Water Shutoffs Are Costly For Taxpayers When Children Are Involved

What struck me about this article was not that Baltimore's water shut off campaign is similar to Detroit's water issue, it immediately called out the elephants in the room:

Big corporations with outstanding water bills that will face no punitive actions, and,

Child Protective Services.

The rates of foster care in Maryland hover around $30 a day, just for placement.  This does not include court costs, administration and services.  On a low end estimate, an out of home placement of a child removed due to water shutoff stands to run the tax payers about $2000 a month, with a minimum time frame of 3 months.

An average past due water bill, according to the story, starts at $250.

You do the math.

This City Could Become The Next Detroit

Starting this week, 25,000 households in Baltimore will suddenly lose their access to water for owing bills of $250 or more, with very little notice given and no public hearings.

Rita, a renter in Southeast Baltimore who asked to remain anonymous for this story in order to protect her two children from being taken away, told ThinkProgress she was served with a shutoff notice last week. Maryland law states that a child that is “neglected” may be taken out of his or her home and put into foster care. One characteristic of “neglect” as defined by the Maryland Department of Human Resources is a child with “consistently poor hygiene” that is “un-bathed, [having] unwashed or matted hair, noticeable body odor.”

“I love my kids, and I’d do anything for them,” Rita told ThinkProgress. “But if I turn on the shower or the sink and there’s no water, how can I give them a bath?”

Food and Water Watch researcher Mary Grant explained that making water unavailable to residents is a major health risk, and that if Baltimore were to deprive 25,000 households of water, diseases would have a high chance of propagating throughout densely-populated neighborhoods.

“There is direct risk associated with lack of access to water,” Grant told ThinkProgress. “When you lose your water service, you lose water to wash your hands to flush the toilet, there is risk of disease spreading.”

City officials like Department of Public Works director Rudy Chow claim that residents using water without paying are to blame for the $40 million in overdue water bills. In fact, the Baltimore Sun found more than a third of the unpaid bills stem from just 369 businesses, who owe $15 million in revenue, while government offices and nonprofits have outstanding water bills to the tune of $10 million. One of those businesses, RG Steel (now bankrupt) owes $7 million in delinquent water bills all by itself.

“It’s interesting that the city isn’t targeting those businesses first,” Grant said.

According to Grant, Baltimore has steadily increased water usage rates over the past three years by a total of 42 percent, once another 11 percent rate increase takes effect this July. The Baltimore Sun reported that the public works department elected to raise the rates in 2013, when 19,500 customers owed$29.5 million. While the city has pointed out that there are payment plans available for residents behind on water bills, Grant said the help is far too small to make any real difference for overdue households.

“There is low-income assistance, but it’s only a one-time payment of $161,” Grant said.

Approximately half of Baltimore’s 1.8 million residents rent their homes, and many are counting on property owners to promptly pay water bills. Even if a landlord is not making payments, Baltimore’s water department refuses to open new water accounts for anyone who isn’t a property owner. Jessica Lewis, co-founder of the Housing Rights Alliance, said landlords shifting water payment responsibilities to tenants is a “growing problem.”

“We have weekly tenants’ meetings here, and there’s never a meeting where someone isn’t talking about how high the water bills are,” Lewis said. “Tenants have a hard time challenging water bills when these burdens are shifted from the landlord to the tenant.”

Last year in Detroit, residents fought back against a similar plan to shut off water to customers with overdue bills. At one point, the United Nations stepped in and condemned the city’s water shutoff plan, taking the side of residents unable to pay increasingly high water bills.

“Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the statement read.

Catarina de Albuquerque, a UN expert on the human right to water and sanitation, directly addressed the argument that Detroit Water and Sewerage Department officials proposed that residents who have the means but don’t pay deserve to lose their access to water.

“Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections,” de Albuquerque said in the statement.

According to Jessica Lewis, Baltimore’s recent water shutoff initiative may be the follow-up to a failed effort that could have led to the privatization of Baltimore’s water last year. In August 2014, a group of Baltimore residents and community organizations formed the One Baltimore United coalition, which dedicated itself to fighting a proposed $500,000 consulting contract between the City of Baltimore and Veolia, a private water corporation.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Veolia’s proposal for an evaluation of the city’s aging water systems would ostensibly improve “operation and maintenance performance” while “reducing costs and enhancing operational efficiencies.” However, Lewis said that would have only paved the way to privatization.

“What happens is these studies then become proprietary information, and the city has to agree to privatizing some of its infrastructure for the repairs to be done,” Lewis said. “[The contract] was only shut down because of a strong public outcry.”

Baltimore’s crumbling water infrastructure is estimated to lose enough water to fill the city’s World Trade Center every day, about 20 percent of the total finished water revenue.

Residents and advocates are calling for the city to institute a moratorium on all water shutoffs until those served with notices have had a chance to have their side considered in public hearings. The city has yet to respond to protesters’ demands of a moratorium, and has not yet scheduled any public hearings.

“The city is trying to make the case that this is bad actors, but many people don’t have the resources to pay their water bill in this low wage economy,” Grant said. “We don’t want to get into a situation where people have to choose between food on their plate and water in their tap.”

Repeated calls to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s office, the Baltimore Department of Public Works, and Baltimore City Council president Bernard C. “Jack” Young were not returned.

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Thomas D'Alesandro III, Nancy Pelosi's Brother Has Passed

Elijah Cummings also recently died.

Nancy Pelosi's brother and former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro III has died

Thomas D'Alesandro III

(CNN)Thomas D'Alesandro III, a former Baltimore mayor who led the city during the 1968 riots and brother of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has died.

"My husband Paul and our entire family are devastated by the loss of our patriarch, my beloved brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III," Pelosi said Sunday in a statement released by her office. "Tommy was the finest public servant I have ever known."

