"Charm" City

[Ajax]

This place is utterly hopeless.

This morning, the mayor's home was raided by the FBI and the IRS.

[SemiSalt]

The mayor of Bridgeport was indicted, convicted, sent to prison, and reelected.

[Ajax]

The mayor of Bridgeport was indicted, convicted, sent to prison, and reelected.

Semi, you are not giving me any hope with a story like that.
This morning, the mayor's lawyers declared that she is not "lucid" enough to resign.

[TheOffice]

I'm from Rhode Island. She's a low level crook.

[Slick470]

not lucid enough to resign, but lucid enough to perform mayoral duties. Makes perfect sense.

Nothing to see here folks, move right along...

[LarryHoward]

not lucid enough to resign, but lucid enough to perform mayoral duties. Makes perfect sense.

Nothing to see here folks, move right along...

It's Baltimore. If you are not crooked, you can't hold elective office there.

[Tim Ford]

Pretty much. I sorta doubt Mary Pat Clark has ever taken a shady payment and there are some younger council members with good intentions. But it's been one-party rule for 50 years or so, and that's a formula for disaster. The local newspaper is Baltimore's equivalent to Pravda, a party organ that refuses to investigate corruption unless it's so obvious and beyond being able to ignore they have to report on it.

The school system is essentially a jobs program, where cronyism employs hundreds of people who sit at desks and watch television. <--- I'm not kidding about this.

It's a slow moving train wreck, but one that no can blame on Bush, or Trump. One of the post-war architects of the ward system, cronyism and pay to play in B'more was Nancy Pelosi's papa, Tommy D'Alessandro.

Good times!

[Ajax]

I had business in Baltimore once. When I completed my transaction, I foolishly used Google Maps to route me the quickest, shortest route home. You see, Google doesn't care if it routes you through a demilitarized zone.

I forget what road I was on, but I drove through miles and miles of boarded up, shuttered row homes. The only stores I ever saw, were liquor/lottery/check cashing corner stores. The people I saw loitering on the street corners made DC panhandlers look positively wealthy. The point of this post is actually not to further shit on Baltimore but to convey that I was stunned by the faded beauty and potential of all those row homes. When they were occupied and the neighborhood was cleaner, it must have been an incredible sight. The architecture was amazing.

[Rob McAlpine]

I'm from Rhode Island. She's a low level crook.

I've often wondered why people run for office in RI. I thought everything had already been stolen.

[LarryHoward]

Well, Baltimore's Mayor has resigned.

[Slick470]

Well, Baltimore's Mayor has resigned.

Good for her in regaining her lucidity...

[TheOffice]

Nah, she'll claim she lacked the capacity to resign, or like so many before her, run again in a few years.