR HIS CRONY CAPITALISM
CEO
pay is higher than ever, as is the chasm separating the rich and super-rich
from everyone else. The incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 11 percent
between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of the Obama “recovery”—while the
incomes of the bottom 99 percent actually shrank.
Meanwhile, Obama is pressing forward with his
proposal, outlined in his budget for the next fiscal year, to slash $400
billion from Medicare and $130 billion from Social Security… AS WELL AS WIDER
OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
Eric Holder Warns 2020 Democrats: ‘Be Wary of Attacking the Obama Record’
4:19
Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday urged 2020 Democrat candidates to pump the brakes on attacking the Obama administration’s record after some White House hopefuls took aim at former Vice President Joe Biden’s record.
“Be wary of attacking the Obama record. Build on it. Expand it. But there is little to be gained – for you or the party – by attacking a very successful and still popular Democratic President,” Holder wrote on Twitter following the second and final night of the Democrat debates at the historic Fox Theater in Detriot, Michigan.
The ideological divisions gripping the Democrat Party intensified on Wednesday as presidential candidates waged an acrimonious battle over health care, immigration, and race that tested the strength of early front-runner Biden’s candidacy.
The former vice president was repeatedly forced to defend his decades-old political record against pointed attacks from his younger, diverse rivals, who charged that Biden’s eight-year relationship with President Barack Obama was not reason enough to earn the Democrat nomination.
The attacks on Biden in the second presidential debate were most vivid coming from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who declared that his willingness to work with segregationists in the Senate during the 1970s could have had dramatic consequences on the surge of minority candidates in political office.
“Had those segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate, Cory Booker would not be a member of the United States Senate, and Barack Obama would not have been in a position to nominate” Biden to become vice president, she said.
When pressed, Biden repeatedly leaned on his relationship with Obama.
“We’re talking about things that occurred a long, long time ago,” Biden said. “Everybody’s talking about how terrible I am on these issues. Barack Obama knew who I was.”
The dynamic showcased the challenges ahead for Biden and his party as Democrats seek to rebuild the young and multiracial coalition that helped Obama win two presidential elections. Those differences were debated on a broad menu of issues including health care, immigration and women’s reproductive rights.
At one point in the debate, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pressed the former vice president on why he did not advise Obama to lessen the number of deportations during the administration. “Did you say those deportations were a good idea or did you go to the president and say, ‘this is a mistake, we shouldn’t do it,’” de Blasio said. “Which one?”
“I was vice president. I am not the president,” Biden responded, placing the blame on his former boss.
That answer didn’t satisfy Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), prompting him to interject: “You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can’t do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s not.”
That answer didn’t satisfy Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), prompting him to interject: “You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can’t do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s not.”
In an unexpected twist, Biden even found himself criticizing Obama’s record, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal — an agreement President Trump ripped up — when pressed on whether he would sign the United States up for the Asian trade deal.
“I would not rejoin the TTP as it was initially put forward,” he said, botching the agreement’s acronym.
The former vice president also reaffirmed his disapproval of the U.S. troop surge in war-torn Afghanistan that occurred under the Obama administration in 2009.
“I opposed the surge in Afghanistan,” he said, before saying he believed a military intervention in Afghanistan was a grave foreign policy error.
After the debate, David Axelrod, former Obama political strategist and CNN senior political commentator, said that while Biden’s debate performance was an improvement from his first debate, it would be “bad news” if Wednesday’s effort was the best he could muster.
“I think the good news for Joe Biden is this was maybe the best he could do, and the bad news is this may be the best he could do. He was much better than last time. He was much more engaged,” Axelrod said. “But…he had moments in which he was uncertain, where he was on the defensive. And the main thing is, he was the guy who was going to take on Trump and bring it to Trump and restore values and decency.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
HOW MUCH WOULD YOU BET THAT THIS CLOWN WOULD VOTE FOR OBAMA ALL OVER AGAIN???
AND PETE BUTTIGIEG ARE
FOR AMNESTY AND MORE
JOBS FOR "CHEAP" LABOR
ILLEGALS... WHO TAKE
JOBS FROM BLACK
AMERICANS!!!
2020 Democrat Candidates Rip Former President Barack Obama’s Record
3:18
Democrats challenged former Vice President Joe Biden during CNN’s Democrat presidential debate on Wednesday, but in the process, they criticized former President Obama.