The Baltimore Sun reported D'Alesandro, who served as Baltimore's mayor from 1967 to 1971, died Sunday at his Baltimore home after complications of a stroke. He was 90.
Born to an Italian-American family and known as "Young Tommy," D'Alesandro had a political upbringing.

His father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., served in the US House of Representatives from 1939 to 1947 and as the mayor of Baltimore for 12 years after that. His sister, Nancy, became the first woman to serve as speaker of the House in 2007.

His mother Anunciata, who also went by Nancy, was an inventor who patented a device to apply steam to the face -- effectively an at home facial. She helped her husband in politics, supporting him as he became Baltimore's first Catholic mayor.

Pelosi, who just last week lost colleague and friend Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings at age 68, also remembered her brother as someone dedicated to the family's hometown of Baltimore.
"His life and leadership were a tribute to the Catholic values with which we were raised: faith, family, patriotism. He profoundly believed, as did our parents, that public service was a noble calling and that we all had a responsibility to help others," she said.

Devout Catholics, Pelosi said her brother is now with the angels.

"All his life, Tommy worked on the side of the angels. Now, he is with them," she said.
D'Alesandro is survived by his wife Margaret, his children Thomas, Dominic, Nicholas, Patricia and Gregory, and his grandchildren "whom he adored," Pelosi said in the statement.

Baltimore Mayor Jack Young, a Democrat, expressed his condolences to Pelosi and the D'Alesandro family in a statement Sunday, saying the former mayor will be "remembered for his commitment to and love for" the city.

"He guided the city at a tumultuous time and made important strides while in office like creating summer recreation programs for youth, removing racial barriers in employment and education and laying the groundwork for what would become the world-famous Inner Harbor," Young said.
This story has been updated.

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Rod Rosenstein Has New Friends In Baltimore

"Watch me make history."

My Memo Man, Rod Rosenstein, is in Baltimore, in a corporate law firm, with lots of new friends and Sally Yates.

Can you say "Land Bank"?

How about 2018 election interference.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if we are all very nice, My Memo Man will say "gerrymandering".

I would throw out "drugs, weapons, and tiny humans", but that would give away the mystery as to why he took the position.

I never did like Sally Yates because she took a peculiar stance in a piece she wrote, while at DOJ, entitled, "Poverty is not a crime" and failed to acknowledge where she got that line, then turned around and bastardized it by not making one single reference to child welfare.

She was mean to my Sweetie.

It seems I did not preserve her writings, neither did the DOJ.

My Memo Man is busy, busy, busy.

Stay tuned.

Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Joins King & Spalding as a Partner in Washington, D.C.

Rosenstein is the latest high-ranking Justice Department official to join the firm’s Special Matters & Government Investigations team; he will work closely with a deep bench of former federal prosecutors and senior government officials to help clients with their most challenging litigation, enforcement and reputational issues.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2020 — King & Spalding today announced that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein joins the firm’s Washington, D.C., office as a partner on its Special Matters & Government Investigations team.

Rosenstein spent almost two decades in senior legal management and leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Justice during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, including as Deputy Attorney General (2017 to 2019) and United States Attorney (2005 to 2017). Prior to his appointment as the Department’s second-highest ranking official, he was the longest-serving Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in recent history.

“Rod Rosenstein is an exceptional trial lawyer, strategist and leader with unquestioned integrity and toughness,” said Robert D. Hays, Jr., chairman of King & Spalding. “His arrival underscores the firm’s longstanding commitment to effective advocacy on the most complex and highest stakes government-related matters. Our clients will benefit from the unique experience of Rod and other senior government officials working together as a team. His arrival reflects the firm’s intent to continue building leading practices led by extraordinary lawyers to serve clients on their most pressing and sensitive needs.”

With his vast prosecutorial and enforcement background, Rosenstein becomes another critical member of King & Spalding’s Special Matters & Government Investigations team, which assists clients—corporate, institutional and individual—in sensitive and reputational legal challenges, including many involving government agencies, legislative bodies or state Attorneys General. In the past two years, the firm has significantly ramped up the group with an all-star roster of former senior Justice Department officials, including former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, former U.S. Attorneys Zachary Fardon and John Horn, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Alicia O’Brien and former FBI Chief of Staff Zack Harmon. Other former senior officials recently joining the firm include former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and former General Counsel for the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and acting USTR Stephen Vaughn.

Rosenstein said, “I worked with many current and former firm lawyers in both Republican and Democratic administrations, and I learned that some of the best lawyers in the world work at King & Spalding. When considering where to go after leaving the Department of Justice, it became clear to me why so many former government officials choose this firm. With an unparalleled depth of experience across its practice groups and a long and distinguished record of success in courtrooms, King & Spalding is a bipartisan firm that focuses on helping clients resolve complex and sensitive matters in the United States and abroad. The inclusive and collaborative culture allows every client to benefit from the broad expertise and deep insight of more than 1,100 exceptional lawyers throughout the firm’s 21 offices. I look forward to working with my new colleagues to expand the firm’s government investigations, national security and cybersecurity practices.” 

As Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Rosenstein formulated and implemented Department policies and programs; coordinated interactions with the White House and other federal agencies, the Judiciary, and the Congress; interacted with state, local, and foreign government leaders; and provided supervision and direction to all Department components, including its litigating divisions and law enforcement agencies.

Rosenstein conducted complex investigations and handled litigation in trial and appellate courtrooms as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s Tax Division (2001 to 2005), as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland (1997 to 2001), and as an Associate Independent Counsel (1995 to 1997).

