#Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh

[lboogie1906]

Brandon Maurice Scott (born April 8, 1984) is a politician serving as the mayor of Baltimore, since 2020. The city of Baltimore uses a strong mayor-council structure for its government, meaning it holds strong mayoral powers. He is the former president of the Baltimore City Council and was a candidate for lieutenant governor of Maryland in 2018, as well as a representative for Baltimore’s second district. On May 6, 2019, he was elected to replace Jack Young as council president after Young succeeded Mayor Catherine Pugh. In September 2019, he announced his candidacy for mayor and won the June 2020 Democratic primary. He won the November 3 general election and took office on December 8, 2020.

He was born and raised in Baltimore. He has had a passion for local government since he was a child and always wanted to work for the city of Baltimore. As a child, he admired Congressman Elijah Cummings and saw him as a role model. He ran track and cross country at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School where he graduated in 2002. He went on to receive a BA in Political Science from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2006. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[beardedmrbean]

A program to grant Baltimore residents city identification cards may move forward seven years after it was greenlighted.

The Baltimore City Council passed legislation in 2016 establishing a municipal identification card program. Then-Councilman Brandon Scott touted the cards as a way for residents who struggled to provide documents for obtaining federal identification, like homeless people, immigrants, and people recently released from incarceration, to gain city-specific credentials.

Discussion of the idea, which seemed to fizzle after 2016, is set for a City Council committee hearing Wednesday.

“These IDs will be available to homeless people, to immigrants and refugees, to women who are the victims of domestic abuse who can’t get their documents in order to get another ID,” now-Mayor Scott, a Democrat, told The Baltimore Sun at the time. He also said the cards would cut down on arrests for low-level offenses, because citizens would be able to provide a city ID and receive a citation instead of apprehension, and instill civic pride in city residents.

Though it passed the council and was codified into the city code, the municipal ID program was never implemented or funded. A number of cities, like San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, have begun offering their own municipal ID cards, which allow residents to access services and cultural amenities like libraries.

Immigration advocates say city-specific identification cards allow people who’ve recently come to the United States to more easily establish residency than federal documents, which come with higher financial and language barriers. It’s also easier for transgender people to obtain documentation that is congruent with their gender identities than passports or driver’s licenses, which often require proof of name and gender marker changes.

District 14 Councilwoman Odette Ramos, who often advocates on behalf of immigrants’ rights, said she waited to give the mayor’s office “a chance to work on��� the municipal ID program before introducing a resolution last year to revitalize the program, which led to the meeting this week.

“The reason I’m pushing for this is because I very much believe in it,” Ramos said. “This isn’t particularly mind-blowing or groundbreaking. It just makes sense.”

A request for proposal for the municipal IDs is in the works, according to Bryan Doherty, Scott’s director of communications.

Discussion on the resolution, which Ramos introduced in September 2022, will include its status, obstacles, and a timeline for implementation, according to the council calendar.

Ramos said she couldn’t explain the lag time or why there was no push to institute the program in the seven years since its establishment. The council passed the legislation in December 2016, at the tail end of former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration, and was not considered during either Catherine Pugh’s or Bernard C. “Jack” Young’s tenures.

“That’s one of the questions I have for [the mayor] when we meet,” Ramos said.

The resolution will be discussed by the City Council’s Health, Environment, and Technology Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Officials from the city solicitor’s office, the finance department, the Office of Equity and Civil Rights, and mayor’s offices of Information Technology and Immigrant Affairs are expected to attend.

[ausetkmt]

NPR: Congress votes to remove a bust of the Dred Scott decision's author from the Capitol

The House gave final passage to legislation to replace the bust of Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, in the Capitol with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black person to serve on the high court.

The notorious 1857 Dred Scott decision upheld slavery and established that Black people were not U.S. citizens. The legislation, which passed Wednesday and now heads to President Biden's desk, says the bust is "unsuitable for the honor of display to the many visitors to the Capitol."

The statue of Taney sits at the entrance of the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met from 1810 to 1860. Taney, the fifth chief justice, led the court from 1836 to 1864.

"While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress's recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's Dred Scott v. Sandford decision," the legislation says.

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered the removal of four Confederate monuments, including one of Taney, in 2017. Just two days later, Maryland removed another statue of Taney, who also served as the state's attorney general, from State House grounds.

"Taney's ruling denied Black Americans citizenship, upheld slavery, and contributed, frankly, to the outbreak of the Civil War," Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said on the U.S. House floor on Wednesday. "That's why I and so many others advocated for his statue's removal from the Maryland State House."