Democrats like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized Democrats for continuing to support the concept of private insurance.
“There’s this mythology that somehow all of these folks are in love with their insurance in America,” he said.
Obama’s former secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Julian Castro criticized Obama’s former Department of Homeland Secretary, saying that his concern about decriminalizing crossing the border illegally was merely a “right-wing talking point.”
He also criticized the Obama administration for high rates of deportation of illegal immigrants, challenging Joe Biden for failing to intervene.
De Blasio also pressed Biden on why he did not advise Obama to slow deportation during the administration. “Did you say those deportations were a good idea or did you go to the president and say, ‘this is a mistake, we shouldn’t do it,'” he said. “Which one?”
Biden defended Obama for trying to pass comprehensive immigration reform but vowed that he would “absolutely not” resume similar deportation rates as the Obama administration.
Castro also joined the criticism of the Obama administration, suggesting that the former president had made mistakes in office.
“First of all, Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn’t,” he said to Biden.
Biden reminded Castro that he also served in the Obama administration.
“I never heard him talk about any of this when he was the secretary,” he said pointedly.
But even Biden found himself implicitly criticizing Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, which Trump killed, when asked if he would rejoin the proposed trade agreement with Asian nations.
“I would not rejoin the TPP as it was initially put forward,” he said.
Biden also criticized the surge of troops in Afghanistan, which took place in 2009 under President Obama.
“I opposed the surge in Afghanistan,” he said, adding that he felt going into Afghanistan was a mistake.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard also criticized both parties for allowing the war in Afghanistan to continue.
“For too long, we’ve had leaders who have been arbitrating foreign policy from ivory towers in Washington without any idea about the cost and the consequence, the toll that it takes on our service members, on their families,” she said.
Ultimately, Biden reminded his political rivals that Obama was the one that chose him as the vice president.
“Everybody is talking about how terrible I am on these issues. Barack Obama knew exactly who I was,” he said, noting that he was fully vetted as vice president. “He chose me, and he said it was the best decision he made. I’ll take his judgment.”
After the debate, Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder cautioned Democrats for their attacks against the Obama administration.
“To my fellow Democrats. Be wary of attacking the Obama record,” he wrote on Twitter. “Build on it. Expand it. But there is little to be gained – for you or the party – by attacking a very successful and still popular Democratic President.”
HOW MUCH WOULD YOU BET THAT THIS CLOWN WOULD VOTE FOR OBAMA ALL OVER AGAIN???
Charles Barkley Says Black People Who Vote for Democratic Party Are ‘Still Poor’
August 1, 2019 Updated: August 1, 2019
Charles Barkley, a former NBA star and now an NBA analyst on TNT, said after the Democratic presidential candidate debate on July 30 that political parties have been neglecting economic opportunities for black Americans. He also added that most black people he knows who have always voted Democratic are “still poor.”
In 2017, Barkley remarked that Democrats have “taken the black vote and the poor vote for granted for a long time,” and that “this is a wakeup call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people.”
When Barkley was asked on July 30 whether he felt that “it’s different this time around,” he replied, “I do not.”
“I think all politicians take black folks for granted,” he told a Yahoo News reporter at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, after the debate. “They talk to black folks every four years, and that’s about it, and then do nothing about it.”
“And both parties suck in that aspect, and that is not a Republican or Democratic thing, not a liberal or conservative thing. It’s an economic thing. Economic opportunity. And that’s what both parties’ been neglecting, especially the Democratic Party,” Barkley continued.
“Every black person I know has always voted Democratic, and with the exception of a few guys who can play sports, all those people are still poor,” he added.
Earlier in the interview, Barkley said that his top two choices so far are two Democrats: former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro; or South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. But he hasn’t made a formal choice “because I’m not sure if they’d get enough traction to be counted.”
The Yahoo News reporter followed up Barkley’s comments on black votes for Democrats with the question, “Whenever people say [President Donald Trump]’s racist he says black unemployment is at a record low. Do you think he’s a racist?”
Barkley responded, “I’m leery of calling people racist. He said some things that could be construed as racist. Some things he said are very wrong and flagrant. But I’m always leery of calling people racist. There’s some things he says that really need to be—especially when he has an opportunity to denounce white nationalism and things like that. He could do a much better job.”