Rosenstein started his legal career in 1989, as a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He first joined the Department of Justice as a trial attorney in the prestigious Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division (1990 to 1993), before serving as counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (1993 to 1995). In these and other roles, he received dozens of awards and honors for his performance. In addition, Rosenstein gained impressive trial experience while representing the United States at 23 jury trials and arguing 21 appeals in various appellate courts around the country, including the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court criminal case of Chavez-Meza v. United States, in which the Court ruled in favor of his argument.

“Rod deserves his well-earned reputation for being decisive and unflappable in extraordinary professional situations,” said Special Matters practice chair Wick Sollers. “His experiences conducting and supervising large criminal and civil litigation uniquely qualify him to counsel and defend clients facing complex investigations, lawsuits and enforcement matters. Clients will benefit from his big-picture perspective, as well as his insights from having updated, improved and formulated federal law enforcement policies on corporate and white-collar enforcement, national security, CFIUS and cyber-digital issues. King & Spalding’s Special Matters & Government Investigations team is stronger with his addition.”

Rosenstein graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, with a B.S. in Economics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

About King & Spalding
Celebrating more than 130 years of service, King & Spalding is an international law firm that represents a broad array of clients, including half of the Fortune Global 100, with more than 1,100 lawyers in 21 offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The firm has handled matters in over 160 countries on six continents and is consistently recognized for the results it obtains, uncompromising commitment to quality, and dedication to understanding the business and culture of its clients. More information is available at www.kslaw.com.

After Trump administration stint, Baltimore is still on Rod Rosenstein’s mind

As he takes a job with a high-profile law firm, Maryland’s former longtime U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein isn’t looking to talk much about his time with the Trump administration. He’s turned down book offers, and avoids questions on the subject.

If he did write a book, Rosenstein told The Baltimore Sun Wednesday, “it would probably be a lot about Baltimore.”

The city remains on the former deputy U.S. attorney general’s mind, after 12 years leading federal law enforcement efforts that he said were key to the city experiencing fewer than 200 homicides in 2011. (There were 348 homicides in the city last year.) He remains in touch with protege Robert K. Hur, who succeeded him as U.S. attorney for Maryland.

“It’s important for everybody at the federal, state and local level to agree that reducing murders is a priority,” Rosenstein said. “I’m hopeful they’ll get back to where we were before ... but it’s going to take a long time.”

The law firm of King & Spalding announced that Rosenstein will join its special government investigations team, following about eight months he spent with his family after stepping down as deputy attorney general. Rosenstein said it was Maryland’s former Republican governor Robert Ehrlich who helped connect him to the new job after they had lunch in the summer.

Rosenstein’s tumultuous two-year tenure included writing a memo supporting the firing of FBI Director James Comey and overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

[Read more] Before leaving Baltimore, Rod Rosenstein predicted he might not last long as deputy attorney general »
Of his tenure, Rosenstein said, “I’ve been out of government for eight months, and I’m on to a new career. ... I’m practicing law, not politics."

Rosenstein has continued to weigh in on Baltimore’s crime rates and on issues of law enforcement. On Jan. 1, he tweeted: “When Baltimore City prosecutors and police worked with federal and state partners to send every violent repeat offender to prison in 2011, only 197 people were murdered. Now criminals murder 350 victims and shoot hundreds more every year. WHAT CHANGED?”

When Baltimore City prosecutors and police worked with federal and state partners to send every violent repeat offender to prison in 2011, only 197 people were murdered. Now criminals murder 350 victims and shoot hundreds more every year. WHAT CHANGED? https://t.co/7dUt2yd5Bt

— Rod Rosenstein (@RodRosenstein) January 1, 2020

Rosenstein maintains other ties to the city — he was scheduled to speak to a city law club, the Serjeants’ Inn, Wednesday night.

Rosenstein noted that the number of federal prosecutors in Baltimore increased significantly when he was No. 2 at the Justice Department.

“That’s not because I was showing favoritism; we had additional resources and were able to allocate them based on population and crime rates and need,” he said.

He said Hur is “doing a superb job,” and suggested, without citing specific agencies, that other law enforcement partners are not on the same page.

“If people are not being caught and prosecuted locally, they need to find out why that is,” Rosenstein said. “We had a decade of sustained improvements in Baltimore. We had improvements in Prince George’s County [as well] — the PG County improvements have stuck; they have not fallen back. Baltimore is worse today than when I got there 15 years ago.”

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Baltimore County Schools Shreds Procurement Records After Being Told Not To Do It

I bet Wayne County does it, too.

Baltimore County Schools Destroyed Accounting Records Amid High Profile Procurement Audit and Directive to Stop all Record Destruction

In the midst of a high profile and widely anticipated procurement audit last year, employees from Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) had over 53,000 lbs. of accounting documents from its fiscal services file room destroyed, a windowless storage-room-turned-office in its Business Administration building.

This, according to information provided by BCPS in response to a direct request, specifically seeking a log detailing which records had been removed from the room, purportedly first scanned and then destroyed.

Last fall, the school board directed then-interim Superintendent Verletta White to direct all staff to cease the destruction of all documents after roughly 2,600 financial disclosure statements were found to have been destroyed months earlier, which included some records needed for the procurement audit.

Two floors above the meeting room, where school board members convene for bimonthly public meetings in Building E of BCPS’ Greenwood campus headquarters, the file room was emptied to make room for a new office.  Certificates from a shredding company show that the records were destroyed in November and December 2018, a few months before an April 2019 report was delivered to the school board, at the conclusion of what was supposed to be a comprehensive procurement audit which looked into the system’s procurement practices for years 2012 through 2017.

While BCPS provided a list on Friday, detailing what was archived and sent to an offsite storage facility, what was purportedly “electronically scanned” – and then destroyed – is not so clear. And the scant information provided by the school system does not include what a system employee told The Gunpowder Gazette was also in the file room for fiscal services.

