In America, former president but lifelong Marxist Barack Obama can slander proponents of secure borders as racists, and nobody bats an eye. Babbling Vice President Harris can promise to disburse federal funds for victims of Hurricane Ian based on Americans' skin color, and corporate news talking heads applaud. Nancy Pelosi can justify millions of illegal aliens as necessary for picking crops, and America's most race-obsessed pretend not to hear. White victims can be violently targeted on the street by criminal gangs, and Democrat mayors cover up their race-based
McCarthy: Democrats Trying to Divide America to Distract from Disasters They Created
(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused Democrats of trying to divide Americans to distract from the disasters they created.
As CNSNews.com reported, President Biden gave a speech Wednesday night warning that “MAGA Republicans” are trying to deny people’s right to vote, but missing from his speech, McCarthy said was any mention of the economy, the southwest border, or fentanyl.
“You talk a little bit about the pulse, but you also have to talk about what the president said tonight. He wasn't uniting us. The Democrats were dividing us as they’ve move forward. They just want to distract from the disasters they created,” he said told Fox News’ “Hannity.”
All those topics you brought up? I listened to the president's speech. I don't remember hearing anything about inflation, about gas, about border, about fentanyl, about crime or the 98 individuals on the border who are on the terrorist watch list they have caught.
What we’re really finding in these next six days, this is a hinge election. This is defining election like a 1980 election. Which direction does America want to go? That's why we have the commitment to America.
We literally spell out what we'll do: make us energy independent, give us an economy that’s strong, secure the border, Fund the police, Stop the prosecutors who are woke, give you a parent's bill of rights. You know what else? Save and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, what the Democrats lie against, have a government that is accountable, a future that's built on freedom.
I think the entire nation should look at what the Democrats have done with one party rule, look at what the commitment says, and make a decision. I'm talking to all Americans, not just to Republicans but independents, Democrats, green party. You know this nation can be better. You want to pick somebody who has a plan to turn this nation around and that's exactly what we’re going to do.
The minority leader said that on day one after Republicans takeover the House, they will pass legislation to repeal the hiring of thousands more new IRS agents, because “government should be there to help you, not go after you.”
Our Commitment to America promises what we’ll do to get out of the House. On our very first day on January 3, we’re going to vote on a bill. We’re going to vote to repeal the 87,000 new IRS agents, cause I believe government should be there to help you not go after you. Hold our feet to the fire.
Remember after the ‘94 revolution, it took three times putting on the president's desk before they got welfare reform. We're going to continue fight, move this forward. We need you not only to join with us but stay with us as we move it through the House to the Senate and the president’s desk, but Sean, you’re right. I’ve been watching your show quite some time. Your town halls on these Senate candidates have been tremendous talking about solutions.
It's so important to have the house and the senate. Because it gives us an ability to repeal these regulations with the coming congressional review act which is 51 votes in the senate. We can do reconciliation with 51 votes in senate and put a bill on the president's desk. We have the appropriations process. So they are a number of ways that we can achieve what we talk about in the commitment, even though the president is sitting in office right now.
McCarthy stressed that despite what President Biden has said to the contrary, Republicans will always save and strengthen Medicare and Social Security.
We’re going to use the power but I want to be very clear. We will always save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. That does not change in the outcome. You should have a debate about how we spend government money. There shouldn’t be a blank check for anything. It's the taxpayers hard-earned money being spent.
We should eliminate this wasteful Washington spending, and we can do that. This is the part that we need the people, and on that very first day, we have already sent the preservation letters. We’re going to hold this government accountable, something that hasn't been done. You should know where COVID originated from. We should know why the DOJ went after parents for going to school board meetings.
We should know what happened those last 60 days of Afghanistan so that never happens, so don't have 13 new gold star families again. These are just a few of the items we’ll be looking at, but what we’ll be doing is moving policy that makes us energy independent, not just in America, but we should make the rest of the world dependent on us. It makes the world more secure and makes America stronger. We should secure our border.
Dumber and Brainwashed
In light of recent test scores and the proliferation of CRT, America’s future is not promising.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – known as The Nation’s Report Card – “gives us a window into the state of our K-12 education system.” The results provide educators, policymakers, elected officials, and parents across the country with information regarding how much students are learning in the U.S.