Black voters constitute about 20 percent of all Democratic voters, according to 2018 data from the Pew Research Center, and they are known to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
Larry Elder, an attorney, best-selling author, and talk show host told The Epoch Times in February that he believes black people continue to vote for the Democratic Party due to the perception that racism continues to be a significant problem in the country.
“[W]e constantly hear about racism and racial injustice and those kinds of things because the Democratic Party needs black people to remain angry,” he said.
“Because the Democratic Party has not won the white vote since 1964. Blacks vote often around 95 percent or so for the Democratic Party, and the primary reason blacks pull the lever for the Democratic Party is this perception that racism remains a major problem in America,” he added.
Elder, who is also a contributor to The Epoch Times, noted that there were some points about the Democratic Party that some black Americans may not be aware of.
“Most black voters, by the way, have no idea about the racist history of the Democratic Party,” he said. “I didn’t know when I was in high school that Democrats founded the [Ku Klux] Klan.
“I didn’t know when I was in high school that Democrats voted against a 13th amendment that freed the slaves, the 14th Amendment they gave slaves citizenship, the 15th Amendment that at least on paper gave slaves the right to vote. Democrats voted against all of that stuff.
“I didn’t know when I was in high school that more Republicans, as a percentage of the party, voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats,” he said.
Elder said racism is not the most pressing issue for black Americans today.
“The number-one problem facing black America today is not racism,” he said. “The number-one problem is the growing number of black kids who are raised without fathers.”
Among black Americans, approximately 72 percent of children live with a single parent, most often the mother. Compared to those who grow up in intact homes, children from single-parent households are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school, and more than twice as likely to be arrested for juvenile crime.
“Barack Obama said a kid raised without a father is five times more likely to be poor, nine times more likely to drop out of school, 20 times more likely to end up in jail. That is far and away the biggest problem facing this country,” Elder said.
Candace Owens, an American conservative commentator and political activist, told The Epoch Times in July that the core of the Democratic platform is focused on having people believe they have been oppressed and victimized.
“We have been sold and administered a victim mentality to our own detriment. And we were sold that by the left, by the Democrat Party. … We’ve been manipulated by the conversation about racism for so long,” Owens said.
Owens also believes that the biggest issue facing black America today isn’t racism but the lack of black fathers in the home.
Irene Luo contributed to this report.
West Baltimore: Death, Drugs, and Empty Homes
Residents talk about the culture of danger and crime, as well as slivers of hope
July 31, 2019 Updated: August 1, 2019
BALTIMORE—It could hardly feel more hip in downtown Baltimore, with the pedestrian bridges arching from pier to pier of the Inner Harbor, strewn with millennial mainstays such as Whole Foods, Shake Shack, and The Cheesecake Factory, overseen by the giant neon lights of the Hard Rock Cafe and traversed by sharp-dressed young men and women on app-rented electric scooters.
However, it’s only a 10-minute bus ride westward to one of the most depressed areas in America. There’s no buzz here. No scooters. In fact, on some blocks, there’s barely a living soul.
“You got to be really strong here,” said Danny (not his real name), an owner of a small grocery store in one of the most notorious West Baltimore neighborhoods.
Some blocks away, in the middle of the day, a man is sitting on the stairs in front of one of the row houses, thousands of which stand empty and neglected, as the city bleeds residents. He said if somebody stands there and talks to him, police think he’s selling drugs.
A man several blocks away intimated that he used to be a drug dealer. He said youth in the area are going ”crazy” because the government shut down recreation facilities long ago. Everybody used to comingle at those places, he said, and people had to behave themselves if they didn’t want to be kicked out. That actually helped people get along.
Now, he said, people are just depressed. Youth with nothing to do are killing each other. It was also a bad idea, he said, to combine elementary and middle schools, exposing younger children to bad influences from teenagers.
The government is more interested in giving opportunities to new immigrants than helping the people already here, he said. A few other locals expressed a similar sentiment.
Several blocks away, two young men, perhaps 18 years old, stood on a street corner with a younger boy, perhaps 13. It wasn’t clear what they were talking about, but it seemed one of the older ones was chastising the boy, telling him to work harder. A bunch of cash in the young man’s hand offered a clue. Danny explained that some young adults are making younger boys sell drugs for them, since the young ones are likely to get more lenient treatment when busted. He didn’t want his name published for fear of retaliation.
Three times somebody has tried to break into his store. Once, he punched a man who was trying to steal from him. The man left, called the police, and Danny was almost arrested himself.
