Brandon

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Obama's Weak Foreign Policy Invites Chinese Aggression, Perhaps Even War

The 1930's called and they want Neville Chamberlain back!

At the Lincoln Day Dinner in Iowa a few weeks back Gov. Jeb Bush talked about Obama's weak foreign policy. He reminded his audience that Obama promised to improve U.S. relations with countries around the world. "Name a country where the relationship is better than the day that Barack Obama came into office?” Bush asked. “Iran. Cuba. I rest my case.”

Everywhere you look around the world U.S. foreign policy seems to be unraveling and the bad guys know now is the time to act if they want to take advantage. It started with the Russian "reset" policy put into action by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. We threw away the trump card of building missile defense with our Polish and Czech partners in exchange for Russian help with Iran. Instead of helping contain Iran Russia invaded Ukraine.
U.S. acquiesced to this sea grab by
China in 2013.

The shock waves of Russia's aggression have spiked fears in Central Europe of dangerous Russian aggression, perhaps a new ground war in Europe. After decades of peace the U.S. is now sending troops, tanks and missiles to Central Europe to assist our NATO allies. Imagine the outcry if a Republican President were to do that.

In late 2013 when China unilaterally declared a "Great Wall in the Sky" when it extended an air defense zone hundreds of miles past the boundaries of it's territorial waters in the East China Sea it threatened conflict with Japan over contested islands in the zone. China now demands that any U.S. flights in the new zone must be identified and obey Chinese instructions or face a military response. The U.S. reaction amounted to a strongly worded statement along with a directive to U.S. airlines to follow the Chinese order.

China creating military bases far from
 home at key strategic point along
the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Perhaps sensing lack of U.S. resolve, China is now back for a second, bigger bite of the apple. Not content to exercise control over the air and sea hundreds of miles beyond their territorial waters China is now building artificial islands at an extraordinary pace. Ash Carter, U.S. Secretary of Defense expressed "deep concern" as he informed an audience in Singapore on Saturday that China has added 2,000 acres in 18 months to these islands and it appears they are being readied for military purposes.

In a speech on May 27, Secretary Carter demanded "an immediate and lasting halt to" China's island building and went on to say that China’s actions “are bringing countries in the region together in new ways,” Carter said. “And they’re increasing demand for American engagement in the Asia-Pacific. We’re going to meet it. We will remain the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.”  Carter has repeatedly said that diplomacy to resolve the dispute must take place.

The official response from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs ignored Carter's call for a diplomatic solution and dismissed what they called his "inappropriate remarks on China's long-standing sovereignty as well as rights and interests in the South China Sea to foment dissension and criticized China's normal and justified construction activities on islands and reefs."

Does this look like "normal and justified construction activity?" The Chinese military have made it clear that these projects have a military dimension. Are we listening?


1930's History in Reverse

In the 1930's it was Japan that reached beyond it's borders to secure resources and extend it's control over both territory and shipping lanes. Now, China is doing it. We saw what happened last time this kind of power grab went unstopped. Will we sit back and watch as the situation grows more critical?

In government documents the Obama Administration continues to stress a "rebalance" or pivot to East Asia. But in public speeches Obama continues to insist that the biggest national security crisis we face is global warming.  No one wants war with China and we should not treat China as an enemy. But we also must do more than protest as China flexes it's muscle. Given what we have seen in other areas of the world I have grave concerns that Obama understands the problem, let alone has a solution!

Did Kester Browne's Life Matter?

The death of Michael Brown sparked nationwide protests after the 18 year old charged at a police officer in Ferguson Missouri. Where is protest on behalf of 7 year old Kester Browne?

Kester Browne III, 7 years old, became 38th murder victim in Baltimore in May after
being shot in the head. His mother Jennifer was the 37th murder victim.
Young Kester is mourned by his second grade classmates at Baltimore International Academy, a charter school where Kester was enrolled in the Chinese language immersion program. His classmates and teachers mourn his loss.