According to that employee, who spoke with The Gunpowder Gazette under the condition of anonymity due to fears of retribution, the sudden and unplanned clearing of the file room – which included “wall-to-wall” and “a center isle” full of file cabinets – included employees’ reimbursement documents as well as travel, mileage and conference expenses which were a topic at the center of controversy for the district after the New York Times and Baltimore Sun published reports which questioned travel and vendor-employee relationships.

So far, the school district acknowledges that the destroyed files were from the Department of Fiscal Services, stating that boxes identified for destruction included vendor invoice documents from its accounts payable department.

Two orders to destroy the records were signed off by the “office head” of the Office of Accounting. Other records were sent to a storage facility. But, not included in a description of the transferred documents, were reimbursement and travel records the employee claims had been there.

The Gunpowder Gazette has requested precise details from Baltimore County schools on exactly what was destroyed since a vague initial response from the school system is disputed by the anonymous employee with familiarity with the file room which was turned into an office for a senior executive director.

Shredgate #1:

Knowledge of this second shredding arose in the middle of a yearlong and continued fight for records concerning the first known shredding – coined by some as ‘Shredgate” or “Purgegate” – that occurred months before, in which roughly 2,600 financial disclosure statements were suddenly purged in the middle of a reporter’s request for financial disclosure records, which immediately preceded the procurement audit.

Financial disclosure statements ask employees to declare all work performed outside of the school system, including any done for school vendors.

The forms are signed under penalty of perjury and the failure by employees to disclose information on them can lead to prison sentences which is what occurred in the case of former superintendent of Baltimore County schools, Dallas Dance, last year.

In late 2017, after The New York Times and Baltimore Sun published stories which questioned vendor and employee relationships, widespread calls for an audit ensued. In early 2018, after Dance was indicted for perjury for failing to disclose $147,000 in income on his financial disclosure forms, pressure mounted.

Within weeks, 2,600 financial forms would be destroyed. At roughly 16 pages each, 40,000 pages for years 1997 to 2013 were simply eliminated and included two years’ worth of records – 2012 to 2013 – that were later needed for the procurement audit.

While the discarded financial disclosure records were destroyed in accordance with school policy – which states that anything over four-years-old can be destroyed – it was the first time in the 21 years the records had been maintained by the system that school staff made use of the policy and decided to purge the records.

For over one year, a now-Gunpowder Gazette reporter has tried in vain to obtain any details about the massive document destruction. The shredding was discovered after several anomalous responses to the records led to the discovery that they had been destroyed during the precise time she had been requesting them.

To date, an attorney for the school system’s law office that oversaw the destruction of documents says there are “no responsive records” available surrounding any part of the disappearance of the financial records.

For months, the office has maintained that there simply are no records of any expenses, employees, contractors or shredding companies which may have been involved in the selection or destruction of roughly 40,000 pages of financial disclosure statements.

But shred certificates – sans a detailed log of the destroyed contents – exist for the records destroyed in the system’s Fiscal Services file room last November and December, which occurred months after the financial disclosure statements vanished without a trace.

Shredgate # 2?:

On Friday, two responses – obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act request – show the school system not only destroyed the records after a directive by board members specifically prohibited it, but the records officer also misinterpreted a reporter’s request in which The Gunpowder Gazette specifically requested a log detailing precisely what had been destroyed, in addition to what may have been archived or stored elsewhere.

Instead, a list of some of the documents that had been archived was provided, including banking reports that were moved for storage to an offsite facility. But requests for details on what had been scanned and subsequently destroyed, only produced responsive documents called “Transfer Requisitions,” and “Certificates of Records Destruction,” provided by a shredding company which stated that 53,000 lbs of of the records were destroyed. Additionally, a short description in the response attempted to describe some of what was discarded.

According to a single sentence in the response from the system’s law office, “boxes identified for destruction included vendor invoice documents from Accounts Payable that were scanned and retained electronically.”

Yet no such detail was provided on what had been purportedly scanned and destroyed or retained, elsewhere.

Baltimore County Schools did not respond to requests for clarification or comment. But communications specialist, Brandon Oland, sent a message after the publishing of this story, stating, “Nothing to add, other than I hope you have a good evening.”

The school system also failed to address the decision to scan and destroy the accounting documents in the midst of a procurement audit and after a directive by school board members specifically asked for all document destruction to immediately cease.

In question is who exactly oversees the documents since the directive to cease purging any records was modified, a month after the directive was implemented, to apply to executive directors and above.

Interim Superintendent Verletta White, who led the system at the time of the purges, stepped down in June and was hired as a consultant for the system after current Superintendent Darryl Williams took over on July 1 of this year.

Timeline of events leading to shredding and procurement audit:

Feb 14, 2018: Reporter made first of six requests to review Financial Disclosure Statements (FDS)

Feb 14, 2018: BCPS’ Office of Law created Excel spreadsheet to log the future destruction of the FDS (the same day that the reporter made the first round of FDS examination requests). Destruction, according to BCPS, occurred on April 27, 2018 and Aug 1, 2018.

May 22, 2018: BCPS school board hired UHY to conduct procurement audit, chooses years 2012 to 2017 for scope.

Aug 9, 2018: Reporter discovered, after six rounds of requests for FDS, that roughly 2,600 had been destroyed

August 21, 2018: School Board directs superintendent to direct school staff to cease all further document destruction due to active audit.

September 2018: The directive to freeze all record destruction in BCPS modified to include only executive directors and above.

November 12, 2018: Seven boxes of material from “Fiscal Services File Room” destroyed. Seven boxes archived. Signed off by “Office Head” from Office of Accounting. But shred certificate states: 26,715 lbs of materials destroyed.

