THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2025
Mayor Scott speaks with Ana Cabrera: We've admired Ana Cabrera's calm demeanor dating back to the CNN days.
We think she pretty much did the right thing on yesterday's MSNBC program, speaking to Mayor Scott. There is no perfect thing:
MSNBC Anchor Reminds Mayor His City Has One of the Highest Crime Rates After He Snaps Back at Trump
MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera reminded Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) that his city suffers from some of the highest crime rates in the country after he celebrated a 50-year low in recorded homicides in response to President Donald Trump.
Scott joined Cabrera on Tuesday, where he responded to the president’s insults against Baltimore. Trump called it a “hellhole” after Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) invited him to walk the streets with him. Moore’s comments were to push back on Trump’s suggestion that he could deploy National Guard troops to cities like Baltimore to crack down on crime, as he has already done in Washington, D.C.
Scott argued that he is already leading the effort to reduce violent crime in Baltimore, referencing programs focused on rehabilitation and the targeting of illegal guns.
[...]
As Cabrera also pointed out, there have also been dozens of homicides in Baltimore this year. As of August 1, the city has seen 84 homicides this year, a drop from 111 during the same time in 2024.
And so on from there.
At present, Baltimore is on pace to record roughly 150 homicides this year. Would that represent a 50-year low?
Sadly, yes—it would. Let's take a look at the record.
We came to Baltimore in September 1969. We stopped being a college senior, instead becoming a fifth-grade teacher in the Baltimore City Public Schools.
According to Wikipedia's numbers, Baltimore recorded 237 homicides hat year. According to Wikipedia's numbers, that represented 26.2 homicides per 100,000 residents, while the nationwide homicide rate that year was only 7.3.
From there, the numbers bounced around—sometimes below 200, more often over. As happened almost everywhere, the big jump came in the early 1990s:
Homicides / Homicide rates, Baltimore City
1990: 305 (41.4)
1991: 304 (40.6)
1992: 335 (44.3)
1993: 353 (48.2)
1994: 321 (43.4)
As was the case elsewhere, the numbers eventually began to recede, dropping to 196 (31.3) in 2011. Then they went up again. For whatever reason, they didn't fall back from Covid-year levels until the past few years:
Homicides / Homicide rates, Baltimore City
2020: 335 (57.1)
2021: 337 (58.3)
2022: 333 (58.4)
2023: 261 (46.0)
2024: 201 (34.3)
2025: 150, projected
Yes, those numbers are dropping. That said, in 2023, the national homicide rate was only 5.5, as opposed to Baltimore's 46.0.
Mayor Scott was elected mayor in November 2020. For whatever reason, the numbers have plainly dropped on his watch.
Who dies in all those homicides? At least two of our former fifth graders, back in the 1980s and 1990s. Also, NAME WITHHELD, under whose barely perceptible coaching we played alongside Marvelous Marvin Webster in the Baltimore Neighborhood Basketball League in the summer of 72.
(Even with Webster, we only went 9-9 that summer. Wes Unseld was the citywide association's hands-on commissioner. Years later, we were told that our coach, a very genial person, had been murdered while driving a cab.)
It largely depends on where you live, or possibly on what you have to do to earn a living. Also, Wikipedia's entry says this:
Homicides in Baltimore are heavily concentrated within a small number of high-poverty neighborhoods. According to a 2016 Baltimore Sun investigation, around 80% of the city's gun homicides are committed in 25% of the city's neighborhoods...
Gang-related crimes are usually clustered in drug territories and mostly affect people involved in drug dealing, particularly narcotics and rival gangs.
Elsewhere, homicide rates are lower. In 2017, London's homicide rate was 1.6 per 100,000. (For Montreal, click here.) The high rate of homicide in the U.S. is something we Blues sometimes like to discuss, though mainly in certain contexts.
In large part, the ultimate story behind all this tragedy stretches back into our nation's history, as everyone surely knows.
On a nationwide basis, the first big jump in homicide rates seems to have started in the late 1960s. Bruce Springsteen described one part of that situation in "My Hometown:"
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
In the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed, then a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come
To my hometown.
"Troubled times had come," he said. Has any song in the annals of popular music ever been more tightly written?
Which is worse, Greek mythology or the Bible?
