If’n you need a chuckle

Head on over to this post at the dKos by Tom Kertes. He apparently hasn’t kissed Markos’ ass enough to be a front pager, but he did get a link to his post from Kos on the front page, so maybe his smooch count is increasing?

Anyway, in his post, Tom talks about “Summer of Justice” events in Baltimore.

I am currently working with a group of low-wage workers in Baltimore whose goal is to secure the economic human rights of everyone.  The UN’s Declaration of Universal Human Rights includes the rights to housing, education, health care, just wages, labor organizing and to freedom from poverty.

This summer we are planning a series of Freedom from Poverty events and programs as we continue our campaign to organize the day laborers who clean Camden Yards after Orioles games there.  The summer, Summer of Justice, follows last year’s Summer of Honor and the Summer of Hope the year before.

Baltimore is a city engulfed with poverty.  There are entire neighborhoods almost totally abandoned.  Rows of houses are boarded up, emtpy, some falling apart.  Parts of the city are in ruins.

And he goes on and on about how non-skilled laborers are having to work for minimum wage, how Baltimore is “a virtual police state” and how “Progressives” need to “start talking about class politics again” to win elections.

Now, to make sure we’re all on the same page here, we all know that when the word “Justice” is used by a leftist, they aren’t talking about letting homeowners shoot violent, armed criminals who break in at 3am, they’re talking about taking your money and giving it to someone who didn’t earn it, right? Good.

If you re-read the part of his quote about the abandoned neighborhoods, boarded up hoses, etc, and then scroll down to the comments of his post, that is where your chuckle will come from.

You see, in there someone tells Tom about the City of Baltimore doing something called “LandBanking”. This involves buying buildings for ten cents on the dollar or some ridiculously low rate or even taking building for back taxes and then holding onto them until they collect enough land to make it profitable to sell, sometimes entire city blocks. The city leaves them in an uninhaitable state, which drives the rental rates and purchase prices.

Or, if the city cannot foreclose on the whole block legally or buy it for a price they like, they just leave it a dump until private individuals improve the rest of the block, bringing up the price of the city owned property along with them.

And how much would you like to bet that the Baltimore City Council is made up of at least 80% Democrats?

Maybe these Kos types should think a little deeper before they vote?

Naw. That’ll never happen.