The scores on the latest test taken in early 2022 – after the nation’s Covid panic subsided – were released last week, and looking in that “window” revealed some scary things. In a nutshell, the scores showed that just 33% of the nation’s fourth graders are proficient in reading and 36% are proficient in math. The eighth graders did even worse: 31% are proficient in reading, while a painful 26% showed proficiency in math. According to the report’s authors, “the national average score declines in mathematics for fourth- and eighth-graders were the largest ever recorded in that subject.”
The brightest spot in a sea of ugly took place in Catholic schools, most of which shut down very briefly, if at all, in 2020 and 2021. Scores in these schools were 17 points higher than the national public school average. In eighth-grade reading, the average score for Catholic school students was 20 points higher than the national public-school average, or about two grade levels ahead.
While it is clear that the test score plunge was affected by the pandemic-related shutdowns, there are some blurry areas. For example, not every school in a given state closed when Covid hysteria gripped the nation, so state-by-state comparisons don’t necessarily yield conclusive data on the effect of online learning.
There is a cohort that is trying to dismiss the shutdowns as a cause for the terrible scores out of hand, however. Typical is Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson who writes “all the bitter back-and-forth between red and blue states about how quickly to reopen schools during the covid-19 pandemic was nothing but political theater, as far as test scores are concerned. Student performance suffered across the board, and it could take years to make up the ground we’ve lost.”
Not surprisingly, teacher union president Randi Weingarten, one of the shutdown’s prime perpetrators, sent out a tweet quoting from a part of Robinson’s piece. Notably, neither Robinson nor Weingarten nor any of the other naysayers ever bothered to explain why kids in Catholic schools fared so much better on the test.
But the deniers are actually on to something, in the sense that there’s more to the problem than shuttered schools. In a RealClear Education piece, penned before the latest NAEP results were announced, scholars Lance Izumi and Wenyuan Wu wrote, “Why Are Student Test Scores Plunging? Look at Politicized Education.”
The authors disclose that many students report increased ideological indoctrination in the classroom, and that is leading to weaker standards and lower expectations. “One California student reported that a teacher at his school told the class that perfectionism and striving for perfection was part of white supremacy culture. Another one of his teachers ‘made it seem like it was bad to have a good work ethic or to be supportive of meritocracy.’ In his school, grades were inflated, low grades were eliminated, late assignments were allowed, and multiple retakes of exams were permitted. Rigor simply disappeared.”
Additionally, the teaching of Critical Race Theory and other forms of radical subject matter don’t leave as much time for traditional concepts such as reading and math. Many on the left, of course, downplay the widespread nature of CRT in the classroom, more or less subjugating it to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” file. But two policy analysts at the Manhattan Institute show that CRT is most definitely being taught. Zach Goldberg and Eric Kaufman queried 18- to 20-year-old respondents (82.4 percent of whom attend public schools) “whether they had ever been taught in class or heard about from an adult at school each of six concepts—four of which are central to critical race theory.”
For CRT-related concepts, 62 percent reported “either being taught in class or hearing from an adult in school that ‘America is a systemically racist country’” and 69 percent said they were taught or heard that “white people have white privilege.” Also, 57 percent asserted that they learned that “white people have unconscious biases that negatively affect non-white people,” while 67 percent said they were exposed to the notion that “America is built on stolen land.” Additionally, 53 percent say they learned that “America is a patriarchal society.” And just for good measure, 51 percent disclose that they were taught or heard that “gender is an identity choice” regardless of biological sex.
Teacher hiring is also affected by the radical agenda. A blatant example of the new racialism came in March when the Minneapolis Public School system adopted a race-based layoff provision which stipulates that white teachers will be laid off or reassigned before “educators of color” in the event Minneapolis Public Schools needs to reduce staff.
Teacher training certainly has not escaped the CRT incursion. The Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based consulting firm founded in 1992, believes that “systemic racism is the most devastating factor contributing to the diminished capacity of all people, and especially people of color and indigenous people, to achieve at the highest levels.”
The father of a high school student in Pennsylvania helped to expose this training scam by suing his local school district. After wrangling over confidentiality issues, it was revealed that documents explicitly citing critical race theory were emailed from 2019 to 2021 by Pacific Educational Group to district administrators in advance of various training seminars. A rubric dated Feb. 4, 2020, encourages participants to “Deconstruct the Presence and role of Whiteness” in their lives.