But where is the national outrage at this killing? Where is Al Sharpton, President Obama or Eric Holder? Where is the media circus that did so much to fan the flames in Ferguson, Missiouri?

Where is the national outrage as Baltimore has seen the worst spike in murders in nearly 20 years following the riots where the police were told to stand down and blamed for the death of Freddie Gray, a drug dealer with a long rap sheet.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, a total of nine people were murdered, 26 injured. Nearly all of them were black and NONE of them were killed by police.

The same murder spree which is sweeping Baltimore continues in Chicago where 12 were killed and 43 wounded. Again, NONE of them killed by police.

And in New York City, since left wing Mayor DeBlasio ended the "stop and frisk" program for suspicious persons, the murder rate has skyrocketed by 45%.

Where are the protesters who chanted "black lives matter" as the epidemic of murder of blacks in the inner city reaches epidemic proportions? In the past year thousands of blacks were murdered by other blacks. Almost as many that died from ebola. When will the protesters begin to address the REAL problem in black communities?

I'm not holding my breathe. As columnist Rich Lowry writes:
Let’s be honest: Some black lives really don’t matter. If you are a young black man shot in the head by another young black man, almost certainly no one will know your name. Al Sharpton won’t come rushing to your family’s side with cameras in tow. MSNBC won’t discuss the significance of your death. No one will protest, or even riot, for you. You are a statistic, not a cause. Just another dead black kid in some city somewhere, politically useless to progressives and the media, therefore all but invisible.
In Ferguson, they are building a memorial to Mike Brown. There will be no memorial for 7 year old Kester Browne. Unlike Mike Brown, young Kester never harmed anyone or did anything to deserve his fate. His life mattered. But not to the left!

UPDATE: ACORN/George Soros Paid Protesters for Black Lives Matter! But then they stiffed a number of other rent-a-mob protesters who are now protesting them! I guess black lives matter only if the protesters are getting paid!

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Women Sold as Slaves and Burned Alive. Q: Why Don't Dems Care About the REAL War on Women?

A: Because they can't score cheap political points with an attack on ISIS!

Democrats love to claim that the GOP is waging a war on women. You know, because some in GOP supported Hobby Lobby, the company which offered to pay for only 16 forms of birth control for it's employees. But unlike that silly, transparently political attempt by Democrats to manipulate women, there's a REAL war on women and Dems are silent. Well, almost. Michelle Obama did tweet out #bringbackourgirls when Boko Haram terrorists took hundreds of Nigerian girls and sold them as sex slaves. Problem solved right? Sadly, no.

Here's the real war on women as told by this report in the Washington Post:
After attacking a village, [the Islamic State] splits women from men and executes boys and men aged 14 and over. The women and mothers are separated; girls are stripped naked, tested for virginity and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest virgins fetch higher prices and are sent to Raqqa, the IS stronghold.

There is a hierarchy: sheikhs get first choice, then emirs, then fighters. They often take three or four girls each and keep them for a month or so, until they grow tired of a girl, when she goes back to market. At slave auctions, buyers haggle fiercely, driving down prices by disparaging girls as flat-chested or unattractive.

We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another, who had escaped, told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his "property."
...
They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes.
Next time a Democrat tells you that the GOP is waging a war on women. Ask him or her what THEY are doing about the real war on women? Chances are, they won't even know what you are talking about!

Sunday, May 24, 2015

This Memorial Day Remember the U.S. Soldiers Who Died to Free Ramadi

From the Military Times. More than 70 U.S. Servicemen died fighting in Ramadi. Most of them were in their early 20's. Someone please ask Obama why he threw their sacrifice away!


Many more U.S.Servicemen lost limbs or were otherwise left with life altering injuries. There sacrifice must also be remembered and they too have the right to demand why it was so quickly thrown away.

Read the letter by Debbie Lee, whose son Marc died in Ramadi if you want to know how "gut wrenching" and personal this is.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

As Predicted Obama's Failed Iraq Strategy Exposes Inability to Understand Security Issues Let Alone Lead a Successful Effort

And once again, thousands of Iraqis are paying the price for Obama's incompetence with their lives!