ReplyDeleteSomerby's ass is showing again. "Elsewhere, homicide rates are lower. In 2017, London's homicide rate was 1.6 per 100,000. (For Montreal, click here.) The high rate of homicide in the U.S. is something we Blues sometimes like to discuss, though mainly in certain contexts." The UK has less than 5 guns per 100 people. Canada less than 50/100. USA more than 100/100 people. Plus those other countries don't have a fucking USSC that cannot figure what a "well regulated militia" means with virtually any gun rules or registrations now unconstitutional. Thank you Putin for keeping the NRA financed for the good of America. Hey David in Cal, wouldn't you like a piece of Maria Butina's skanky Russian ass? My thoughts and prayer for gun humpers is for them to shoot themselves in the dick.
ReplyDelete"Has any song in the annals of popular music ever been more tightly written?"
ReplyDeleteHow about Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee"?
Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number but I know who placed the call
Because my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall
Help me, information, get in touch with my Marie
She's the only one who'd phone me here from Memphis, Tennessee
Her home is on the south side high up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge
Ah, help me, information, more than that I cannot add
Only that I miss her and all the fun we had
But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree
And tore apart our happy home in Memphis, Tennessee
Last time I saw Marie, she was waving me goodbye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye
Marie is only six years old, information please
Try to put me through to her in Memphis, Tennessee
The most tightly written popular song? The Lieber-Stoller classic, “Hound Dog”.
ReplyDeleteThe Dem position is to deny that Baltimore has a crime problem. But, Conquest's 1st law says 1) Everyone is a conservative about what they know best.
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteThe Dem position is that Trump has invented an "emergency" for his own purposes. More below.
The last crime emergency on Donald Trump’s plate occurred on January 6th. Masterful job at addressing that one in a timely fashion.
DeleteTrump would have pardoned Ashli Babbitt but cheering her on came with a price.
DeleteThe Right-wing position is to deny every Republican voter is a bigot. But no one can find a Republican voter who cares about crime (they elected a felon), the deficit (they gave corporations another huge tax break, adding to the deficit), or government spending (they support giving more of our tax dollars to ICE, a fascist organization with no accountability).
DeleteEveryone who is a conservative is a bigot.
"Everyone is a conservative about what they know best."
DeleteI've heard all the drug-running and child -trafficking by Right-wingers, is the reason they need guns to protect their homes from being broken into by "criminals".
What say you?
Taxpayers paid the family of idiot insurrectionist who couldn't follow police orders (just like a blah) $5M. Also got an military honors funeral. Same idiots putting back monuments to traitors to the nation, oath breakers, and all around treasonous assholes. Funny, when I go to Germany I don't find any statues celebrating Hitler. What the fuck is wrong with you idjits? You got everything backwards.
DeleteThey're economically anxious, not bigots, said no one not paid by a media corporation to cover-up for Right-wingers.
DeleteYes, crime exists. No, "we Blues" aren't ignoring it or wishing it away. Crime is most visible in places where large numbers of people live and interact and it's especially pronounced in the places where poor and desperate people are found.
ReplyDeleteThat said, yes, violent crime in cities has been on a downward trend recently. But the fact of fewer victims does nothing to ease the anguish of individual victims and their families.
None of this answers the pertinent question: Is there an "emergency" in our cities that can be resolved only through the intervention of an autocratic president taking charge of city policing?
No, of course not. There is no emergency. Crime has not suddenly spiked. There are no organized criminal gangs that have recently emerged driving new waves of violence. Our president's justifications for taking command of police in D.C--and his threats to do the same in other cities--isn't the result of any emergency, but his own need to create chaos and then put himself in charge of fixing it.
"But look," some will say, "at the immediate reduction in recorded crime after Trump's heroism!"
Yes, putting more patrols on the streets will have an effect. Trump's decision to deploy federal employees and National Guard troops to the streets of Washington provided bodies to that end. That doesn't mean he is uniquely capable, only that he has unequaled resources at hand.
Does a city mayor have an FBI, a DEA, and ICE from which she can borrow personnel? A reserve of armed soldiers that can be pressed into action? No, cities aren't equipped that way, nor, for the most part, are states.
The federal government alone can marshal these resources on short notice. But Trump can use these tools only in emergency situations, so an emergency must be invented.
While these extra resources are immediately available, using them isn't free. There are associated costs and the number of personnel isn't unlimited. The surge in patrols we see in Washington isn't sustainable or scalable.