A March 17, 2020 presentation lists “aspects and assumptions of white culture” in the U.S. “Win at all costs,” “wealth = worth,” and “don’t show emotion” are front and center. “Planning for future” is also considered a blight that infects white culture.
The presentation also spells out “5 tenets of critical race theory” to “better understand the critical intersection of race and schooling.” One tenet, the “permanence of racism,” is the idea that “racism is endemic to all our institutions, systems and structures” in the U.S.
Clearly not every teacher takes this ideology into the classroom, but as the Manhattan Institute study shows, many do.
Another clue that it’s not just the shutdowns that have affected America’s youth is the sinking ACT scores. These tests are used for college admission, and the national average ACT score for the class of 2022 fell to 19.8 out of 36, down from 20.3 in 2021, according to data released this month by the nonprofit that administers the test. Looking through a longer lens, the news gets worse – this is the fifth consecutive year that ACT scores have declined. Hence, things were deteriorating long before the Covid-related lockdowns came to be. Also, the average score is now lower than it’s been since 1991.
So yes, the pandemic related shutdowns did damage but they are now in the rearview. The CRT trend continues unabated, however. Even sadder, a poll administered by researchers at USC in August-September reveals that almost half of all Americans have never heard of CRT or say they have heard of it, but don’t know anything about it.
While many parents are awakening to the reality that they must find out exactly what their kids are being taught, and abandoning their local public school if necessary, too many are still unaware that their school might be somewhat less than beneficial for their children. For the good of their kids and the future of the country, more parents need to get more involved in education matters soon. Very soon.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
Reader Interactions
Aspiring Radical Senator
A close look at Mandela Barnes of Wisconsin.
Democrat Mandela Barnes is currently locked in a tight battle for a U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin as he seeks to oust Republican incumbent Ron Johnson from that office. Trailing Johnson by a mere 3 points in the latest Fox News poll, Barnes claims that the Republican has turned his back on working people, but not “on his campaign donors” or on a variety of political schemes designed to “delive[r] perks and benefits for even his own family members.” “We’re talking about a person [Johnson] who has secured more than $200 million in tax deductions for two of his biggest donors in a single year,” says Barnes, “who wants to put the Social Security and Medicare benefits people work their entire lives for on the chopping block…. This is a person who will say whatever it takes, regardless of how ridiculous, how dangerous. But we know that…. He’s not just a danger to the state. He’s a threat to the stability of this country. That’s who he is.”
Okay, so that’s who Mandela Barnes tells us Ron Johnson is. But who, pray tell, is Mandela Barnes?
Inspired by Obama
Now 36 years old, Barnes was first inspired to pursue a career in politics back in 2004 when he heard then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama deliver a speech at that year’s Democratic National Convention. Obama’s speech, Barnes recalls, was an “inspirational moment” that “made me think about the world a little bit differently and think about politics much differently. In Barack, I saw someone who had a unique experience, and it wasn’t like any other politician. Seeing that happen, seeing him on the stage, I knew it was something that I’d be interested in, being involved in politics in general.”
In 2008, Barnes spent six months as a field organizer for the Obama presidential campaign in Louisiana. Returning thereafter to Wisconsin, Barnes held several minor positions within the office of Tom Barrett, the then-Mayor of Milwaukee and a future U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg under President Joe Biden.
Member of the Wisconsin State Assembly
In 2012, Barnes was elected to fill the 11th District seat in Wisconsin’s State Assembly. Notable legislation which he authored during his first two-year term in office included: a resolution to have the Wisconsin state legislature formally recognize Black History Month; a bill to “ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines”; a resolution to have the Wisconsin legislature recognize “Juneteenth” as an official holiday; and a resolution to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of the “War on Poverty,”
During his second term in the Wisconsin State Assembly, Barnes authored an even greater number of left-wing legislative initiatives, including:
- a bill to decriminalize the “possession and distribution of 25 grams or less of marijuana”
- a bill to permit “16- and 17-years-olds to preregister to vote”
- a resolution to create a committee to combat “racial intolerance”
- a bill to offer “alternative sites for absentee voting in person”
- a bill to authorize local governments to “collect and record information about firearms in a registry”
- a bill to establish a “maximum period of imprisonment following revocation of extended supervision or probation”
- a bill to allow “certain prisoners to earn time toward early release from confinement in prison”
- a bill to allow for a “petition for expunging a court record of certain offenses ten years after completion of a sentence”
- a bill aimed at “restoring the right to vote to certain persons barred from voting as a result of a felony conviction”
Most notably, Barnes co-sponsored and introduced a March 2016 bill to remove “monetary bail as a condition of release for a defendant with, or convicted of, a crime.”