This week, Ramadi, a key strategic city in Iraq and one that Americans fought and died to secure fell to ISIS. And while the news media delights in pestering Republican presidential aspirants on whether they would have invaded Iraq none of them have asked Obama why his strategy to defeat ISIS has failed. And yes it has failed. Doyle McManus writing in the L.A. Times tells us why. Obama made a great speech last September promising to shore up the Iraqis and then seems to have forgotten all about the problem.

Aide that was promised was never delivered. A handful of U.S. military trainers had no impact and the pinprick bombing campaign did nothing to stop ISIS from advancing. Last September Marine General James Conway, former Commandant of the Marine Corps correctly predicted that Obama's strategy hasn't got "a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding." He was right.

But Obama and the people around him don't seem to get it. Obama delivered the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday where he declared that the biggest threat we face is climate change. Columnist Ed Rogers describes the disconnect as a "lack of insight — the denial, delusion and downright, jaw-dropping inability to deal with the world as it is."

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest wasn't any better at showing some sense. In his Tuesday briefing Earnest repeatedly used the word "success" in describing Obama's strategy despite "setbacks." At one point Earnest said "the strategy that the President has laid out has enjoyed periods of progress and success." Yet everywhere you look the problem is worse, not better.

White House: "Light our hair on fire?"

Jordanian Pilot burned alive by ISIS
in February.
Earnest's use of the word "setback" to describe Obama's policy is nothing new. In November last year he also said "there will be days of progress and there are going to be periods of setback." The problem is that the setbacks seem to get worse and the success more distant. On Tuesday Earnest also said "Are we gonna light our hair on fire every time that there is a setback in the campaign against ISIL?" That's an unfortunate choice of words considering the highly public way in which ISIS burned to death a Jordanian Pilot.

It's clear that Obama has no effective strategy to accomplish his stated goal of defeating ISIS. The question is whether he's even trying to do so. Readers may recall the pressure Democrats and the media put on President George W. Bush when the Iraq war was failing. They demanded Bush "listen to the generals" and he did. The surge in Iraq was a success and Obama was able to claim in 2011 that Iraq was "sovereign, stable and self-reliant." It was Obama's failure to negotiate and agreement that left U.S. troops and more importantly, the intelligence networks that led to that success in place that led to to this outcome. Charles Krauthammer drives the point home:
The fact is that by the end of Bush’s tenure the war had been won. You can argue that the price of that victory was too high. Fine. We can debate that until the end of time. But what is not debatable is that it was a victory. Bush bequeathed to Obama a success. By whose measure? By Obama’s. As he told the troops at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011, “We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.” This was, said the president, a “moment of success.”
Which Obama proceeded to fully squander. With the 2012 election approaching, he chose to liquidate our military presence in Iraq. We didn’t just withdraw our forces. We abandoned, destroyed or turned over our equipment, stores, installations and bases. We surrendered our most valuable strategic assets, such as control of Iraqi airspace, soon to become the indispensable conduit for Iran to supply and sustain the Assad regime in Syria and cement its influence all the way to the Mediterranean. And, most relevant to the fall of Ramadi, we abandoned the vast intelligence network we had so painstakingly constructed in Anbar province, without which our current patchwork operations there are largely blind and correspondingly feeble.
The collapse of Iraq and the spread of ISIS is entirely the result of failed Obama policies. Sadly, Obama is too fixated on climate change and the rewards of green corruption for his friends to notice!

Monday, May 18, 2015

Obama Lost Iraq. GOP Candidates Should Stop Apologizing

If it wasn't for Obama's total withdrawal, ISIS never would have gotten a foothold!

CNN is reporting that ISIS is now in control of Ramadi, another major city in Iraq. Of the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, many have left everything they have behind and fled. Thousands who remain face a grim future of beheadings and mass murder.

It's just the latest bad news in a series of bad news as ISIS continues to advance in Iraq and Syria and related terrorist groups around the world grow in strength and daring.

