Daily Archives: 18 April 2012

Community Organizing Chicago Style

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We used to call it Urban Removal.  Now it’s known as community organizing for an Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Who benefitted?  The crony developers, not the ex-residents, just like under the earlier Urban…Renewal…programs.  Here’s an excerpt from the first link.  RTWT.

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.

But it’s not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale – a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

 

h/t to Grim’s Hall via Villainous Company.

Immigration Promises

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President Obama said Saturday he would seek to tackle immigration policy in the first year of a second term.  He told Univision

This is something I care deeply about.  It’s personal to me.

On the other hand, Candidate Obama promised to tackle immigration policy in his first year in office.  In a September 2008 speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, he promised

This election is about the 12 million people living in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hand. They are counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves, and rise above the fear, and rise above the demagoguery, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform.

He then went on to spend the first year and a half of his term fighting exclusively for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Speaking of which, Obama secured passage of PPACA through his purchase of Congressman Luis Gutierrez’ (D, IL) vote and the votes of his Congressional Hispanic Caucus with a promise of immigration reform.  Congressman Gutierrez:

I’ve spent the past week speaking at length with the President and his staff.  …  I believe we have a commitment to move forward on a comprehensive immigration reform package as soon as possible.

Having welched on these two commitments, why should we believe him a third time?

Or is this another case of “Once I’m reelected, I’m no longer accountable, and I can do anything I want?”