Praising Jeremiah Wright
In a 2013 Instagram post, Barnes praised of the notoriously anti-Semitic, America-hating socialist minister Jeremiah Wright. He described Wright as a “brilliant” man and included a picture of himself proudly shaking hands with Wright.
Supporting Colin Kaepernick’s Crusade Against White Racism
In September 2018, Barnes tweeted a photo of himself wearing a jersey that bore the name and number of former NFL quarterback-turned-radical-activist Colin Kaepernick, who had gained enormous fame by initiating the practice of kneeling during the playing of the pre-game national anthem as a gesture of protest against what Kaepernick viewed as the scourge of racism and police brutality plaguing African Americans.
Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor
In 2018 as well, Barnes was the running mate of Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers and was elected as the state’s Lieutenant Governor.
Supporting the Black Lives Matter Protests & Riots Against “White Supremacist Ideology”
After the infamous death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, Barnes stated that the ensuing tsunami of protests and violent riots – led by Black Lives Matter in many U.S. states including Wisconsin — were the acts of righteous people “stepping up for good reason” – i.e., to condemn what Barnes viewed as the twin epidemics of police brutality and white racism pervading American society. Indeed, he went so far as to declare that the uprisings which followed Floyd’s death were a “sight to behold and something that makes me very proud.” Attributing the widespread unrest to the fact that there was a lack of racial “equity” amongst American citizens, Barnes explained:
“It’s frustration. It’s frustration. You can’t tell people how to be frustrated. And I go back to the same point over and over again. This didn’t come out of nowhere. Folks didn’t just wake up and decide that ‘we’re gonna break some glass, we’re gonna set some things on fire.’ […] So more than damage, destruction and rebellion, it is frustration. And it didn’t get this way out of nowhere. The onus falls on all elected leadership, all decision-makers who failed to address the crisis before it got to this point.”
Further, Barnes said it was vital for the United States to embrace “change” and to “snap out of the white supremacist ideology.”
In a series of tweets which he posted on July 4, 2020, Barnes wrote that “our country’s history and the ways in which we fail to live up to our highest ideals, can make this day difficult to celebrate.” He went on to state: “This nation has a long tradition of injustice—from enslaving Africans and selling them as property to genocidal actions against Indigenous peoples, to the forms of systemic racism and violence Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color experience to this day.”
In a similar spirit, Barnes tweeted on June 2, 2020: “This country was built by stolen labor on stolen land.” He also claimed that although Americans “have always been” land thieves and exploiters, they had an obligation to “all work to change that.”
Supporter of Defunding the Police
On June 10, 2020, Barnes tweeted his support for the defunding of police departments across the United States: “We need to invest more in neighborhoods and community services. The more money we invest in opportunity for people, the less money we have to spend on police and prisons.”
U.S. Senate Campaign: Barnes’ Supporters & Issue Priorities
In July 2021, Barnes officially launched his bid to Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. His campaign has focused heavily on the importance of defending the right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand up until the very moment of birth. “I’ll vote to codify Roe vs. Wade into law once and for all,” he vowed. Meanwhile, Barnes characterizes Ron Johnson’s views on abortion as “extreme” and “alarming.”
Other top policy priorities of Barnes’ bid for the Senate include: the payment of a “living wage” for child care workers; universal pre-K; a “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens; the legalization of marijuana; the ending of the Senate filibuster rule; and the enactment of a Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Anti-American Promoter of Critical Race Theory
In August 2021, Barnes referred to the founding of the United States as an “awful” historical event. His comment came amid a speech in which he defended the promotion of the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) — which is centered around the theme of America’s timeless and irredeemable track record of evil — in school classrooms. Regarding what he saw as the motives of those who opposed such instruction, Barnes said: “Imagine being so ashamed of how we got to this place in America that you outlaw teaching.”