If the Trump administration was genuinely interested in further reducing crime, it would be working with cities to better fund and train police departments instead of taking unilateral steps to take them over.
I'd propose that Trump isn't all that interested in reducing crime, but that his "emergency" is a pretext for him to take extravagant measures he can boast about.
It's a mistake to even discuss Trump's actions in the context of reducing crime. These actions can only be discussed as a step towards authoritarianism and military take over. This is worthwhile watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTZ_en5FTM
DeleteQuaker says it would be more effective to work with cities to better fund and train police departments instead of taking unilateral steps to take them over. Is s/he right? I don't know. I agree that it's not obvious that the National Guard will have a long-term effect, but it's not out of the question, either. Also, it's also not obvious that just giving money (which the federal gov't doesn't have) to cities will reduce crime. I don't think federal gifts of money have a particularly good record for effectiveness.
DeleteThere's still no "emergency," David. Trump is pretending.
DeleteThe large reductions were achieved that way. Why not continue an approach showing good progress? You don’t mess with success, which is what Trump is doing.
DeleteHow about if republican dickweeds in congress give DC the $1 billion they stole from DC earlier this year as a start.
DeleteQuaker — you are correct. No matter how urgent a situation is, it’s not an “emergency” if it’s a long standing problem.
DeleteDiC: isn’t that the point? Trump is lying about an emergency in order to send in troops.
DeleteIt bears repeating: taking Trump's claim at its face value is a mistake. There's no emergency. It's a systemic problem that has been afflicting certain cities for a long time. Trump's claims are lies.
DeleteDemocrats can add two more children to the homicides they caused with their twisted ideology.
ReplyDeleteYea man, and Sandy Hook was a deep state false flag operation man, you fucking jagoff.
DeleteThe vast majority of mass shooters are straight white men. As soon as Republicans suggest doing something about straight white men, we’ll know they are serious about stopping mass shootings.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:31pm, what do you have in mind other than limiting everyone’s access to guns?
Delete6:17,
DeleteSqueal louder, sweetheart.
10:06; perhaps the Supreme Court can get back with us when they decide to include the second amendment specification of a “well regulated militia” in their deliberations, since they have effectively disappeared it.
DeleteIt is funny how the Constitutional "textualists" can't find the "text" specifying “well-regulated militia”.
DeleteNo one knows why.
Too many dumb ass Republicans to address the problem. Supreme Court textualists can't read text. After Australia had one mass shooting they were done. Oh the humanity, look what these people had to succumb to:
ReplyDeleteThe principle features of the NFA, as described in a study on the regulatory reform (Ozanne-Smith et al., 2004, pp. 282–283), were as follows:
Ban on importation, ownership, sale, resale, transfer, possession, manufacture, or use of all self-loading center rifles, all self-loading and pump action shotguns, and all self-loading rimfire rifles (some exemptions allowable to primary producers and clay target shooters)
Compensatory buyback scheme through which firearm owners would be paid the market value for prohibited firearms handed in during a 12-month amnesty
Registration of all firearms as part of integrated shooter licensing scheme
Shooter licensing based on requirement to prove “genuine reason” for owning a firearm, including occupational use, demonstrated membership of an authorized target shooting club, or hunting (with proof of permission from a rural landowner)
Licensing scheme based on five categories of firearms, minimum age of 18 years, and criteria for a “fit and proper person”
New license applicant required to undertake accredited training course in firearm safety
As well as license to own a firearm, separate permit required for each purchase of a firearm subject to a 28-day waiting period
Uniform and strict firearm storage requirements
Firearms sales to be conducted only through licensed firearm dealers and all records of sale to be provided to the police
Sale of ammunition only for firearms for which purchaser is licensed and limitations on quantities purchased within time period.
Go accidentally shoot yourself. You have my thoughts and prayers.
Democrats unleashed too many criminals into society. You’re never getting our guns. We need them.
Delete10:33 is a typical Republican, who wants to punish Capitalists when they have success.
DeleteSuch whiny little bitches. I wish the corporate-owned, Right-wing media would ignore the crybaby's bitching.
As is always the case, when the perpetrator is someone that leftists relate to, the emphasis is on gun laws.. If the perp is right-leaning or not aligned with leftist views, the attention is on the shooter's political beliefs, psychology, or socioeconomic background.