“The city, they don’t do nothing. Not even the cops. Instead of helping you, they’re against you,” he said.
He showed a trash-strewn area behind his store used by drug addicts. Pointing to the debris on the ground, he explained that the small pieces of glass are crack cocaine vials. The small ones go for $10 each, the larger ones for $20—apparently common knowledge for a small business owner in the area.
“I don’t like it here,” he said, his eyes welling with tears as he remembered his family that he left behind years ago in another city, another state.
Still, he has hope.
Crime in Baltimore
The city has long had a crime problem, but it was gradually getting better. In 2011, it saw 197 homicides—a shocking number given its modest size, but still the lowest since 1977.
That all changed on April 12, 2015. Six police officers failed to secure Freddie Gray, 25, in the back of a police van after his arrest for illegal knife possession. Gray’s neck was broken during the ride to the police station. A week later, shortly before Gray died at a hospital, activists gathered to protest in front of the police station. His name was used to bolster the narrative that police were killing black people out of racial prejudice on a national scale—an assertion that’s disputed by research.
In the weeks ahead, the protests escalated into riots. More than a dozen police officers were injured; some stores were looted and burned. Maryland Gov. Lawrence Hogan deployed the National Guard to the city and, for several days, imposed a curfew. The protests died down after State Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that the officers involved would be charged.
But something in the city changed. Homicides jumped from 15 in March to 22 in April and a whopping 42 in May, remaining unusually high thereafter. The body count reached 344 in 2015—a number only surpassed by the record year of 1993.
More recently, city leaders made a big deal of the crime wave’s abating in 2018, but the numbers are up again this year, on par with 2015’s carnage. Baltimore is, hands down, the most violent city with a population above 500,000.
Not all of Baltimore is like this, though. Many areas in the south, east, and north of the city are virtually free of such lawlessness.
On the contrary, the homicide rate in the West Baltimore zip code, with only about 25,000 residents, was 134.7 per 100,000 in 2018—more than 25 times the national average. With 25 slayings this year so far, the area is on pace for yet another record.
The most affected neighborhoods appear to be Carrollton Ridge (four homicides this year) and Franklin Square (five homicides) in the west and Sandtown-Winchester (six slayings this year) in the northwest.
Police
Much of the recent crime wave has been blamed on the police disengaging, jaded by a lack of support from city leadership. They still respond to 911 calls, but don’t go out of their way to intervene as much as before.
“What officers are doing is, they’re just driving looking forward,” Kevin Forrester, a retired Baltimore detective, told the USA Today in 2017. “They’ve got horse blinders on.”
After Gray’s death, the Obama Justice Department forced the city into a consent decree (pdf) that, among other things, demanded more detailed paperwork for every stop-and-frisk by the officers. It also forbade them from using only “boilerplate” language, such as “proximity to the scene of suspected or reported crimes” in the paperwork. Arrests for low-level crimes, such as disorderly conduct, now must be cleared with a supervisor first, “unless not practicable.”
The concern was that officers were stopping and arresting people for no good reason. It’s not clear, though, how much the increased administrative burden helped.
Moreover, training on how to conduct and document stops and arrests in line with the decree has only been planned for this year. The more substantive reforms, such as moving toward community policing, are set to begin next year or even further in the future. So far, it seems officers are just avoiding the paperwork by conducting fewer stops and arrests.
Michael Harrison, who has been police commissioner since March, is the fourth person in the role since the beginning of 2018. He’s a veteran of the New Orleans Police Department, which he headed during that city’s own consent decree process.
He recently announced a “crime plan” for Baltimore that calls for focusing on areas where violent crime is concentrated, checking in more frequently with local businesses, engaging more with the community, cutting response time to a maximum of 10 minutes, and more.
The local police union slammed the plan as untenable. “There are not enough Officers to even respond to the number of calls to 911,” Sgt. Mike Mancuso, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, said in a July 30 statement.
Since 2017, the department has lost more than 400 officers and other staff. That’s a major hit for a 3,000-strong agency.
“Any crime plan must begin with the stark reality of the current resources available, not the resources that are desired,” Mancuso said. “Those resources must certainly include Police Officers!”
Deeper Causes
It goes without saying that Baltimore’s problems go way beyond an understaffed police department. As with Chicago, the breeding ground for the violence in Baltimore was paradoxically fertilized by the arrests of prominent gang leaders in the past decade, according to Patrick Burke, a reporter and expert on gang violence. The perception of lawlessness during the 2015 riots then emboldened the gangs’ underlings to take matters into their own hands. With the top-down control dissolved, profit and personal grudges took priority as they went on to try and kill their foes. The downward spiral of vengeance ensued.
