ELIJAH CUMMINGS DEFENDS HIS 23 YR BALTIMORE REPRESENTATION (SO DO THE RATS)

ELIJAH CUMMINGS DEFENDS HIS 23 YR BALTIMORE REPRESENTATION (SO DO THE RATS):

WAS TRUMP RIGHT? IS BALTIMORE STILL “THE WIRE”??

HOW MANY BLACK MEN HAS CUMMINGS HELPED TO (SECRETLY) INCARCERATE INSTEAD OF HELPING THEM TO BECOME GAINFULLY EMPLOYED?

CONGRESSMAN ELIJAH CUMMINGS (“THE BULLY”) IS KNOWN TO RETALIATE AGAINST ANYONE WHO DOESN’T AGREE WITH HIM OR CHALLENGES HIM.

IN FACT, MANY OF HIS CONSTITUENTS ARE AFRAID OF HIM WHICH EXPLAINS WHY HE’S BEEN IN PUBLIC OFFICE 23 YRS.

SO WILL CUMMINGS USE HIS CONGRESSIONAL JUDICIAL COMMITTEE POWER TO RETALIATE AGAINST PRES TRUMP OVER HIS BOLD TWEETS ABOUT BALTIMORE?

WILL CUMMINGS RETALIATE AGAINST ALL THE JOURNALISTS & BLOGGERS WHO REPORTED ON THIS STORY?

STAY TUNED.


Post Sources: Baltimore Sun, DW News, Fox News, NBC News, Turning Point USA, Washington Examiner, Youtube



**** The trouble with Trump's tweets about Baltimore is that they are true


President Trump’s recent tweets about Baltimore, rats, and the city’s political leadership have roiled Washington and prompted another round of cries of “racism” from the usual race hustlers, who are seeking out every camera they can find. But rather than focus on whether or not Trump is a racist, how about we focus on the man’s words? Are they true?

Yes, they are.

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995, Elijah Cummings has represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District (which includes Baltimore City) for the past 23 years. Prior to that, Cummings was an elected member of Maryland's House of Delegates, representing District 39 (also Baltimore City) beginning in 1983. In all, Cummings has represented Baltimore for 36 years.

What has Baltimore to show for Cummings’ years of representation? Here are a few examples. In 2017, 13 high schools in the city of Baltimore were found to have zero students — not a single one — who were proficient in math. And out of the 3,804 students in all who took the state math proficiency test, only 14 were proficient.

Baltimore’s schools perform this poorly despite the fact that residents of Baltimore pay 3.2% city income tax, the maximum local income tax rate allowed by state law in an already high-tax state. Take that as further proof that throwing money at problems doesn’t necessarily solve them.

Crime in Baltimore is, simply put, out of control. With over 2,000 violent crimes per 100,000 people, in the year 2017 Baltimore was well within the most dangerous 1% of U.S. cities.

And then, there’s the rats, the mention of which generated much of the ire directed at Trump. He claimed that Baltimore is “rat infested," causing some left-wing pundits to claim he was using code to refer to “black and brown people.” Yet, once again, the issue is whether he was right. And he was. The city has a very real rat infestation problem.

Baltimore’s rats have long been the subject of commentary in the news and in social media. From both sides of the political aisle, everyone from Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders to Ben Carson and Baltimore’s former Mayor Catherine Pugh (who resigned in May amid federal and state corruption investigations) have been outed on the web for having publicly commented on the city’s filth and squalor in years past. A 2018 video has surfaced of Pugh touring her miserable city and nearly gagging on her own words as she exclaimed, “You can smell the rats … Oh my God, you can smell the dead animals.”

So, yes, there are rats. A lot of rats. So many rats that one citizen created a full feature-length documentary film about Baltimore’s rats. The city and county themselves launched the “Rat Attack Program” to battle the epidemic, sadly without much success.

On Monday, Baltimore’s local Fox broadcasting affiliate WBFF was reporting on Trump’s tweetstorm when, as if sensing its opportunity for two seconds of fame, a rat ran through the frame effectively photobombing the Fox45 reporter’s live shot!

As a black American pundit, I am often asked whether I think Trump is a racist. I do not, but the answer I always give is that I don’t care. What I care about is the truth.

The point is that the overarching focus on race accomplishes nothing. And if the focus is simply on truth, then in this case, Trump is unquestionably right.

That Baltimore’s political leadership has failed its constituents is inarguable. That's why those same political figures, along with the race hustlers of the day, repeatedly pull out the same card they’ve been playing for decades. They get away with it by accusing their own accusers of racism. They choose to focus on accusations of intent rather than substance of the issue.