Meanwhile, on the GOP presidential campaign trail the news media is delighting in asking potential GOP nominees whether they think invading Iraq was a good idea. Note that the media have NOT asked Hillary Clinton that question. Hillary, who voted for the senate resolution authorizing the Iraq war hasn't answered ANY questions for nearly a month and only eight questions since her candidacy officially began.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has stumbled more than most in answering the question about Iraq. In doing so, he's given an opening to the left. A  trollish left wing College Democrat revised history when she confronted Jeb and insisted that ISIS was created by Jeb's brother President George W. Bush as a consequence of going into Iraq in the first place.

Never mind that the decision to go into Iraq happened 12 years ago when this "student" was still playing with dolls. She insisted SHE knew President Bush was to blame for ISIS. Or at least that's probably what some college professor told her.

Bush tried to respond that it was Obama's pullout that created the conditions which allowed ISIS to gain a foothold but the "student" he was talking to knows nothing of the warnings Obama received before the fall of Fallujah and likely doesn't know, or care, that  Obama referred to ISIS the "JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. "

GOP Candidates Should NOT Apologize for Iraq War

The effort to tag every GOP candidate with the Iraq War and force them to walk away from that commitment in hindsight is a mistake. First of all, who remembers the nightmare of Saddam Hussein's Iraq? He defied multiple UN resolutions and was murdering his own people. If he were still in power it's unknown what awful consequences we would be living with. Candidates might well be asked, why the GOP did nothing to stop the mess when we had the chance.

It's Obama who should be apologizing for the disaster in Iraq. Just a few years ago Vice President Biden promised that Iraq would be among Obama's "greatest achievements." You would think the media would be more interested in following that up rather than play games with potential GOP candidates. But then perhaps the media realizes that Obama is a failure in that regard and is just moving on. No doubt that explains their lack of interest in Hillary's previous positions on Iraq too!

UPDATE: Reader Quiz. Who Said This?

This is a challenge primarily for our left wing readers. Please tell me who said the following. No fair Googling. If you don't know, say so.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Once Again, Elected Democrats Try to Politicize Tragedy by Spreading a LIE!

Infrastructure spending, of which there has been much, was NOT the cause of fatal Amtrak train derailment. But apparently, Democrats don't watch the news or read newspapers!

Within hours of the Amtrak train derailment in Pennsylvania the National Transportation Safety board released preliminary findings which showed the train that derailed was going more than twice the lawful speed: 106 miles per hour.

Thursday we learned that a system which would automatically have slowed the train was actually installed on the train but not activated because of delays caused not by funding constraints but by the Federal Communications Commission.

But this hasn't stopped Obama and just about every Democrat from rushing to the nearest microphone to blame the crash on Republicans for failing to fund what Obama calls "investments" in infrastructure.

Obama said that it didn't really matter what caused the crash we should spend more money anyway:
OBAMA: “Until we know for certain what caused this tragedy, I just want to reiterate what I have already said: That we are a growing country, with a growing economy. We need to invest in the infrastructure that keeps up that way and not just when something bad happens like a bridge collapse or a train derailment but all the time.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tried to blame Republicans for the FCC delay in activating the train safety system:
“It is simply a fact that insufficient funding for Amtrak has delayed the installation of PTC, and to deny a connection between the accident and underfunding Amtrak is to deny reality,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who called claims to the contrary "patently false."
The "simple fact" here is that everything Sen. Schumer said was a lie.

Then there was this bit of over the stop nonsense coming from Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) on the House Floor Thursday:
BROWN: It is sad that the Republicans, on the day that seven or eight people died and 200 was injured, voted to cut funding for Amtrak. It is a shame that in the people's house, the people's house, that the people that represent the people are stuck on stupid.
Yes Corrine there are a few member of the "people's house" (words she said dripping with anger) that are stuck on stupid. You would be first in line!