What makes the youth join gangs in the first place? Depression, isolation, and bad incentives, it seems. There’s really not much to do for young people in the city’s most troubled neighborhoods. Sports centers and hobby clubs are few. Schools don’t provide much hope, either. Less than 18 percent of Baltimore public school students are proficient in math. Only about 25 percent are proficient in English by the time they get to high school. (pdf).
Many children in the neighborhood are “not guided,” Danny said. “Nobody’s investing in them.”
The culture of gangs and drugs, on the other hand, is already generational and the opportunities abound.
The surroundings aren’t a pretty sight, either.
Empty Homes
The city has more than 16,000 uninhabitable houses, concentrated in the crime-ridden areas. Often decrepit eyesores, the deserted century-old row houses lend their blocks a bleak, forsaken air. They add to the crime too—a refuge to drug addicts, a hideout for criminals. And then there’s the fire hazard. The homeless often sneak in and use candles. While they tend not to care much for fire safety, they care even less while on drugs.
Fires abound, said David, a 15-year veteran of the city’s fire department, who declined to provide his last name. There’s been an arsonist-at-large in the area for a year as well, David said. Just a few days ago, that person set 11 vacant houses on fire in one night. Moreover, battling the blazes in these buildings is extra dangerous for the firefighters and injuries are common, he said. Just recently, a colleague of his was buried under a collapsed ceiling.
In the past, Baltimore’s declining population has been blamed on blockbusting real estate schemes, as well as the collapse of its steel industry and manufacturing. But those trains have long departed. Today, the residents just seem to be voting with their feet.
What to do about the empty houses then? “Fix them up and put people in them,” one of the locals suggested. But it’s not that simple.
Houses in the neighborhood are already dirt-cheap, going for as little as $6,000 for those that need substantial repairs. But rents are still surprisingly high, around $1,000 a month or more, utilities not included. Locals largely rent. With their credit low or nonexistent, they can’t quite put the money together to buy a home. And if they do, they’d rather move to the safer suburbs. Another factor is that the city’s property tax is more than twice as high as in surrounding counties and even further above the rest of the state, giving yet more incentive to leave to anybody lucky enough to climb into the middle class.
There are millennials moving in, interested in the urban lifestyle, but they huddle around the downtown area, where their jobs are.
Islands of Hope
Danny believes the city will turn around. Even his neighborhood, eventually.
“It’s getting better, but it takes time,” he said. “It’s going to be like Boston within maybe five years.”
He pointed to big players such as John Hopkins Hospital and the Maryland Institute College of Art that are buying and fixing real estate around their campuses. But they are expected to rent to their own staff, rather than locals. It’s also not clear whether the rejuvenation efforts will reach Danny’s neighborhood in the foreseeable future.
Some of the most dangerous people in the area are gone too, Danny said. But that’s because they either moved, went to prison, or were killed, he added.
To fix the fabric of the community itself is a different story. That’s not to say there aren’t people trying, though. The Wilkens Ave. Mennonite Church has run a food donation program for the past three years; a farmer from Pennsylvania drives in a truck of fruit and vegetables every week and locals pay $20 for the whole season or need to volunteer three times to get the food. Rather than dependency, the initiative promotes commitment and gratitude, not to mention a healthier diet.
The church has run a school too. It started in the 1990s to take in some of the children who were, at the time, often dropping out after sixth grade. It costs just $25 a month, due to outside donations. Here, the teachers care about the children learning, while at a public school, they didn’t, one of the students said.
The government is helping too, here and there. It tears down some of the worst abandoned houses, for instance. But it’s a months-long process. For the most part, locals were under the impression that City Hall was doing nothing for them.
One of the local prostitutes who roam the streets around the church once attended its service. Linda Johnson, a longtime member of the church, felt a calling to talk to her. She got to know the girl and eventually took her in. She fed her, cared for her, even performed an exorcism for the girl. After nine months, she left. Then later, she returned to the church to say thank you. She looked healthy and said she was able to get her children back.
“You need to acknowledge people,” Johnson said. “They’re worth something.”
