RUSH: Another New Republic story, big, long story stapled again together today: “The Fiscal Abandonment of West Baltimore — Freddie Gray’s neighborhood needs financial help, but who will pay?” This is a long story detailing what we’ve told you all week about the dire circumstances where Freddie Gray grew up and lived. And it is bleak, folks, as you may recall. What is the number, 16% of Baltimore teenagers have been raised with married parents. Meaning 84% of Baltimore teenagers have not been raised with married parents.
I know that some of you might be, “So what, Rush? It’s a new era. That doesn’t matter anymore. You’re just dating yourself.” Okay, let me put it to you a different way. Do you think that children notice things and form respect and disrespect for adults based on what they see? Okay, well let me ask you this, then. I don’t ask this with prejudice by any stretch. I’m asking as I ask everything else. It’s a think question. I want you to ponder it. What do you think the effect is on single age young kids and teenagers who get up in the morning and never, ever see a parent or either parent go off to work?
If the idea that 16% of teenagers grow up in a two-parent household is no big deal to you, then let me ask you this: Does if matter that all of these young kids — not just Baltimore, but everywhere — get up and never see their parents go off to work? They’re getting up and going to school, maybe, the kids. But they never see their parents get up and go to work, and when they get home their parents either are there or not there, but they’re not working.
What kind of influence do you think that has? It’s gotta have some, right? Now, the New Republic piece. It’s all about money and how we’re not spending enough money and we need to spend more money. But exactly whose money needs to be spent now? And, of course, it’s gonna be concluded that the federal government needs to spend more. Never mind the fact that Baltimore got nearly $2 billion from Obama’s stimulus, designed to fix things like Freddie Gray’s neighborhood, but not a dime went there.
Isn’t that amazing?
Yes, $2 billion out of the $800 billion stimulus went to the city of Baltimore. That’s not counting what else went to the state. That’s just what went to the city of Baltimore, and there’s not anything to show for it. Not in Fred’s neighborhood, anyway, and probably not much else other than maybe they kept the teachers employed because we know that the majority of the stimulus money went to union employees — teachers and others.
So that they would stay employed during the recession and thus keep paying their union dues, which end up back — a percentage of it — in the Democrat Party campaign coffers. And in addition to that, it’s $1.8 billion that Baltimore got in the stimulus. Just last year they had an infusion of $130 million for some such thing. You might say, “Well, that’s chump change.” Well, it’s chump change compared to $2 billion, but $130 million?
Do you think maybe some productive things could be done with $130 million? Before you just say, “That’s not enough; that’s a drop in the bucket,” stop and think a minute: $130 million, and none of it ends up where it is targeted. (interruption) What do you mean, how do I know? Well, look. Do you see any difference in the city from before and after $2 billion? Where’s the difference?
Guess what? This was a fait accompli, although it’s reported here as a big, big news story in the Washington Post. The Justice Department will launch a federal investigation of the Baltimore Police Department, as though there was any doubt. Of course, we predicted it yesterday. It was a fait accompli. It was always gonna happen. I know that some people were worried that the Regime might not agree to take over the Baltimore Police Department, but really, folks, when the mayor of Baltimore asks you to come in and take over their police department and you are Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama, you say no?
You’re gonna be in there before the sun sets. In fact, get this. A companion story from the Politico: “Pressure Builds on GOP for Police, Criminal Justice Reforms — Pressure is mounting on Republican congressional leaders to take up criminal justice and police reform legislation — and the calls are increasingly coming from within the GOP.” So like night follows day, the Politico is here to warn the GOP that they had better get on board with Obama and the federal government taking over local police.
In fact, if they want to really do the right thing, they’ll write the legislation themselves and make it look like it’s their idea. And that is supposed to show the minorities and the African-Americans that the Republicans don’t hate ’em, and then that’s supposed to show the Republicans have compassion and concern and so forth. In case you haven’t noticed, over the past few decades, this is how the news media and the rest of the Democrat Party work.
No. 1. They decide there’s a problem, a crisis that needs to be addressed.
No. 2. They manufacture an event to exemplify the crisis (i.e., a riot or what have you).
No. 3. They then claim that the public is demanding that the problem be fixed the Democrat Party way.
No. 4. They then claim the Republicans had better get on board before they are left in the dust.
The Politico says, “Republican leaders haven’t yet decided how to proceed on an issue conservatives typically have not treated as a priority.” See, that’s how The Politico hits it. What is it that conservatives have not treated as a priority? Criminal justice reform? Fairness in the inner city? Yeah. That’s what they mean. “Republican leaders haven’t yet decided how to proceed on an issue conservatives typically have not treated as a priority.”