Democrats and their media allies took to the air waves en masses to spread the world that more spending was the answer. Either they were unaware that funding wasn't an issue or they didn't care. They were all hell bent on using a tragedy to advance a political agenda. Here's a video montage. Watch as the big lie gets repeated over and over again.

Just like Ferguson, Missouri where slain teen Mike Brown never had his "hands up" the truth doesn't seem to matter. Creating perception, even one based on a lie is all that counts.

I'm sure readers can make a list of other examples where the big lie takes the place of facts. Global warming comes to mind. We'll never see the last of this tactic because there isn't any demand by mainstream media to hold Democrats who practice these calumnies accountable!

And is it impolite to point out that Democrats passed and Obama signed an $840 billion stimulus bill more than six years ago that was supposed to address infrastructure needs? What happened to that money? Do any of these Democrats care? Or is it just easier to score cheap political points and abuse the truth on the back of a tragedy?

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Obama's Phony "Arab Summit" Collapses Before It Even Starts

Top Arab leaders are staying away. They know it's all a big show by Obama to pretend he has Persian Gulf State support for his reckless Iran nuke plan!

Arab leaders in the Persian Gulf have mostly said NO to an Obama invitation to join him at Camp David to discuss his plans for a nuke deal with Iran. Many leaders decided to send deputies instead. The Saudi King decided to send his nephew the Crown Prince “to enjoy the president’s eloquence.” That's a polite way of saying they are tired of being lectured to by Obama who never seems able to listen and understand THEIR concerns.

Obama's Saudi problem has been going on for years. They don't trust him. Peter Baker and Michael Shear at The New York Times trace the latest divide with our ally here. But it's obvious from the response of other Gulf leaders that the problem with Arab allies goes well beyond Saudi complaints.

Amir Taheri writing in the New York Post sums up the problem in "Obama’s lonely ‘Arab Summit’:"
Ever since he decided to chase the mirage of a “Grand Bargain” with Iran, President Obama has pretended that the only opposition comes from Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and “hardline” Republicans in the Congress.

He was to highlight that claim by hosting a summit for “key Arab allies” at Camp David this week.

Yet the exercise has instead shown the failure of Obama to sell his narrative to “key Arab allies” even before the first round of orange juice is served at Camp David.

Of the six heads of the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, only two, the emirs of Kuwait and Qatar, will attend.

Even the offer by Obama of a separate tete-a-tete in Washington could not persuade Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to attend what Riyadh sources describe as “a photo-op” aimed at hoodwinking the American public.
...
All in all this would be an awkward event, perhaps the first time that so many leaders publicly shun a president of the United States.
There are two reasons for the boycott.

The first is that the “key Arab allies” already know that Obama, who genuinely believes he is always right, does not listen to anybody.

The Camp David exercise, therefore, is designed only as an occasion to admire Obama’s strategy and celebrate his “historic achievement” in accepting Iran’s position as a “threshold nuclear power.”

The second reason is that Arabs already know what Obama is going to say.

“Obama made it clear he wanted an accord with Iran under any circumstances,” a senior Arab official recently told me, on condition of anonymity.
...
“Obama is banking on the assumption that giving Iran everything it wants may help change its behavior,” the Arab official told me. “He may be right. We think he is wrong.”
But just as in show business Obama believes the show must go on. But his goal of attempting to "hoodwink the American public" into believing Arab leaders support his Iran plan has failed as abysmally as his foreign policy generally. And all of this back and forth is coming at the expense of our relationships with allies and friends that have been generations in the making. Sound smart to you?

Saturday, May 09, 2015

Two Months Ago Obama Admin. Praised Baltimore Police as a Model Department on Race Relations

Now they are investigating Baltimore PD for racism. Plus, the Obama Admin. cut funds for Baltimore Police training!

In March the White House released an interim report on the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In the report (PDF):
1.2 RECOMMENDATION: Law enforcement agencies should acknowledge the role of policing in past and present injustice and discrimination and how it is a hurdle to the promotion of community trust.