Baltimore is steeped in squalor, and the black community there bears the brunt of its inept, corrupt political leadership. Trump hasn't had time to cause that in his less than three years in office. But in less than three seconds, his tweet has shone a glaring spotlight onto it, and that bright light is causing the rats to scurry.

CATHERINE PUGH RESIGNS FROM BALTIMORE MAYOR’S POST (CORRUPTION SCANDAL)

CATHERINE PUGH RESIGNS FROM BALTIMORE MAYOR’S POST (CORRUPTION SCANDAL):

BALTIMORE & ATL - DRAIN THE SWAMP.

MOST BLACK POLITICIANS USE THEIR EDUCATION & POWER AS A WEAPON AGAINST BLACK VOTERS.

HOW DOES THIS ABUSE OF POWER HELP STRENGTHEN BLACK COMMUNITIES?

BLACK VOTERS DESERVE MUCH BETTER LEADERSHIP.

YES, WHITE POLITICIANS CAN EFFECTIVELY LEAD BLACK VOTERS WITHOUT RACISM.

2020 ELECTION


Post Sources: CBS News, Fox News, NY Times, Washington Post, Youtube


****** Baltimore’s Mayor, Catherine Pugh, Resigns Amid Children’s Book Scandal


After weeks of mounting pressure, Mayor Catherine Pugh of Baltimore resigned on Thursday amid a widening scandal involving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of children’s books that she wrote and sold to the University of Maryland Medical System while serving on its board of directors.

Her resignation comes days after the Baltimore City Council proposed amending the city charter to make it possible to remove her, and after the F.B.I. raided her two homes and her office at City Hall.
Ms. Pugh stepped down from the hospital network’s board, but she had resisted calls to step down as mayor.

She has been home on medical leave for weeks. Her lawyer told reporters previously that she was too ill to make decisions.

Bernard Young, president of the Baltimore City Council, has been serving as acting mayor and will complete the rest of her term.

“I am sorry for the harm that I have caused to the image of Baltimore and the credibility of the office of the mayor,” Ms. Pugh said in a statement read aloud by her lawyer, Steve Silverman, at a brief news conference that she did not attend. “Baltimore deserves a mayor who can move our great city forward.”

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who appoints the board of the University of Maryland Medical System, applauded Ms. Pugh’s resignation in a post on Twitter.

“This was the right decision, as it was clear the mayor could no longer lead effectively,” he wrote. “The federal and state investigations must and will continue to uncover the facts.”

Ms. Pugh has been under intense scrutiny since March, when The Baltimore Sun reported that she was one of nine members of the board of the University of Maryland Medical System who had profited personally from contracts with the hospital system.

When the scandal broke, Ms. Pugh maintained that there was nothing illegal or unethical about her deal to sell her “Healthy Holly” children’s books, which promote nutritious food and exercise, to the hospital network, whose board she has served on since 2001.

The network, in turn, was supposed to donate the books to Baltimore schools and day cares.

She apologized for failing to report the deal on disclosure forms when she was a state senator and returned the most recent payment of $100,000.

But questions continued to swirl over who authorized the contract and how many of the books actually reached children, especially after thousands of books were discovered untouched in a school warehouse.

Ms. Pugh has received $500,000 since 2011 from the medical system for the books.

Other entities, including Kaiser Permanente, reportedly paid her an additional $190,000 for the books.

“This whole entire episode has been hurtful to the city,” said Jill Carter, a state senator representing Baltimore who has been pushing to limit self-dealing on the hospital network’s board. “Those of us who are holding elected office now, it is incumbent upon us to do everything in our power to restore the public trust.”

Ms. Carter said she began investigating the hospital network’s contracts after hearing complaints from minority-owned businesses that it was impossible for them to bid on contracts, while politically connected board members received lucrative deals that did not go through normal channels of procurement.

Ms. Carter noted that other board members reaped far more from the hospital network, including Francis X. Kelly, who advocated the privatization of the hospital network as a state senator, and went on to obtain $16 million in contracts through his insurance company, Kelly & Associates Insurance Group.

“It’s been very troubling to me that so much focus has been placed on the mayor that there has been too little scrutiny and too little desire to investigate the other members,” Ms. Carter said.

The hospital network’s website lists Mr. Kelly as being “on leave” from the board, along with three other members who had business contracts.

He did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.

A recent bill passed by Maryland’s General Assembly will replace the medical system’s entire board in July, and generally prohibits future board members from receiving no-bid contracts.

Michael Schwartzberg, a spokesman for the medical system’s management, said it would not be issuing a statement on the mayor’s resignation.