Ah, conservatives don’t care about people. See? This story is guaranteed multiple times a year. The only thing that changes is the city, and this wasn’t even an issue until the Democrats, their media buddies decided they needed to turn out more black voters in the midterms. That’s where this thing gets started. Anyway, “[W]ith outrage over police killings of African-Americans dominating the news, an increasing number of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers say doing nothing is no longer an option.”
You see? Yes, it just keeps happening. What the Republicans ought to do is quite obvious. They’ve got how many decades of history of Democrat policy not working? What is it stopping them from standing up and saying, “We need to try something new because obviously the Obama way, the Democrat Party way isn’t working. We’ve thrown money at it, $22 trillion since the Great Society, and we’ve sent $2 billion from the stimulus went to Baltimore. We’ve done nothing but throw money at cities and people, and there’s nothing to show for it.
And the Republicans apparently think that’s too risky a proposition, because, “[W]ith outrage over police killings of African-Americans dominating the news, an increasing number of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers say doing nothing is no longer an option.” When have the Republicans done nothing? They have proposed all kinds of things over the years. Enterprise zones, school vouchers, any number of things to improve these circumstances.
In some places, they’ve been implemented. And when they work, the Democrats shut them down. Like Obama. The minute he got elected, one of the first things he did was shut down the school choice program in DC, which was a benefit for African-Americans. He shut it down in loyalty to the teachers unions in public schools and there were some other factors in there, too. I mean, Obama’s kids were gonna go to one of those schools where the underclass kids were gonna show up, and that wouldn’t work out.
Michelle wasn’t happy about that. So just eliminate the program, right, Snerdley? Eliminate the program. Class consciousness and all that. Anyway, this idea the Republicans haven’t done anything, and it’s time to get off the dime now, years and years and years of “doing nothing is no longer an option”? The deck is just so stacked, it’s just stunning. For 27 years I’ve been seeing it this way. Anyway, so the Justice Department’s gonna go in and fix Baltimore.
However, ladies and gentlemen, it’s not going to be easy because The Politico has another story. “Policing scandals threaten to overwhelm Justice Department — The woes of the nation’s 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies have been placed on the shoulders of around 50 lawyers” from the DOJ civil rights division. The creme de la creme! And it’s just too much. They can’t handle it.
They need more money. The DOJ needs more money. They need more power to handle all these police department scandals. It costs money to take over the nation’s police departments, apparently. So here we go. After all the big, exciting news, Loretta Lynch said, “Yep, we heard the mayor in Baltimore beg us to come in. We’re gonna go in there. We’re gonna go in.”
The Republicans say, “Hey, let us tag along. We’re tired of doing nothing all these years,” and then the DOJ decides to throw cold water. “You know what? It’s getting hard. It’s so hard. These scandals are overwhelming us. They threaten our ability to do anything anywhere!” (laughing)
I take a break here, folks, sit tight. Open Line Friday rolling on right after this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Get this. If you think that this is not a big deal, this Politico piece about the takeover of the police departments mentions this: “Since taking office, the Obama administration has opened 21 investigations into police departments of various sizes — from Los Angeles and New Orleans to Missoula, Montana, and Beacon, New York. Such probes can result in legally binding agreements or lawsuits that force reforms in department policy.
“In its first five years, the Obama-era section secured double the number of agreements of the last five years of the Bush administration.” They left out Miami. They left out Newark. They left out Las Vegas, Oakland, and Ferguson as other police departments they have conquered. They have taken over. They have investigated and imposed Obama administration guidelines and behaviors and policies on these local police departments.
And he’s just gotten started, folks.
He’s still got 22, 21 months left.
And the premise behind all of this is that local police departments are incompetent and local police departments are the reason so many young African-American men are in jail. Obama wants to restrain the police department presence. He wants to deemphasize it. The real reason is for chaos. The stated reason, they happen to believe that a vivid police department presence is intimidating and provocative and leads to unrest.
Because in the Obama administration’s view — in the liberal view — just like the US military is the focus of evil in our foreign policy and the US military provokes action against the US (like the prison, Guantanamo Bay, creates terrorism rather than incarcerates terrorists), well, by the same token, they believe that domestic police departments create crime. They believe that domestic police departments are a primary reason or a leading factor in a high crime rate and the unfair incarceration rate of young African-American men.
And when the DOJ comes calling and threatening your local police department? Well, you need federal money. You bend over and grab the ankles fast, and they get to come in and redefine your policy book and your mission statement. And it’s happening now in 25 police departments all over the country, with Baltimore to be next.
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