At one listening session, a panel of police chiefs described what they had been doing in recent years to recognize and own the history and to change the culture within both the police forces and the communities.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts described the process in his city:
The process started with the commissioning of a study to evaluate the police department and the community’s views of the agency . . . . The review uncovered broken policies, outdated procedures, outmoded technology, and operating norms that put officers at odds with the community they are meant to serve. It was clear that dramatic and dynamic change was needed.
Ultimately, the Baltimore police created the Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau, tasked with rooting out corruption, holding officers accountable, and implementing national best practices for polices and training. New department heads were appointed and a use of force review structure based on the Las Vegas model was implemented. “These were critical infrastructure changes centered on the need to improve the internal systems that would build accountability and transparency, inside and outside the organization,” noted Commissioner Batts.
The Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, testified before the commission citing Baltimore's broad reform and drop in complaints towards police. In written testimony she said "Baltimore is in a much better place with finding the right balance between being tough on crime and building bridges of trust with the community." She later requested the Department of Justice to open an investigation of Baltimore Police in the wake of recent events.

Will the Mayor and Police Commissioner be held accountable for their earlier statements?

Obama Admin. Cut Funds for Baltimore PD Training

The Mayor also cited the need for additional funds for training. The Obama Administration CUT funds for training Baltimore Cops and instead gave the grant money to the production company for the PBS program "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." Perhaps they thought playing the Mr. Rogers' theme song "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" would help the residents of Baltimore's inner city.

Only in Obama land can you go from praising the Baltimore Police to investigating them for racism in the span of two months. But then, this isn't really about the Baltimore Police. It's about politics and using the sad events of the death of Freddie Gray to advance an anti-cop agenda!

Friday, May 08, 2015

Conservative Triumph as the Left is Divided and Destroyed in British Elections

Hopes for a left wing Labour victory were demolished!

Highlights from the Daily Mail:
  • FINAL RESULT: Tories 331 (up 25), Labour 232 (down 24), SNP 56 (up 50), Lib Dems 8 (down 48), Ukip 1 (down 1)
  • David Cameron has secured an overall Commons majority, vowing to implement the Tory manifesto in full
  • In the best Conservative result for more than 20 years, Prime Minister visited the Queen to confirm his victory
  • Ed Miliband resigned with immediate effect after taking Labour to its worst result for three decades under Kinnock
  • Nigel Farage resigned as Ukip leader after failing to become an MP in Thanet South but could stage a comeback
  • Lib Dems left with only 8 MPs, leading Nick Clegg to resign after a 'cruel and punishing' night for his party
  • Big political names ousted by voters include Ed Balls, Vince Cable, Ed Davey, Jo Swinson and Esther McVey
  • Nicola Sturgeon's SNP swept to a stunning victory across Scotland, winning all but three of Scotland's 59 seats
The dust hasn't settled yet but it looks like the May 2015 parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom will be historic for many reasons. First, the Conservatives won big with what looks like an outright majority. No need for any coalition partner which is probably a good thing since their previous partner, the Liberal Democrats were all but wiped out going from 56 seats to 8.

The other huge swing was the destruction of left wing Labour Members in Scotland where all but one lost seats in Scotland to the Scottish National Party. This leaves Labour unable to mount any serious challenge to Conservatives in the future.

All this came after the left thought the Conservatives were on the ropes and likely headed to defeat.

The other big story was the failure of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) to take more than one or two seats despite getting more votes than other smaller parties.

The big question now is that if Conservatives have an absolute ruling majority can they now institute a stronger conservative platform than was possible in coalition with the Liberal Democrats? Or will they "go wobbly" in the words of Margaret Thatcher?

UPDATE: UK Election Looks Like Maggie Simpson?


Who says American culture doesn't rule the world!

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Billions Spent on Baltimore and it's Never Enough!

The answer is ending Democrat rule, not more spending!

Below you may read the post describing how one party Democrat rule for the past 50 years has destroyed Baltimore leaving it's poor and minority residents trapped. Obama and the Democrats insist that what is needed is more spending.  But what happened to the billions of taxpayer dollars already spent on Baltimore?