ReplyDeleteYou're fighting the last war.
DeleteThe Left are going to kill 20% of Republican voters to save the country.
Try not to keep up.
The Founding Fathers gave us the 2nd Amendment to fight the tyranny of the government. As an Originalist, I I support the shootings of Republicans every day of the week.
Delete#tolerancemyass
Who left the door open and let Cecelia back in?
DeleteI did.
Delete9:34: no, that’s what republicans do. Pick out the ones they think are “liberal” and attack liberal ideology. The solution is not partisanship, and it sure isn’t doing nothing. Democrats propose all kinds of ideas to help solve the problem; Republicans oppose every one of them, including increased funding for mental health care. Pointing out how republicans want to do nothing is just telling the truth.
DeleteEvery time right wingers attack transgender people, I think about Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican transgender woman. In other words, being transgender does not dictate ideology.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:19am, the individual I replied to was primarily focused on limiting gun rights and concluded by suggesting that those who oppose him should go "accidentally" shoot themselves. This reinforces my point that the way the debate is handled depends on the political affiliation of the particular shooter. Yes, we get into conversations as to gun violence being the psychology and ideology of crazy conservative shooters, when the shooter isn’t that… the focus stays on limiting guns.
DeleteThe focus has always been on eliminating automatic weapons that allow rapid fire mass killings. But go ahead and construct your fake narrative.
DeleteBullshit Cecelia, but that is your favorite dish to serve. We want weapons of war removed. That FACT that the vast majority of mass shootings are committed by right wing nut knobs like you, is a fact. Sorry you can't handle the trufes.
DeleteMelania is stunning on the Vanity Fair cover.
ReplyDeleteIs there anything sexier to a Right-wing man, then Hunter Biden's penis?
DeleteAnonymouse 10:57pm, death and taxes.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:25pm, liberals have been dazzling with their political stands of late. Renouncing hot chicks is just the latest.
DeleteThank you.
DeleteCorrected:
Nothing sexier than a 100% Estate Tax (i.e. a Merit-based society).
Also, women who make their own reproductive choices, of course.
Anonymouse 12:00am, so introduce VF to the Wiccans.
DeleteIt's funny, because you're a longtime voter for the party of pedophilia..
DeleteYou literary defended a guy who showered with his young daughter.
Deletehttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ashley-biden-diary-claims/
I showered with my young daughter. Now she’s a happily married mom of three and a pro-life activist.
Delete9:12: trying to equate Biden with Trump like this is lunacy.
DeleteWhat are you going to do about it, Cecelia? Stop voting for child rapists?
DeleteLOL.
Anonymouse 9:28am, liberal dads have that effect on daughters.
DeleteCecelia, didn’t your dad shower with you? He should have. You’d be even more conservative.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:15am, no. He wasn’t a liberal.
DeleteSo Cecelia, you happy the world's premiere health system is being destroyed by a brain worm heroin addict brain damaged fucking idiot? Is that what you voted for, you and the magat morans?
Delete12:37,
DeleteYou couldn't be more wrong.
Cecelia, like all Republican voters, voted for minorities and women to be kept in their places.
The global pedophile ring the Republican party is running, is just something she'll put-up with to get the bigotry.
Obviously.
One of the better hoots from the Right, is Right-wing Supreme Court justices think Trump cares at all about how they justify his actions.
ReplyDeleteThey can't rule against him, because he'll just ignore them.
Yet they wear the black robes like they are important to how the world works, anyway.
Clowns.
Yeah, you guys are all smiles.
DeleteSqueal louder, Mao.
Delete11:37: well, we’re not as smiley as Gutfeld, but then, he isn’t funny, but only seems that way to his right wing audience.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:37pm, nowadays anonymices throw gravy bowls daily. You’ve turned Bob’s blog into a whole year of holiday dinners with your relatives.
DeleteFuck you Cecelia. Feel better asshole?
DeleteHow anyone can think Bob Somerby, a guy who calls all Republican voters 'reactionaries", and thinks the only reason they vote for child rapists, is that their feelings get hurt by the truth, is a Conservative, is beyond me.
DeleteI agree with Bob Somerby. Republican voters are emotionally and intellectually stunted children, who vote by spite, because they aren't adult enough to deal with the real world.