In the final analysis, Barnes views America as nothing more than a racist cesspool that is utterly unworthy of anyone’s genuine respect, and his political priorities are to:
- foment an everlasting state of racial grievance and disharmony;
- permit the nation’s streets to teem with violent criminals;
- make it harder for citizens to protect themselves against assailants and home invaders;
- make it impossible to have secure and fair elections that the people can have faith in;
- increase the political leverage of convicted criminals for decades to come;
- disparage and defund police departments from coast to coast;
- promote socialism and statism under the guise of environmentalism;
- empower coldblooded government bureaucrats to dominate the nation’s healthcare system; and
- empower his own party to exploit even a tiny, temporary majority in the U.S. Senate to ram a radical agenda down the throat of 340 million Americans and enshrine it forever as permanent law
In other words, Mandela Barnes is a Democrat.
Warnock signed a letter in 2019 comparing Israel’s actions in the West Bank with "the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa." In 2013, he also defended the Nation of Islam, a radical group led by anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan, for keeping black churches "honest."
Warnock’s Church Airs Sermon Calling Evangelical Christianity the ‘Ideological Basis’ of White Supremacy
Alana Goodman • November 2, 2022 4:10 pmAt a voter outreach event on Saturday, Georgia Democratic senator Raphael Warnock’s church featured a fiery sermon from a reverend who denounced evangelical Christianity as the "ideological basis" for slavery and white supremacy.
The Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Warnock serves as senior pastor, hosted a "Super Voter Saturday" panel discussion last weekend and aired a pre-taped 2020 sermon by Rev. Billy Honor. The event took place just a few days before voters will head to the polls in Georgia, which has one of the largest evangelical Christian populations in the United States.
"There is nothing about evangelical white Christianity that would make you think it values black lives," said Honor in the sermon. "The fact is that this is a tradition that devalues black bodies, so much so that the devaluing of black bodies is about as American as apple pie."
While Warnock did not speak at the event, his name was at the top of a welcome message to attendees that played at the beginning of the program. The sermon could reignite concerns about Warnock’s own controversial statements and promotion of extremist rhetoric, including a sermon in which he said Americans need to repent for their "whiteness" and his defense of anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Honor added that "evangelical Christianity" was the "ideological basis for the enslavement of Africans, the expansion of white supremacy, the resistance to reconstruction, the acceptance of racial segregation laws, and the recent dismissal of the Black Lives Matter movement to end murders of black bodies by police."
Warnock’s opponent, Republican Herschel Walker, said the sermon promoted "division and hate" and slammed Warnock for hosting it at his church.
"Raphael Warnock and his allies believe America is a bad country full of hateful people," Walker told the Washington Free Beacon. "They even smear evangelicals who love Jesus as racist. They should be ashamed."
"Their politics of division and hate has gone too far, and I won’t let them get away with it," Walker added. "I’m going to fight for our state and our country. Love is stronger than hate, and with God’s help we will defeat them and prove that grace and hope is more powerful than their lies and division."
Warnock did not respond to a request for comment.
White evangelicals make up over a quarter of registered voters in Georgia, according to a Marist poll conducted in September.
Tiffany Roberts, the social justice chair at Ebenezer, introduced the video and told the audience on Saturday that Honor "delivered [this] sermon for us at Ebenezer two years ago about Jesus’ legacy as a social justice warrior and the importance of the vote" and called it "one of my favorite sermons in life." The replayed speech was followed by a live, in-person panel discussion about voter outreach that included organizers from liberal groups Care in Action and When We All Vote.
Warnock argued in late 2016 that Americans needed to "repent" for their "worship of whiteness," the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2020. He also defended a speech by anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright—which compared U.S. leaders to al Qaeda and claimed the government invented HIV to kill black people—as a "very fine sermon."
Warnock signed a letter in 2019 comparing Israel’s actions in the West Bank with "the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa." In 2013, he also defended the Nation of Islam, a radical group led by anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan, for keeping black churches "honest."
"We've needed the witness of the Nation of Islam, in a real sense, to put a fire under us and keep us honest," said Warnock.
Honor, who delivered the sermon, is also an organizing director with the New Georgia Project, a left-leaning voter advocacy group founded by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and previously led by Warnock. Prior to the airing of his speech at Ebenezer, Honor described Wright as an "honorable freedom fighting American." He also called the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement "one of this country’s biggest enforcers of state sponsored white supremacy."