From the Washington Free Beacon we learn that Baltimore received $1.8 billion from the 2008 Stimulus bill. The Beacon reports:
According to Recovery.gov, one of Baltimore’s central ZIP codes, 21201, received the most stimulus funding in the city, a total of $837,955,866. The amount included funding for 276 awards, and the website reports that the spending had created 290 jobs in the fourth quarter in 2013.

Of this amount, $467.1 million went to education; $206.1 million to the environment; $24 million to “family”; $16.1 million to infrastructure; $15.2 million to transportation; $11.9 million to housing; and $3.1 million to job training.

ZIP code 21202 received $425,170,937, including a $136 million grant to “improve teaching and learning for students most at risk of failing to meet State academic achievement standards.”

Twenty-nine other ZIP codes listed in Baltimore city received a total of $568,641,684.
290 jobs created for $837,955,866. That's about $3 million per job. It's a safe bet the jobs went not to the neediest of Baltimore's inner city residents but to reward Democrats and grease the political machine that has held Baltimore hostage for 50 years. This doesn't even take into account billions in other federal programs.

Blacks in inner city Baltimore continue to endure an unemployment rate greater than 20%. That figure is much higher for the youths who recently rioted. When will an intrepid reporter ask inner city residents what Obama's Stimulus bill did for them?

And let's not forget that Baltimore is in the top tier of spending per pupil nationwide for education but students complain that their textbooks are 20 years old. Where is the money going? Ask the Teacher's Union.

Furthermore, Baltimore is in the top ten for highest income and property taxes. And yet city government, run entirely for generations by Democrats, is unable to deliver on the promises of liberal big government for it's neediest residents.

The results of liberal rule in Baltimore are sad. Charles Hurt sums it up:
These self-proclaimed Robin Hoods and do-gooders have issued open and unashamed invitations to the most vulnerable in society to become completely dependent upon government for everything from food to cellphones to home heating oil. Left in the wake is the utter annihilation of families and the destruction of cohesive neighborhoods.

Complete dependency comes at such a high and bitter cost. All in return for what really amounts to a sad pittance of welfare payments. It is a twisted mockery of the American dream.

All the while, urban hucksters skim off their take and politicians — drunk off their own florid false promises — clap one another on the back and congratulate one another for their "compassion" for the poor.
More money isn't the answer for Baltimore. Ending the corruption of Democrat big tax, big spending, big union rule is the only way forward!

P.S. 20 year former Baltimore Prosecutor calls rush to prosecute police "incompetent."
Appearing on CNN Wednesday morning, former Baltimore Deputy State’s Attorney Page Croyder blasted current State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby‘s charges against the six officers allegedly involved in Freddie Gray‘s mid-April death.

“Any prosecutor interested in the truth and in justice would have used all the tools at her disposal to find them. Ms. Mosby ignored them,” Croyder wrote in a Tuesday op-ed for the Baltimore Sun. “She has one of the most experienced homicide prosecutors in the state of Maryland as chief of her homicide unit, but did not ask him to investigate. She had the police report all of one day before filing charges, her mind already made up. And she failed to make use of the grand jury to gather, probe and test the evidence before a group of average citizens.”

Croyder continued:
She did no consultation with the police investigators. There had to have been many questions. Her own charging documents raise many questions…. [W]hat you were doing was investigating how this person died because to this day we don’t know how he died. If there was evidence immediately available that showed that a police officer had broken [Gray's] neck, there would have been an immediate arrest. This is not that situation. This is a situation which called for an investigation and she did not use all of the tools available to her to do a completely thorough investigation.

Monday, May 04, 2015

To Fix Baltimore, Free Citizens from One Party Rule. End Enslavement to Failed Democrat Policies

Big taxes, big spending, big union and left wing ideology doesn't work for Baltimore and other big cities. Things won't change for the better until citizens see the light!