Ms. Pugh, who was elected mayor in 2016, has long been a fixture in the city’s politics.

She previously served as a state senator and majority leader in Maryland’s General Assembly.

Her resignation comes after a series of other corruption scandals in the city have shaken faith in Baltimore’s government.

Last year, six Baltimore police officers pleaded guilty in a wide-ranging corruption trial that included robbing a motorist of $25,000 and dumping garbage bags full of stolen prescription drugs on the market.

The city, which endured riots and unrest in the wake of the 2015 death in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, has seen four police commissioners cycle through since Mr. Gray’s death.

Last year, former police commissioner Darryl De Sousa pleaded guilty in federal court to failing to file income tax returns.

In 2010, another Baltimore mayor, Sheila Ann Dixon, resigned after being found guilty of misappropriating gift cards for the poor.

Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a nonpartisan watchdog organization, said her group has received several calls from people expressing a loss of faith in Ms. Pugh.

But Ms. Antoine said she is heartened by recent proposals brought by Baltimore City Council members to tighten ethics disclosure rules and make it easier to remove the mayor.

“I think we’re on the verge of recovering from all of this,” she said. “We believe the City Council is taking steps to move forward.”

CATHERINE PUGH LOSES POLITICAL CAREER DUE TO CORRUPTION (WHITE MAYORS NEEDED)

CATHERINE PUGH LOSES POLITICAL CAREER DUE TO CORRUPTION (FBI RAIDS):

SHE IS NOW IN HIDING.

ATLANTA & BALTIMORE NEED TO ELECT WHITE MAYORS IMMEDIATELY.

LONG TERM BLACK LEADERSHIP IN THE ATL & BALTIMORE CREATED COMPLACENCY & ENCOURAGED CORRUPTION.

MOST BLACK LEADERS DON’T CARE ABOUT BLACK VOTERS ANYWAY, ONLY THEMSELVES.

IT’S TIME FOR REAL CHANGE.

YES, WHITE POLITICIANS CAN EFFECTIVELY LEAD BLACK VOTERS WITHOUT RACISM.

2020 ELECTION


Post Sources: New York Post, AJC, CNN, PBS, Youtube


***** Feds raid Baltimore mayor’s home amid kids book corruption scandal


FBI and IRS agents raided the home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh on Thursday amid calls she resign over her shady children’s book sales.

The blitz on Pugh’s home indicated publicly for the first time that she’s being investigated by the feds, as well as by the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor.

Authorities are looking into lucrative sales of Pugh’s “Healthy Holly” series to the University of Maryland Medical System while she was on their unpaid board of directors.

The investigation that led to Thursday’s raids began more than a year ago, sources told The Baltimore Sun.

Pugh, 69, has been on an indefinite leave of absence since April 1, when calls for a state probe into her began.

She claimed then that she was taking time off to recover from a bout of pneumonia.

The Democrat was at home at the time of the raids. Sources told local outlet WJZ that she has since left Maryland.

As agents hauled out boxes of “Healthy Holly” books and documents from Pugh’s home, Gov. Larry Hogan called for Pugh to step down.

“Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust,” the Republican governor tweeted. “She is clearly not fit to lead. For the good of the city, Mayor Pugh must resign.”

Hogan directed the state’s prosecutor on April 1 to begin a probe into Pugh’s “questionable dealings.”

Besides Hogan, the Baltimore City Council, Baltimore lawmakers in the House of Delegates and the Great Baltimore Committee, a business group, have also called for Pugh’s resignation.

The feds also executed search warrants at the office of Pugh’s lawyer, Steven Silverman, City Hall, the Maryland Center for Adult Training, whose job program Pugh once ran, and the home of an aide, the FBI confirmed.

Silverman said agents served a subpoena to his office for Pugh’s financial records. “We will continue to vigorously defend the mayor,” he told the Washington Post.

The health provider paid $500,000 to buy 100,000 copies of the book from Pugh’s company, Healthy Holly LLC, in a no-bid arrangement between 2011 and 2018.
Pugh apologized that she had “done something to upset the people,” returned $100,000 to the health-care system and canceled a book deal.

She has also stepped down from the board.

Another health-care provider, Kaiser Permanente, confirmed to The Baltimore Sun this month that it had paid Pugh $114,000 for 20 copies of her book between 2015 and 2018 while the company was trying to get a contract from the city.

Kaiser was awarded a $48 million contract in 2017 to provide heath benefits to city workers by a spending board on which Pugh sits.

Pugh did not comment and her spokesman said he hasn’t talked to her.