DeleteI like law and order, so I voted for a self-admitted sexual predator wth 34 felony convictions, who stole from a children's cancer charity, and has a longtime history of stiffing his contractors, said no one who doesn't like fucking children.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a bit early for the anonymouse late night confession session.
DeleteWhat happened to your liberal tolerance, 11:48?
DeleteI sold it for a packet of Splenda.
DeleteThat's a good Capitalist.
DeleteImmigrants are similar. They sell their labor.
Love is a many Splenda thing.
DeleteThe Republican Party, on the other hand, are nothing but bigots and pedophiles.
Anonymouse 9:51am, market value.
DeleteWhy are large blocs of voters abandoning the Democratic party?
ReplyDeleteMister Fanny?
Deletehttps://www.facebook.com/fanny.farts.7
People expressed that they were economically anxious. And the Democratic party responded to them by making fun of them and calling them racists.
DeleteThat actually happened.
And there's your answer to why vast blocs of voters are abandoning the their party.
The Democratic Party did no such thing.
DeleteTheir candidate actually called them irredeemable. Voters expressed economic anxiousness and the Democratic party made fun of them and called them all racists. That really happened.
DeleteSo, it makes sense that the Democratic party is in its death throes. Voters expressed how they felt to them and they actually mocked them for it.
The Democratic party motto is: "the customer is always wrong." " If they don't believe what we tell them to, they are racists."
DeleteSo you can see why why the Democratic party is on life support.
That did not happen.
DeleteA Democrat just flipped a heavily Republican district in Iowa.
DeleteThe next Republican voter who cares about economics, will be the first.
DeleteYou feel enormous blocks of voters are abandoning the Democratic party for other reasons?
Delete9:56. Thanks for proving my point. If you express economic anxiousness, you are a stupid racist. What a great platform. How did that work out for you? You lost all three branches of government and flipped an election in Iowa. What a party!
DeleteI get that you think Republican snowflakes voted for a guy who rapes children, because Democrats hurt their feelings with words, but what makes you think they wouldn't have voted for the long-time child rapist, anyway?
DeleteSending immigrants who are better workers than I am to gulags, added 0 cents to my savings account.
DeleteThank you, Mr. President
What conclusive evidence is there that he raped children?
DeleteEconomically anxious Republican voters want Trump impeached for getting rid of DEI.
DeleteThe Democratic party believes that people vote not based on their needs or the issues they have with their lives but whether or not the candidate is a child rapist.
DeleteThere's your answer as to why the Democratic party is dying.
I know it's hard to deal with the fact that significant blocs of voters are leaving the Democratic party and you don't really have an answer as to why. So it makes sense that you would poison the well with bs.
DeleteTrump raping a 13-year old, because she reminded him of his pre-teen daughter, is increasing my food shopping budget.
Delete10:13,
DeleteYou know it's all bs, when they repeat the "economically anxious" lie.
Even the corporate-owned Right-wing media, couldn't shine that turd, so they went with Russiagate.
Once the media disappeared the bigotry of Republican voters as the reason Trump won the election, stories like economic anxiousness and Russiagate were inevitable.
DeleteAll the black and Mexican voters leaving the Democratic party are racists.
DeleteBoth of 'em?
DeleteDear Democrats,
DeleteStop hurting the feelings of voters with your words.
What conclusive evidence is there that a Right-winger understands economics?
DeleteI can afford twice as much food, now that we got rid of DEI.
DeleteAs long as the Cracker Barrel logo is back - THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP! - I will be flying my Confederate flag at full mast.
DeleteIf you want effort to continue, it is better to praise progress than to complain because there is still work to do. We all know the goal is 0 crime but no one has achieved that.
ReplyDeleteYou are stupid
DeleteBruce Springsteen does not approve of Trump’s method. Is it fair for Somerby to borrow his lyrics to support his own argument?
ReplyDeleteIn the song someone shot someone else with a shotgun. Is that the start of a crime wave or something that could happen anywhere, more likely in TX and less likely in CA? Reading into a song doesn’t make it “tightly written.”
Cecelia, it’s good to see you. I hope you’ll soon be on the cover of Vanity Fair.
ReplyDeleteI’d never pass the ideological criteria.
DeleteOh, they’ll learn.
Delete9:20 you won’t get that far in the interview.
DeleteDamn, I thought Cecelia had croaked.
DeleteShe’s in the shower.
Delete