The minute the mess in Baltimore became a national story the usual suspects on the left emerged to spout yet another version of the recycled talking points they use to make excuses and point fingers in the wake of such sad events.

One protester screamed that there was a "black genocide" being waged by the police. Yet the average number of blacks killed by police every year is less than 100. Three times that number of non-blacks are killed by cops. Every year roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered by other blacks. Among the dead are dozens of black children gunned down in Chicago every year. When these facts are brought to the attention of the screaming protester she accused the reporter of trying to confuse the issue and went on screaming about racism.

Notice that when protesters should "racism" they exempt themselves from considering any other cause or effect. How convenient!

Yes, institutional, widespread, systemic racism is said to be the reason for this "black genocide." But Baltimore is a majority black city. The Mayor, Police Commissioner, Prosecutor and most of the City Council are black. Blacks make up nearly 50% of the police force. Of the six officers charge in the death of Freddie Gray, three are black:

Clockwise from top left, the six Baltimore Police officers who were charged Friday in the death of Freddie Gray: Officer Caesar Goodson; Lt. Brian Rice; Sgt. Alicia White; Officer Garrett Miller; Officer William Porter; and Officer Edward Nero. CreditThe Baltimore Police Department
Not Enough Spending? Please!

Obama is one who never lets a crisis go to waste and Baltimore is no exception. When asked about the problem last week he went into the usual litany putting some of the blame on the cops but did mention the chronic problems of inner city blacks. Of course his solution is more spending:
OBAMA: we're going to have to think about what can we do -- the rest of us -- to make sure that we're providing early education to these kids; to make sure that we're reforming our criminal justice system so it’s not just a pipeline from schools to prisons; so that we're not rendering men in these communities unemployable because of a felony record for a nonviolent drug offense; that we're making investments so that they can get the training they need to find jobs. That's hard. That requires more than just the occasional news report or task force. And there’s a bunch of my agenda that would make a difference right now in that.

Now, I’m under no illusion that out of this Congress we're going to get massive investments in urban communities, and so we’ll try to find areas where we can make a difference around school reform and around job training,
and around some investments in infrastructure in these communities trying to attract new businesses in.
Obama can't help but get a partisan dig in at Congress. As far as new "investments" go, we've seen it all before and it hasn't worked. Michelle Malkin in a column titled "Been There, Spent That" reminds us:
In 2009, Obama and the Democrats rammed the $840 billion stimulus package through Capitol Hill under the guise of immediate job creation and economic recovery. An estimated $64 billion went to public-school districts; another nearly $50 billion went for other education spending.

This included $13 billion for low-income school kids; $4.1 billion for Head Start and child-care services; $650 million for educational technology; $200 million for working college students; and $70 million for homeless children.

Last week, economists from the St. Louis Federal Reserve surveyed more than 6,700 education-stimulus recipients and concluded that for every $1 million of stimulus grants to a district, a measly 1.5 jobs were created. “Moreover, all of this increase came in the form of nonteaching staff,” the report found.
Malkin goes on to describe billions in other related spending that was supposed to help communities like Baltimore. But most of the money disappeared down the big government/big union rat hole. Is it any wonder some black inner city residents think Obama is a failure?

Obama Opposes School Choice

When it comes to education spending Baltimore is second highest for spending per pupil in the country. Nearly $18,000 per pupil, per year. And the schools still fail to educate the children. Instead they are a breeding ground for the drug and gang culture that Obama correctly cites as a major reason for Baltimore's failure.

Obama talks about school reform but opposes school vouchers and choice, the one reform that has shown to give children the best chance to thrive. But Obama continues to toe the line dictated by the powerful teacher's unions which block so many of the reforms and choice that would bring real change to inner city education.

Baltimore won't see any real change until the voters of that city admit that the Democrat big government, big spending, big union system which has been their model for the past 50 years has failed and is replaced by a true two party system where new ideas are given a fair chance. But as long as the mob continues to scream "racism" no real dialogue can occur. Residents in inner cities across the country face the same problem. When is enough enough and when will they be ready for real change?
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