Newt Gingrich addresses the people of Baltimore...
And I address Newt!
* * *
* *
Fact: the last Republican city council member in
Baltimore City left office in 1942.
That is 73 years of solid Democrat city councils.
Fact: the last Republican mayor of Baltimore City left
office in 1967.
That is 48 years of unbroken control of the mayor's
office.
Fact: the Maryland Senate is currently 33 Democrats to 14
Republicans.
Fact: the Maryland House is currently 90 Democrats to 50
Republicans.
Fact: the last time Republicans held both the Maryland
Senate and the Maryland House of Delegates was 1897.
Fact: the last time Republicans held even one chamber of
the Maryland General Assembly - the House - was 1917.
That is unbroken Democrat control of the Maryland
legislature since 1918 - or nearly a century of Democrat control.
Fact: Seven out of eight members of the Maryland
delegation in the U.S. House are Democrats.
Fact: The last Republican U.S. Senator from Maryland was
elected in 1980.
Fact: it was Baltimore’s Democrat mayor, Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake, who said: “I’ve made it very clear that I work with the police
and instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the
protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech. It's a very
delicate balancing act. Because while we tried to make sure that they were
protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those
who wished to destroy space to do that as well. And we worked very hard to keep
that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate."
This ”space to destroy” policy led to riots which
resulted in:
130 police officers injured; more than 350 businesses
damaged (increasing inner-city unemployment); 15 pharmacies damaged (limiting
inner-city residents’ access to medicine); Korean American businesses targeted
while gangs protected businesses owned by African Americans; 144 vehicle fires;
firehoses cut as firemen fought fires...
(*SILENCE*)
The collapse of order has a continuing effect.
There has been a drastic increase in shootings and
homicides in Baltimore since April 27.
More than 50 people have been shot.
At least 10 have been shot and four killed since Saturday
May 9.
Non-fatal shootings are up nearly 50%.
All of this happened under the leadership of a Democrat
mayor who was worried more about the rioters’ ["right to destroy"] than
about the safety, protection, and livelihoods of innocent Baltimoreans.
The first duty of government is to protect the innocent
and the weak from predators and violence.
Once again... a Democrat favored the violent over the
victims.
The protesters charge that the police are racist.
Fact: More than half of the Baltimore City police force
is minority.
Fact: Four of the six top commanders are African American
or Hispanic.
Fact: Half of the police officers being prosecuted are
African American.
The protesters point to poverty - and they’re right.
Poverty has devastated minority communities. But it is Left-wing policies
implemented by Democrats that have created destructive incentives and denied
opportunity to generations of young people.
Fact: Baltimore City spends $17,329 per student - and its
unionized, bureaucratic schools fail.
As Terence Jeffrey of CNS News quotes a lawyer for
Freddie Gray’s family as saying, "The education system has failed
them." The lawyer is right. "These kids have had bad experiences in
school," he said.
Jeffrey outlines the absolute failure of the unionized
bureaucratic Baltimore City school system: 84% of eighth graders score below
grade level in reading. 87% scored below grade level in math.
For $17,000 a year, Baltimore City students could get
much better educations at Catholic schools, private schools or even with an
organized home schooling program (8 students could pool $120,000 a year to hire
a personal tutor as was done when Thomas Jefferson was young).
Amazingly, as Archbishop of Baltimore William Lori points
out, the Catholic schools cost $6,000 a year and have a 99% graduation rate.
Yet... the Democrats are committed to locking poor
children out of those schools if it takes a dime away from funds for failing,
unionized public schools.
With school choice policies, we could save children's
lives while saving money. Instead... the Left-wing unions and bureaucracies
ruthlessly exploit children, ruining their lives while the Democratic
leadership in the Maryland House blocks school choice bills that would give
children a chance to attend better schools.
There is no greater example of the relentless dishonesty
of modern Democrats than their willingness to destroy children's lives while
blaming others. President Obama could quit blaming Fox News and simply demand
school choice (which of course he opposes) and he would radically improve the
lives of millions of trapped poor children.
Of course, it is Democrats who control the teachers union
that traps Baltimore City's children in schools that fail and ruin their lives.
They do so on behalf of the unionized bureaucratic political machine that
controls the city.
(*SHRUG*)
* IT'S TRUE - ISN'T IT...???
Poverty in general has been institutionalized by the
destructive ideological biases of Democrat President Lyndon Johnson's Great
Society. On May 22, 1964 President Johnson said, "Our society will never
be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and
innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders."
Tragically, his policies trapped people in dependency,
killed small businesses in favor of bureaucracy, and favored unionized workers
over children. The result has been a 50-year disaster which no liberal Democrat
is prepared to analyze honestly.
Charles Murray's classic study of destructive welfare
policies - "Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980" - and
Marvin Olasky's decisive repudiation of the idealistic premises of big
government liberalism’s approach to poverty - "The Tragedy of American
Compassion" - explain decisively the failure of the Baltimore City
Democrats. Their values, principles and organizations doom their efforts to
failure.
A sound program has to start with safety and work.
That policy has to begin with favoring public safety and
small business.
All Americans should care enough about their fellow
citizens trapped with bad leadership, bad government, selfish bureaucrats, and
misleading news media. All of us should care about creating a much better
future for poor Americans.
* NEWT... IT'S THE BLACK AND (LARGELY) HISPANIC (AND EVEN
ASIAN) VOTERS WHO VOTE IN THESE DESTRUCTIVE DEMOCRATS!
(*SHRUG*)
That future has to start with a fact-based analysis of
how we got here and who has been responsible.
* GOOD LUCK WITH THAT...
(*ANOTHER SHRUG*)
In Baltimore City, the answer is [replacing] Democrat
officials who for a half-century have crippled and weakened what was once a
great and vibrant city.
* NEWT... THE STORIES ABOUT LEMMINGS JUMPING OFF CLIFFS
ARE JUST THAT - STORIES. THE STORIES OF BLACK AND MINORITY VOTING BEHAVIOR...
REALITY.
(*SHRUG*)
* YOU CAN'T HELP PEOPLE UNWILLING TO HELP THEMSELVES.
IT'S UP TO "MINORITY MINORITIES" TO CONVINCE "THEIR PEOPLE"
THAT THEY'VE BEEN ACTING AGAINST THEIR OWN INTERESTS... SUICIDALLY SO.
In future weeks, I will outline a strategy for a
renaissance in Baltimore City.
* AND WHEN YOU DO I'LL CRITIQUE IT.
(*WINK*)
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