December 7, 2018: Fifteen boxes of documents containing materials from “Fiscal Services File Room” destroyed. Nine boxes archived. Signed off by “Office Head” from Office of Accounting. But shred certificate states: 26,365 lbs of materials destroyed.

April 9, 2019: UHY provided audit report to Baltimore County Board of Education, produced under its consulting services arm, UHY Advisors.

Want to learn about the backstory to this story?  See: Gunpowder Gazette Insider: The Story Behind the Story on Baltimore County Public Schools’ Financial Document Destruction

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Day 229 - Hillary's Leakers, Hackers, and Henchmen: Molly Macauley

We Actually Have No Metadata For the Murders of Seth Rich and Molly Macauley
Molly Macauley

Molly K. Macauley, a vice president for research at Resources for the Future, a Washington-based think tank that studies environmental and economic policy, died July 8 in Baltimore. She was 59.

She was stabbed while walking her dogs near her home in Baltimore’s Roland Park neighborhood and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died. According to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, it was the first homicide in the upscale neighborhood since 1998.

“Homicide detectives are continuing to investigate this case,” Baltimore police spokesman Jeremy Silbert told the Sun.

Molly Macauley medical examiner report is available for $100 at 900 West Baltimore comma hobby Braverman and Cindy in Lebanon, and I would like to meet Thomas Paine from social media Fame on Twitter


 Molly Macauley was killed in the West 600 block of West University Avenue in Roeland Park Maryland


 Molly Macauley address was 230 Stoney Point run Lane

 Retracing Molly McCauley's last steps takes us right by Sariah Begum's office on Green Street her office at the VA Hospital straight to the trauma center

 The Obligatory MedStar Hospital - Never Far Off.

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Cocktails & Popcorn: Trump v. Cummings - Who Will Be The First To Say TARP In Detroit?

Contrary to what the media wishes you to believe, their #coloredrevolution psyoptic has absolutely nothing to do with the epidermis of another human.

Privatization 301 - Gerrymandering & Cartology:
"If you do not live there, you cannot vote there."
(Fall enrollment for the next #coloredrevolution
 starts soon!)

This #coloredrevolution is about the color of property ownership heat ramping maps based upon meshed governmental databases through Public Private Partnerships of foreign operations for the purposes  of stealin', and in this particular instance, I am focusing on TARP, Hardest Hit Funds, because I am the world's expert on stealin'.

Forced migration is a war crime, you know.

Elijah Cummings was the first to speak out upon the stealin' of TARP, a sophisticated, complex fraud scheme developed by "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) to execute the foreign invasion of the bloodless war using Predictive Modeling Crap to implement privatizations by stealin' the children, the land and the votes.

But, Trump is the first person to bear witness to stealin' in the public cybersquare by calling out Baltimore.

President Trump: "Baltimore has been very badly mishandled for many years. And you know Congressman Cummings has been there for a long time, he's had a very iron hand on it. It's a corrupt city, there's no question about it." pic.twitter.com/XE5Ds4rXy6

— The Hill (@thehill) July 30, 2019

Now, the only question left is to figure out who will be the first to say TARP in Detroit.

#sayhisname 

State is 'gold mine' for human trafficking

Baltimore Received $1.8 Billion from Obama’s Stimulus Law

City burned despite ‘massive investment’ implemented by president

Cummings Introduces TARP Accountability Legislation

Companies receiving TARP funds would be required to publicly disclose expenditures

Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and member of the Joint Economic Committee, introduced the Accountability from Corporations for Outlays Under TARP (ACCOUNT) Act, which would require institutions receiving assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to report expenditures on corporate junkets, executive compensation and bonuses, and other employee perks.

“When these companies come to us on their knees begging for money and then turn around and continue the partying on Wall Street with the corporate junkets and million-dollar bonuses, it is nothing less than a slap in the face of the American taxpayers,” Congressman Cummings said. “The American people are now shareholders in these companies, and it is only right that we know how our money is being managed and spent.”

Congressman Cummings has been a leading critic of profligate spending by companies that have received TARP funding—particularly expenditures on executive compensation and bonuses, corporate junkets, and sports sponsorships—and is concerned about the lack of transparency with regard to how these institutions are spending taxpayer dollars.

Under the ACCOUNT Act, any company receiving TARP funds would be required to prominently disclose on its website its expenditures on corporate events and junkets, bonuses and compensation, corporate jet use and executive travel, club memberships, and lobbying. The information would be updated monthly.

“While my neighbors in Baltimore continue to lose their jobs and their homes, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to understand why AIG is taking their hard-earned money and then giving away more than a billion dollars in bonuses or why Citigroup is taking this money and then spending $400 million to put its name on a baseball stadium in New York,” Congressman Cummings said. “This bill is an important first step in bringing transparency and accountability to the distribution of TARP funds.”

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H.R. 846

To require institutions receiving assistance under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to report certain corporate data, and for other purposes.

---

February 4, 2009

Mr. Cummings introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services

---

A BILL

To require institutions receiving assistance under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to report certain corporate data, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Accountability from Corporations for Outlays Under TARP Act” or the “Account Act”.

REPORTING BY ASSISTED INSTITUTIONS ON CERTAIN EXPENDITURES.

(a) In General.—Title I of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (12 U.S.C. 5211 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

REPORTING BY ASSISTED INSTITUTIONS ON CERTAIN EXPENDITURES.

“(a) In General.—The Secretary shall require any financial institution that receives any assistance in any form under this title on or after October 3, 2008 (hereafter in this section referred to as the ‘assisted institution’), to publicize on the corporate website of such institution, in a prominent location on the homepage or on a dedicated tab or window accessible through a link prominently displayed on the homepage, the following information, which shall be updated on a monthly basis:

“(1) Total expenditures made by the institution on travel during the month for which the report is being made, including reports on expenditures on each of the following: plane fares, rental cars, hotel expenses, food purchases, and any other expenses incurred by corporate employees during travel.

