“Riot Day Insurance”

Maybe that’s why Baltimore City Mayor, the Obviously Brain Dead Stephanie Rawlings Blake, told the cops to “stand down” during those recent riots…

Maybe she knew that much of the costs for the damage done by the rioters would be paid for out of coffers not her or Baltimore city’s own.

Maybe she’s not quite so “brain dead” after all.

I pose that hypothesis because of the questions being raised over Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s proposed use of Maryland’s “Rainy Day” funds in his proposal to cover costs incurred during those riots.  If I may note, that’s “Rainy Day” funds, not “Riot Day” funds…but that small factor seems to matter not. Let’s just call it Governor Hogan’s “Riot Day Insurance.”

According to Ace reporter Bryan Sears of the Daily Record and, as also was reported by Cynthia Prairie at the Maryland Reporter (http://marylandreporter.com/2015/06/17/state-roundup-june-17-2015/), the State of Maryland is in for $20 million to cover costs as a result of the rioting which occurred during Rawlings Blake’s “stand down” order – and Hogan wants to transfer another $6 million into a “catastrophic event fund” to pay for future emergency needs.

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture is this: The rioting occurred and got particularly nasty and vicious after Rawlings Blake told the cops to “stand down.”  Meaning, the rioters knew they’d be able to get away more or less willy-nilly with their own brand of urban renewal – meaning, it’s Baltimore’s problem, so let the city of Baltimore cover the costs.  Period.

Hell, that makes far more sense than putting people in jurisdictions other than the city of Baltimore on the hook for helping cover that man-made disaster.  I can’t imagine the good folks of Western Maryland or Harford County or the Eastern Shore give a royal damn about the rioting – other than the fact that they are on the hook for helping cover its costs.

But, no.  We can’t have THAT – the jurisdiction in which this man-made disaster occurred – paying for it, now, can we?

(Insert “Riot Day” Funds – and yank that damned lever.)

Now, as everyone knows, the purported reasons for those riots was the in-police custody death of Freddie Gray.  And, all hyperbole aside, I do expect at least two or three of those six police officers who have been indicted will one day soon be spending some quality time with their future cellmates, as a result of what happened to Freddie Gray.  After all, a man’s wind pipe generally doesn’t crush itself.  Nor does a man’s spine normally break itself.

It’s bad enough that Mr. and Mrs. Maryland Taxpayer from around the state are going to have to pony up the $20 million to pay for that “urban renewal” but, on top of THAT, Larry Hogan wants to yank another $6 million from the Riot Day – excuse me, I mean the Rainy Day – fund for future such “catastrophic events.”

Which begs the question: Does Larry Hogan know something the rest of us don’t?

Rhetorical question, there.

Baltimore, I Hardly Knew You

When I was first told that, at the recently concluded MDGOP convention in Ocean City, Chairwoman, Diana Waterman, had called for the MDGOP to go into the “’hood” and reach out to the black community, I wasn’t sure how that news would be accepted.

That being said, the reaction proved to be just a tad extreme.  I mean, really, rioting?

Obviously – the quality of the joke aside – that was a joke.

What’s NOT a joke is the fact that Al Sharpton is coming to Baltimore to lead a march somewhere or other and to blame Republicans for this nonsense that went down last night.  Oh, wait, that IS a joke…well, Sharpton is, anyway.

What’s also NOT a joke is that, had I been Governor, that shit last night wouldn’t have gotten out of hand as it had.  Not because of anything I’d have done last night, mind you, but after my first session you’d have all had the right to carry as a result of my Executive Order Rescinding SB 281, O’Malley’s Gun Grab as well as opening up concealed carry to everyone. An armed society is a polite society, and all of that….

I’d have also tried to rescind the obviously brain damaged, if not brain dead, mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings Blake, while I was at it. (And for all of my male friends who find that heifer attractive, all I can say is: WTF?)

What’s also NOT a joke is that last night’s riots took the attention away from the police brutality that resulted in the death, and shamed the memory, of Freddie Gray.

The riots last night had little, if anything, to do with Freddie Gray’s untimely and forced demise.  What they had to do with, at least at the beginning, was a bunch of asshole punks trying to imitate the movie “The Purge.”  And, further on as the night continued, those idiots were joined in their trash-fest, burn-fest, loot-fest, by other, older scamps.  Ah, but unlike in the movies (I’ve never seen the “The Purge”) those cowardly scamps had to deal with an obviously frustrated and angry Governor in Larry Hogan who meant, and means, business when it comes to shutting that shit down.

Well, on one front, anyway, I’ve got to give those dumb fucks credit for one thing: They succeeded in purging me from spending any more of my money or time in Baltimore…not out of fear, mind you, but out of principle. Now, yes, I have friends who live there and I will continue to go and visit them but I guess I should say it right now:

Goodbye to Fells Point – a place in which I actually lived for a year or so seven or so years ago. Goodbye to Canton, Camden Yards, Little Italy and, most sadly, goodbye to Hampden. It was fun…for a while, anyway.  And, the last thing…the absolute LAST thing…I care to hear right now is that “we” must join together, that “we” must clean up, that “we” must provide this, that or the other in response to the terrorism that took place on Baltimore’s streets.  No, “we” don’t have to any damned thing of the sort – either collectively or individually. The only thing “we” need to do is get to the bottom of Freddie Gray’s death and arrest those who trashed Baltimore last night – and hammer the living Hell out of them.

(Japanese Tourists Take in the Historical Sites of Baltimore – courtesy of My FB Friend, MLS)

In the end, Baltimore City’s going the way of Detroit and it will reach that peak of liberal nirvana sooner rather than later. Like clockwork, the calls are already starting by many for “resources” needed to rebuild and nurture and whatever the Hell else.  Fuck that.  Baltimore City will get no more business – no more nothing – from me, in the form of taxes, parking fees, and the like.  Why?

With the rioters running amok and with the brain dead Mayor allowing them room to destroy and ordering her cops to “stand down,” I no longer care what happens in the city of Baltimore.  I really don’t.

Not in the least.