Enter former president Barack Obama with a warning that "demonizing" people and stirring up division is dangerous. When he came to this realization isn’t entirely clear—certainly many years after sitting in the pews listening to his friend Jeremiah Wright and cavorting with Louis Farrakhan, but not before arguing that Republicans are warmongers who have a lot in common with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
‘Highly Hazardous’: Warnock’s Apartments Hit With Housing Code Violations Over Rats, Mold, Electrical Fires
Alana Goodman and Andrew Kerr • November 4, 2022 10:00 amSen. Raphael Warnock's (D., Ga.) church-owned low-income apartment complex has been slapped with multiple Atlanta city housing code violations over rodent and bug infestations, hazardous mold, and overflowing trash rooms, according to city records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Records from the Atlanta Police Department's Code Enforcement Section paint a troubling picture of the living conditions at the housing complex—revealing that the problems date back to at least 2016 and were considered serious enough for the city to intervene on multiple occasions.
The records raise new questions for Warnock, who serves as CEO and senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which owns 99 percent of the Columbia Tower buildings through a shell company. Since taking office in 2021, the senator has positioned himself as a champion for fair and safe housing and said earlier this year that "housing is dignity."
Warnock has defended the church's ownership of Columbia Tower and Columbia Senior Residences at MLK Village apartments after the Free Beacon first reported in October on the building's eviction proceedings against tenants. In a recent debate, Warnock said the report on the evictions was an attempt to "sully the name of Martin Luther King Jr.'s church," which spends "every day every week feeding the hungry and the homeless."
Warnock in January sent a letter to the Department of Defense in response to reports about "repair delays, toxic mold, pests," and other housing problems on U.S. military bases.
Warnock said it was "shameful" that service members "had to deal with these poor living conditions in the first place."
"Housing is dignity," he wrote. "I will continue pushing the federal government to make sure we're doing everything we can to provide our courageous men and women in uniform, and their families, with the resources and support they need not just to live, but thrive."
Yet Warnock hasn't publicly raised concerns about similar complaints from residents at the housing complex owned by his church.
The Free Beacon received over 70 pages of inspection records, tenant complaints, photographs, and correspondence from the Atlanta Police Department's Code Enforcement Section, which led to at least four housing code violations against Columbia between 2016 and 2019.
In August 2016, the city of Atlanta received tenant complaints about "mice, roaches, and bugs infestation" at Columbia Tower. Inspectors found that the "dwelling unit is infested by insects" and cited Columbia for a housing maintenance violation.
Two years later, the city filed another code violation notice against Columbia, after multiple complaints about water leakage, flooding, and overflowing trash around the building that was attracting "rodents such as rats and possums." Inspectors cited "junk, trash, & debris on premises" and "ceiling surfaces [that] are soiled and unsanitary" in the violation notice, which included photos of water damage and piles of garbage.
In October 2019, a tenant told the city that he had been dealing with a bug infestation for eight months and said he had health problems due to overflowing trash outside his apartment. "Dumpster fumes are affecting his health," said the complaint, a situation that the city flagged as "highly hazardous." Another tenant reported in 2020 that his "baseboard [was] missing, causing spiders to come inside the apartments," which had been "going on since October."
Water damage and flooding were also a problem, according to records. Columbia received another violation notice in June 2018 after a tenant complained that water leaking inside her walls was "causing electrical problems such as blue flames when she turn[s] on the lights," according to a record. A photograph appeared to show fire damage on the electrical outlet. The city flagged the violation as "highly hazardous."
The city in September 2019 filed another housing violation citation against Columbia, which included photos of black mold growing in a closet, water damage, and dead bugs. Inspectors cited an "infestation of roaches," "soiled cabinets/mold," an "unsanitary trash room," and an "unsanitary stairway" in the building.
The records echo firsthand accounts from Columbia residents, who talked to the Free Beacon in October and said there are still extensive sanitation and maintenance problems at the housing complex.
"We have a smell here," one resident told the Free Beacon. "The trash room has this overwhelming trash smell. As soon as you come in the building, it inundates you. It's just in your face. And it's embarrassing."
Residents said the building management lets garbage pile up in the trash rooms and the building's chute for days, leading to an overflow of waste.
"The aroma of the trash was so horrific and ridiculous," said another resident, who lives on the first floor of the building near the waste room.
Another tenant told the Free Beacon about filth in the building's ventilation system, saying, "The vents haven't been blown out for years. The dust, it's sickening, actually."
No comments:
Post a Comment