“(2) Total expenditures made by the institution on lobbying (as defined in the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995) at both the Federal and State levels, including a list of the individual States where lobbying activity was conducted.

“(3) A list of the corporate events, including retreats, conferences, planning sessions, and office parties held at the assisted institution’s place of business or organized at any other location by the assisted institution, citing the city, State, and venue of the event; date of the event; number of attendees at the event; and the entire sum of expenses associated with the event paid by the assisted institution.

“(4) A list of the corporate jets owned and a list of the trips taken by corporate and non-corporate officials on these jets which shall cite the total cost to the assisted institution of operating the jets for each listed trip.

“(5) A list of the corporate sponsorships supported by the company citing the name of each entity sponsored and the amount provided to each sponsored entity.

“(6) A list of the automobiles provided by the assisted institution to employees of the institution and their values together with the cost to the assisted institution of the operation of each automobile.

“(7) The total amount of compensation provided to the employees of the assisted institution, including expenditures on each of bonuses of any kind, retention payments of any kind, and any other form of compensation, citing the form thereof.

“(8) A list of all club or corporate memberships maintained by the assisted institution citing the cost of each membership.

“(9) Total corporate expenditures on furniture, office equipment, and office renovations made during the period by the assisted institution.

“(10) Such other information as the Secretary may require to be disclosed or the assisted institution wishes to disclose.

“(b) Regulations And Compliance.—The Secretary shall—

“(1) prescribe appropriate regulations to implement and carry out this section; and

“(2) establish appropriate mechanisms to ensure appropriate compliance with the requirements of this section”
.

(b) Clerical Amendment.—The table of sections for title I of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 136 the following new item:

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Cocktails & Popcorn: Charlie LeDuff On Mike Duggan

How come Hillary was not sipping wine in Detroit for the DNC CNN Debates?

LeDuff: Where's Mike? Detroit's Incredible Shrinking Mayor

"No will ever figure it out, right Mike?"

So Beto had French toast and Anderson sampled the shaved ice. Bernie went to the nail salon and Liz took selfies in Corktown. And Kamala? She couldn't get a table. Welcome to the new Detroit, madam.

The media calliope has made its way to Motown, cranking out hot gas and platitudes during this week's Democratic presidential debate festival.

But where was Mike, Captain Comeback? Mayor Mike Duggan, the boss of the Democratic machine.

He's been strangely AWOL. No photo ops. No social media posts in six days.

You'd think he'd be on display, riding around on a homecoming float with balloons and a lemonade tank, boasting about the comeback city that is front and center this week, playing host to his own party. Instead, the question is: Where's Waldo? He's acting as if he's  persona non grata in his own town.

Sure, he was spotted at the debate Tuesday night, but he barely stood out among the thousands in attendance. And he made one quick appearance on CNN.

The other day Trump pointed his Twitter cannon directly at Baltimore -- not Detroit. Don a l'orange called Charm City a rodent's den of corruption and incompetence. And so the media was forced to turn its lazy eye on Baltimore.

And so maybe it's for the best that the mayor of Detroit keep his head down.

As we speak, and the candidates talk over themselves about things they cannot realistically accomplish, there is a public corruption grand jury convened over the mishandling of $250 million in federal funds sent to the city for its once ballyhooed demolition program. Now when we talk of that program, and the contractors, we use words like bid-rigging, collusion, price splitting, something Trump, if he wanted to, could use as more fodder to attack another Democratically-controlled city.

The program has been run so incompetently, that a home once used as a torture chamber by a suspected serial killer still stands, becoming something of a tourist attraction and community art project.

Trouble in Detroit

There is no doubt that the city administration's program on demolitions and its contractors is squarely in the federal crosshairs. The local media hardly writes of this, because they don't wish to write of this (see Baltimore).

And then, it appears the mayor's staff deleted emails, when questions arose about grant money steered to the mayor's gal pal while the mayor had access to her suburban garage door opener.  The feds, I'm told, are also digging into the details of how the mayor assembled the property for the new Fiat Chrysler plant on the east side of the city and whether friends benefited.

Mike's got a long history with the federal corruption types. There was that $30-million fine from the Justice Department for fraud and kickbacks when he was head of the public hospital system. Then there was the long investigation into the airport contracts.

A member of Mike's inner circle was sipping cocktails and laughing it up at the debate Tuesday night with indicted City Councilman Gabe Leland, who allegedly was caught on an FBI wire soliciting bribes. (Go home Gabe. It's over.) Mike's chief financial officer was the man who put the financing together on the doomed Flint water deal.

Some citizens surmise that Trump leaves Duggan alone because Duggan is a white man. I suspect, however, that Trump picked on Baltimore because it is home to Congressman Elijah Cummings, a black man and a perpetual pain in the ass of His Orangeness. The Don picks on Maryland, because Maryland is safely in the blue column.

Not so in Michigan. Here, Trump beat Clinton by just 10,700 votes, and Mayor Mike was Hillary's point man in the Great Lakes State. (Take note, Uncle Joe.) There is a mathematical needle to be thread here. Best to tread lightly.

Time for a reality check

Democrats: if you want to win Michigan, its best to take a long, hard look at how we're living. Ripping on the Orange Orangutan won't be enough.

Our roads are the worst in the nation, as is our power grid. There were 149 shootings in Detroit during the first month of summer. Cops are paid like bell hops in Detroit and are leaving in drovesre for jobs elsewhere.

If you want to call it Comeback City, then talk to residents who are now being taxed for rainwater, while billions in public dollars – some of it public school money –  is diverted to private developers who donate to Mike. Go to Flint, and watch the civil war there as city Democrats accuse each other of corruption and cronyism over the pipe and sidewalk repair contracts.