Congress has voted to replace Taney's bust at the U.S. Capitol with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black associate justice of the Supreme Court. Bob Schutz/AP

Congress has voted to replace Taney's bust at the U.S. Capitol with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Bob Schutz/AP

Taney's bust must be removed within 45 days of the enactment of the bill and a bust of Marshall must be obtained within two years, according to the legislation.

"In removing Taney's bust, I'm not asking that we would hold Taney's to today's moral standards," Hoyer said. "On the contrary, let us hold him who the standard of his contemporaries, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln ... and all of those who understood that the enslavement of others has always been an immoral act."

[goodblacknews]

(via Salvation Army Opens Its 1st Nonprofit Grocery Store in Baltimore to Combat Food Deserts)

[sarcasticcynic]

For those who wrongly believe only Republicans commit financial crimes...

Back in 2010, Maryland State Senator Catherine Pugh, a Democrat, began writing a series of children’s books encouraging children to improve their physical health. She self-published the first, Healthy Holly: Exercising is Fun, in 2011. First, however, in December of 2010, Pugh entered into a deal with the University of Maryland Medical System to purchase 20,000 of her books for $100,000, ostensibly to distribute them to schoolchildren. Coincidentally, Pugh just happened to be on the UMMS board of directors.

Pugh’s books were not exactly of the highest quality:

“They contain grammatical and spelling errors, such as a main character’s name being spelled two different ways and the word ‘vegetable’ appearing as ‘vegetale.’”

School officials did acknowledge receiving some books from UMMS, but insisted they had never asked for them, never used any of them due to their “various grammatical and spelling errors,” and “had thousands sitting unread in a warehouse.” Nonetheless, UMMS continued to purchase books, paying Pugh $500,000 over the years, including through 2016, when Pugh was elected Mayor of Baltimore.

Then the story got worse.

Since UMMS kept buying books the schools didn’t want, Pugh stored thousands of copies at her house, the mayor’s office at City Hall, her legislative offices, the War Memorial Building, a public storage locker used by her mayoral campaign, her vehicle, and the vehicles of multiple aides. Of course, Pugh never told any UMMS officials that she hadn’t used the books as intended.

UMMS paid Pugh for 40,000 books she never even produced.

Pugh used the proceeds from her book sales to make illegal contributions to her mayoral campaign. Instead of depositing checks to Healthy Holly LLC, she had one of her aides cash them at the bank and then make “contributions to her campaign in other people’s names, i.e., to use straw donors.” (Yes, that’s illegal.)

After Pugh got caught, she said she would return the money illegally donated to her campaign. Instead, she sent it to her aide to pay for his legal defense. He was convicted in 2017 anyway, for “violating state election laws.”

Pugh also had that same aide--before his conviction, of course--create a fake contract and bogus backdated invoices, so she could write off Healthy Holly checks to him as business expenses. In 2016, for instance, Pugh told the Internal Revenue Service she had earned only $31,000, when her actual income was over $322,000.

Meanwhile, health insurer Kaiser Permanente and Associated Black Charities bought roughly 30,000 copies of Pugh’s books, paying her nearly $200,000. In 2017, Mayor Pugh coincidentally just happened to vote to approve a $48 million contract for Kaiser Permanente to provide insurance to Baltimore city employees, and Associated Black Charities coincidentally just happened to enter into a deal with the city to manage a $13 million grant fund.

Grant Capital Management has long done business with Baltimore. Its owner, J.P. Grant, confirmed paying $100,000 to Healthy Holly LLC in 2016, for which he received a single copy of one book. He is probably also the individual identified in Pugh’s indictment as “Purchaser G,” who spent $164,000 over six years to purchase books, but knew that some of the money was “going toward her mayoral campaign” and that some was “going toward the purchase of a new house.”

Pugh finally resigned in May of this year--only after “investigators raided City Hall, her homes and other locations connected with her”--and she has now been indicted on 11 counts of fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy.

[scottbcrowley2]

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigns amid intensifying scandal and multiple investigations - Thu, 02 May 2019 PST

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has resigned amid an intensifying scandal and multiple investigations into the lucrative sales of her self-published children’s books. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigns amid intensifying scandal and multiple investigations - Thu, 02 May 2019 PST

[ayy-yoo-tiff]

Baltimore.......