Charles Barkley Says Voting Democrat Has Not Elevated Black People
2:34
Broadcaster and former NBA star Charles Barkley slammed the Democrat Party in the wake of Tuesday’s debates, saying that the party has done little to elevate most blacks in America.
The former Phoenix Suns star was in the audience during the July 30 Democrat presidential debates, but the former player was not impressed by what he saw telling reporters that “every black person I know has always voted Democratic,” but most are “still poor” despite that support.
Barkley went on to slam the Democrats for ignoring minorities, saying, “It’s an economic thing, and that’s what both parties have been neglecting, especially the Democratic Party,” according to Yahoo News.
“Every black person I know has always voted Democratic, and with the exception of a few guys who can play sports, all those people are still poor,” Barkley continued.
The TNT commentator added that he said the same thing in 2017 and no progress has occurred.
Despite the Democrat’s failure, Barkley exclaimed that both parties “suck” at delivering for black voters.
“I think all politicians take black folks for granted. They talk to black folks every four years, and that’s about it and then do nothing about it. Both parties suck in that aspect,” he added.
The former player was also not a fan of the debate format.
“You can’t really judge anybody by seeing them on television, especially when you’ve got 20 people. Nobody gets a word in edgewise. That’s really unfortunate,” he said.
Barkley thought that his network could handle the debates better than CNN.
“We can do a much better job [of the debates], especially CNN,” he said. “We could do a much better job of doing like an individual night where we have plenty of time.”
But after saying that, Barkley joked that he hoped his boss, Jeff Zucker, who was standing only a few feet away, would not fire him for the comments.
BLOG: BOTH JULIAN CASTROAND PETE BUTTIGIEG ARE
FOR AMNESTY AND MORE
JOBS FOR "CHEAP" LABOR
ILLEGALS... WHO TAKE
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As far as which candidate he favored, Barkley ultimately suggested was leaning toward supporting either former Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro or South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
One thing he was not fond of was the constant proclamations from Democrats that Donald Trump is a racist.
“‘I’m leery of calling people ‘racist.’ He says some things that can be construed as ‘racist.’ Some things he’s said are very wrong and flagrant,” Barkley insisted.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
Democrats Promise to
Welcome Illegal
Migrants ‘Like One of
Our Own’
Welcome Illegal
Migrants ‘Like One of
Our Own’
4:13
Democrats in the July 30 CNN Democrat debate promised to welcome foreign migrants, and none mentioned migrants’ economic damage to blue-collar Americans’ wages and rents.
“Immigrants don’t diminish America, they are America,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who told Fox News in February 2019 that “we need workers” because unemployment was too low for business groups. “We have people all over the country who simply want to work and obey the law,” she said about the nation’s population of illegal immigrants.
“We need to expand legal immigration,” said Sen. Liz Warren. “We need to create a path for citizenship, not just for ‘dreamers’ but for grandmas, and for people who have worked in the farms and students who have overstayed their visas.”
She reaffirmed her promise to end decriminalization of illegal migration: “We cannot make it a crime when someone comes here.”
Migrants are Americans and should not be criminalized, argued Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. “You don’t have to decriminalize everything [but] what you have to do is have a president in there with the judgment and decency to treat someone who comes to the border like one of our own,” he said.
“If [migrants] are seeking asylum, of course, we want to welcome them. We’re a strong enough country to be able to welcome them,” said Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan.
“Americans wants comprehensive immigration reform … [with] protections for ‘Dreamers,’ [and] making sure we have a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented,” claimed Pete Buttigieg, using the establishment’s code phrase for mass amnesty.
Buttigieg also reaffirmed his promise to decriminalize illegal migration, saying: “If fraud is involved, that is suitable for the criminal statute — if not, then it should be handled under civil law.”
His White House would stop “criminally prosecuting families and children for seeking asylum and refuge,” promised Beto O’Rourke. “Asylum” is a legal term, complete with legal tests and deportation rules, but the term “refuge” suggests O’Rourke is making an open-ended promise of welcome.
O’Rourke also promised to decriminalize illegal migration: “I expect people who come here to follow our laws, and we reserve the right to prosecute them if they do not.”
“If a mother and a child walk thousands of miles on a dangerous path, in my view, they are not criminals,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “They are people fleeing violence.”
Immigration Numbers:
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university. This total includes roughly 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or health care, engineering or science, software or statistics.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers and spouses — plus roughly 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it transfers wages to investors and ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.
The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housingcosts, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.
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