Democratic candidates talk about free college for everybody, when we can't figure out how to run successful grade schools in Michigan.

We who live here are left to scratch our heads, and Mayor Mike continues to duck.

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DOJ Unseals Venezuelan Government Officials Indictments But Seals The Fake Seals Of U.S. Elections

The U.S. is prosecuting another government, Venezuela, the same government we took out and installed our own democratic choice of leadership.

That means another government can prosecute the US.

Quid pro quo!

How come we are not indicting the U.S. officials who participated in these drug activities, like the Navy?

They transport.

What about Haliburton?

What about Detroit?

What about all the political campaigns funded through this network?

We should definitely invite El Chappo to Detroit.

#sealsmatter

But, what if the U.S. Department of Justice has a "certification of the oath of office" situation, Boo Boo Barr just fails to address?

We most certainly invite Boo Boo Barr to Detroit, once those seals are unsealed, to ask him about the use of seals by the Department of Justice when it comes to election certifications and oaths of office.

We need to ask U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts about the signatures when it comes to certification of the oath of office and the filing of such in the Great Repository of the Great Seal of the United States.

Voting rights matter, too.

Just saying.

Where is my Jeffy Sessions because I believe we have one of those constitutional crisis a-brewing.

Epic fentanyl bust leads to kingpin, cartel and oddball cast, feds say

Detroit — A pediatrician from Mexican drug lord El Chapo’s home turf says he oversaw a shipment of what became the third-largest seizure of pure fentanyl in U.S. history after being threatened at gunpoint by cartel henchmen, according to federal court records.

"It was all done in the best interests
of the children,"said the pediatrician.

The records provide a backstory to an epic seizure in suburban Detroit in July 2017 and identify the accused kingpin who headed a nationwide drug ring that sold kilograms of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine since 2014. Prosecutors say the leader is a long-time fugitive who laundered profits through a rap label and used female drug couriers to haul cash and drugs to Metro Detroit and beyond.

The criminal case emerged three years ago with the seizure of more than 10 kilograms of fentanyl, more than $500,000 cash and the arrest of an oddball cast — a pediatrician, a barber and a horse groomer. The seizure — including enough fentanyl to kill 5 million people — and arrests drew widespread attention amid the global opioid crisis.

In recent months, the case has widened with a nationwide manhunt and arrests of 14 other members of an alleged drug ring disrupted after investigators found a clue on the box of a Sony PlayStation.

Several members of the drug ring are pushing to be released from custody while awaiting trial or sentencing, citing the COVID-19 global pandemic, as new details emerge about the pediatrician who says he was forced to oversee the ill-fated fentanyl shipment.

“Three heavily armed people came to my practice and threatened me with death,” pediatrician Adolfo Verdugo Lopez, 53, told U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg. “They threatened me and my family with death, that I had to come to the United States in order to do an errand, to do a favor for them.”

The Novi drug deal that would entangle Lopez was being finalized on July 3, 2017.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Lopez worked as a pediatrician at Sinaloa Pediatric Hospital in Culiacan, Sinaloa, a squat white building painted in a whimsical pink and yellow pattern.

The hospital is a seven-minute walk from the Guadalupe neighborhood that served as headquarters for El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel. El Chapo escaped from a government raid in 2014 via an elaborate tunnel hidden under his bathtub at his home a few blocks from Sinaloa Pediatric Hospital.

"Crime is so terrible in my city," Lopez said. "Other colleagues of mine were murdered before...The same fate that other murdered doctors have endured would happen to me, and that otherwise they would kill me and — and — unless I did not wish to see my young children in the future. This was caused by the organized crime in my city."

Still, Lopez said no.

Two days later, more visitors and guns arrived.

"Another four people came heavily armed; that unless I would go by the weekend to take some pictures, they would kill me and my family," Lopez said.

The armed men gave Lopez $2,500 and instructions to fly to California before traveling to Detroit, he said.

Lopez told the story while preparing to plead guilty in October 2018. His claims of being forced at gunpoint to join the conspiracy troubled the judge, who halted the hearing.

"I don't want you to admit to something that you feel in your heart you cannot admit to," the judge said.

More than a year would pass until November. That's when Lopez pleaded guilty to a drug crime and was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison under a deal that makes no mention of armed men or threats.

Prosecutors and Lopez agree, however, the pediatrician flew to California and met Manual Barajas, a 21-year-old horse groomer who worked at Los Alamitos Race Course near Los Angeles.

Barajas was in charge of supervising almost 30 kilograms of heroin and fentanyl being hauled to Metro Detroit.

On July 10, 2017, the men arrived on a red-eye flight in Detroit, rented a car and drove to the Novi condo where the cocaine and fentanyl were stored in cardboard boxes of Prime Selecta Mexican shrimp.

Lopez was in charge of photographing the drugs. The heroin, fentanyl, and a kilogram of cocaine found in a car, were worth $4.5 million.

"Lopez knew that the drugs he was sent to photograph would be distributed by others," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julie Beck and Andrea Hutting wrote in a court filing.

By the time Lopez arrived in Novi, an undercover federal investigation was underway.

On March 24, 2017, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 600 grams of heroin following a drug deal in the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter between Grand River Avenue and Interstate 96 in Novi.

Agents were monitoring the drug deal thanks to a court-approved wiretap on the drug buyer's phone. The buyer was arrested after leaving Walmart and, during the arrest, agents found the heroin packaged inside an otherwise empty Sony PlayStation box.

The box still contained the gaming system's serial number, so investigators subpoenaed Sony for details about the PlayStation's purchase.

Agents learned that someone paid cash for the PlayStation at the same Walmart nine days earlier.