[news-fyi]

SMH: Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Takes An Indefinite Leave Of Absence Amid Book Scandal http://bit.ly/2VeQn1R

[iamandrewbreitbart2]

🔴 ⚪ 🔵 🔴 ⚪ 🔵 🔴 Former Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh leaves U.S. District Court in Baltimore with her attorney Steven Silverman. Pugh pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy related to her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books. (Steve Ruark/AP) By Paul Schwartzman Feb. 27, 2020 at 2:25 p.m. PST Baltimore — In her three years as mayor, a seat she often described as her "dream job," Catherine E. Pugh sought to burnish the image of her adoptive hometown, a city battered by rioting, a soaring murder rate, and a history of corruption at City Hall and in the police department... #millenialblogger #millenialsbelike #huffingtonpost #blexit #lexit #America #USA #DemocratsforTrump #ocregister #nytimes #latimes #potus #whitehouse #KAG2020 #rnc #gop #Q #nwo #wwg1wga #qanon #nypost #draintheswamp #wwg1wga #qanon #baltimoresun #abcnews #cbsnews #nbcnews #reuters #associatedpress 🇺🇸MAKING THE LEFT GO INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE 🇺🇸MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 🔴⚪🔵 (at Baltimore City Hall) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9F9gKFAykLqvBa4nBEbfdVgG4KEC3V8TPss7w0/?igshid=4veztobitdqs

[blackyouthproject]

Baltimore Mayor Asks FBI For Help To Curb Gun Violence

Baltimore Mayor Asks FBI For Help To Curb Gun Violence

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh is the latest supporter of the growing belief that adding a federal police presence will curb gun violence. CNN reports that Pughhe has asked the FBI to help decrease the city’s growing murder rate, which has reached more than 100 deaths in April for the first time in two decades. (more…)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The government of Baltimore has been taken hostage by ransomware and may remain shut down for weeks

Nearly two weeks after the city of Baltimore's internal networks were compromised by the Samsam ransomware worm (previously), the city is still weeks away from recovering services -- that's weeks during which the city is unable to process utility payments or municipal fines, register house sales, or perform other basic functions of city governance.

911 and emergency services are OK, because after they were hit by a ransomware attack last year, they were hardened against future attacks. The city did not allocate funds to improve its security, or improve its training, or take out cyberattack insurance, despite a recommendation from the city's information security manager.

Baltimore's city government has been wracked by a string of corruption scandals, including the abrupt resignation of Mayor Catherine Pugh this month, as well as the precipitous departure of four CIOs over the past five years in a string of firings and forced resignations.

The ransomware crooks who seized control over Baltimore's servers asked for $70,000 to restore them. Baltimore will spend far, far more than that on recovering its servers the hard way, in part because it was so vulnerable to begin with, thanks to the city officials' decision not to appropriate funds to improve its resiliency and security.

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/21/beltway-bandits.html

[investmart007]

BOSTON | US mayors push to curb gun violence, help immigrants

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/xqs7UF

BOSTON | US mayors push to curb gun violence, help immigrants

BOSTON (AP) — A bipartisan coalition of U.S. mayors called Friday for policies to curb gun violence and pledged to support immigrant communities as it kicked off a four-day gathering in Boston to tackle issues impacting cities.

At an opening news conference for the mayors’ annual meeting, city leaders took repeated digs at the gridlock and divisiveness in Washington while touting their own effectiveness and ability to remain above the partisan fray.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors said it’s joining the Major Cities Chiefs Association to pressure Congress into passing gun legislation like universal background checks for all firearm sales. Police Chief Art Acevedo of Houston, Texas, who joined the mayors at the meeting, said it’s time to end what he described as a “public health epidemic.”

“My question to those that say that nothing can be done, who are you standing with? The professionals, the leaders or the gun lobby?” Acevedo said.

The mayors will also tackle issues like immigration, infrastructure and cybersecurity. Among those who will join them at the event is Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles said the mayors will spend $5 million in communities across the country to help immigrants with the process of become U.S. citizens. He also called on Republican President Donald Trump’s administration to halt its policy of separating children from their parents after they cross the U.S. border.

“We have to obey laws, we have to fix systems, but can we be human beings first?” Garcetti said.

The mayors also criticized plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh suggested she would encourage residents to skip the question altogether.

Steven Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina and president of the group, said cities are a “force to be reckoned with,” pointing to a report the group released Friday that shows American cities accounted for about 96 percent of the country’s job growth in 2017. The report says the 10 metropolitan areas alone generated $6.8 trillion in economic value in 2017, surpassing the output of most states.

“You won’t find much disagreement up here, but we all believe that mayors have been and are incredibly effective when it comes to leveraging our resources,” said Mayor Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills, Michigan. ___

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER , By Associated Press ___

[onemorecup]

Just between you and I, do you care, I DO!

Just between you and I, do you care, I DO!

Just between you and I, do you care?

What in the name of God is going on in our nation right now? First, if you don’t mind I’ll address some positive matters – with the attempt of those at Bay. And by those “at Bay” I am referring to some real guidance I have always known, but was prompted by Mrs. Shannon Bream of Fox News in some of her Tweets yesterday.

First of all, for the learned (pronounced…