Using the PlayStation's serial number, investigators obtained a subpoena to determine who had activated the gaming console and whether it had been connected to the internet.

Officials with internet service provider Bright House told agents the PlayStation was connected to the internet at a condominium three miles north of the Walmart. That's the same condo on Joyce Lane in Novi, where Lopez and Barajas were handling the drug shipment with Andre Lee Scott, 25, a barber from San Bernardino, Calif.

Agents raided the condo on July 10, 2017. Lopez was found in the living room, several feet from the fentanyl and $515,715 heat-sealed and packaged in boxes. All three were charged, convicted and sentenced to federal prison.

Investigators say they just missed James "Bug" McGlory, 34, a trucking company employee from Los Angeles described by prosecutors as a pivotal figure in the coast-to-coast drug conspiracy. McGlory had flown to Detroit from Baltimore, and investigators would soon learn why.

McGlory traveled around the country collecting drug money from distributors while working as the right-hand man for a national drug dealer based in California, prosecutors said. The organization has hubs in Alabama, Baltimore, Jackson, and Novi, where members stored and packaged drugs and money, according to prosecutors.

During the Novi raid, investigators found text messages from McGlory referencing drugs and money, prosecutors said. And when DEA agents checked the kilogram of cocaine found in Scott's car parked outside the Novi condo, they found McGlory's fingerprints, according to court records.

Agents started analyzing McGlory's history of flights around the country.

In early April 2018, investigators learned McGlory was flying to Maryland. So they followed him.

On April 13, 2018, agents spotted McGlory and another man outside a Baltimore apartment building. The other man dumped a trash bag, which investigators later searched, finding a label addressed to an apartment within the building, heat-sealed bags and rubber gloves consistent with the type used for narcotics trafficking, according to court records.

Investigators obtained a warrant to search the apartment later that day. Inside, agents found two couches, turned them over and found the majority of a drug stash that totaled more than 14 kilograms of cocaine, more than 3 kilograms of fentanyl, heroin and almost $140,000.

McGlory was arrested alongside a second man, Baltimore resident Shawn Oliver, who smiled at the federal agents.

"That’s great and all, but I have another two to three million hidden,” Oliver, 45, said, according to prosecutors.

There is no concrete connection between McGlory and drugs seized by investigators, defense lawyer Kevin Bessant previously said.

“By no means whatsoever is Mr. McGlory a major drug player in this,” Bessant said.

McGlory is being held at Milan federal prison while awaiting a June trial, and last week lost a request to leave on bond. He argued hypertension left him susceptible to COVID-19.

Oliver, meanwhile, ran the drug ring's Baltimore hub and sold kilograms of drugs to other dealers in the city, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge in July as investigators hunted his boss.

Agents also found a clue inside the Baltimore stash house. In the kitchen, on the counter, near a kilo press, behind an ashtray shaped like an assault rifle, was a white sign reading "Money Gang Meal Clique."

Investigators allege Money Gang Meal Clique is a rap label and promotional business linked to a California drug felon, Maurice "Loc" McCoy, 38, of Moreno Valley, Calif., east of Los Angeles.

Hutting, the prosecutor, said the rap label was used by "McCoy and other members of the conspiracy used to launder drug money."

The rap label has a minimal online presence. Its Instagram page features photos of cash, jewelry, cash piled next to jewelry, and bottles of Champagne. The page has less than 1,300 followers while the label's 2016 release "The Meal Ticket" has zero reviews on Amazon.com.

Investigators would spend the next 17 months investigating and hunting McCoy.

The investigation also focused on his girlfriend, Teeauna White, 32, a self-styled entrepreneur who posts on social media about luxury cars, Louis Vuitton purchases and money-making ventures, including liposuction in a bottle.

One Instagram photo features a Money Gang Meal Clique diamond chain.

In March 2018, White incorporated White Way Trucking and listed McCoy as a truck driver, prosecutors said.

"The government believes White Way Trucking was established in an attempt to appear to operate a legitimate business to account for McCoy and White’s inexplicable income," Hutting wrote in a court filing.

Despite White's affluent social-media image, she received a court-appointed lawyer when she was arraigned on a money laundering conspiracy charge in Detroit in June. Her lawyer Allison Kriger declined comment.

McCoy was indicted alongside his girlfriend in May 2019, but agents couldn't find the accused kingpin.

They spent three months hunting McCoy before finding him in central California. McCoy was riding in his girlfriend's car when federal agents tried to arrest him.

McCoy ran, prosecutors said, but investigators caught him and brought him to Detroit. He is imprisoned at the Sanilac County Jail while awaiting a June trial on conspiracy charges that could send him to prison for more than 20 years.

His lawyer, Otis Culpepper, declined comment.

White, meanwhile, is free on bond and pushing for McCoy's release on social media.

On her Instagram page, White posted a GIF of her mowing the lawn outside her $600,000 California home.

The lawn and 4,800-square-foot house could soon belong to the government.

Prosecutors want the home forfeited upon conviction.


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If Baltimore Police Can Do It To Adults, What About The Kids?

For your viewing pleasure, I have found a clip from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, providing a whimsical take on the blatant lunacy of the Baltimore Police Department in its operations, even during a federal investigation.

For those who wish to read the actual findings report of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, just scroll down.

Either way, I wish for my audience to keep one thing in mind:  "If a police department operates in this egregious manner in dealing with its residents, what do you think it is doing to its children?

 

"...BPD uses unreasonable force against juveniles. These incidents arise from BPD’s failure to use widely-accepted tactics for communicating and interacting with youth. Instead, officers interacting with youth rely on the same aggressive tactics they use with adults, leading to unnecessary conflict. "

DOJ INVESTIGATION OF THE BALTIMORE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISIO... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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