[J.P.’s Moment of Common Sense on Broad View, KBZZ 1270 AM and 96.1 FM in Reno. Listen to Broad View live Saturdays at 2:00 PM Pacific Time.]

On Monday, Trenton Mayor Tony Mack was arrested by the FBI for corruption.  Tony Mack represents the blight that has destroyed the great cities of America, the blight of crooked Democrat mayors who have systematically raped and pillaged the cities they were elected to lead.

If you don’t live in a major urban area, you don’t know how bad it is.  Travel across America and you will find city after city with the same feature: a rotten core of disintegrating infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and violent crime.  Detroit looks worse than Kabul or Baghdad, recent war zones.  East St. Louis sends kids to school in buildings where sewage is backed up in the hallways.  Vast areas of Los Angeles are run by gangs playacting like feudal lords from the Middle Ages.  Chicago had 52 shootings over Memorial Day weekend, ten of them fatal—you’re safer walking around Baghdad with a big silver cross than walking around in Chicago.

What do all of those cities have in common?  Decades of Democrat mayors.

If you think Tony Mack is an exception, maybe I should list other examples.  What do you think?  Can I list ten examples of corrupt Democrat mayors since the year 2000?

First of all, in the same area, there are five.  30 miles south of Trenton, in Camden, New Jersey, Milton Milan was convicted of corruption.  Across the river from Camden, in Philadelphia, John Street had six different friends or family members charged with corruption but somehow scraped through without getting indicted himself.  In the other direction, 60 miles north of Trenton, in West New York, New Jersey, Felix Roque was recently arrested by the FBI for hacking into his opponent’s website and threatening him.  60 miles further north, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mayor Joseph Ganim was convicted of 16 charges of corruption.

He should have done what Mayor William Lantigua did in nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts: Mayor Lantigua married a city clerk after she was subpoenaed by a grand jury so now she can claim spousal privilege and refuse to testify against him.

We don’t have to stay in the Trenton area.  Let’s branch out and look at the rest of the country.  Remember Marion Berry, former mayor of Washington, D.C.?  He was convicted of cocaine possession way back in 1990, but he resurrected his political career when he got out of prison and now he’s in trouble for not filing tax returns from 1999 through 2004.  And he got arrested for stalking.  The current mayor in Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, is a chip off the Marion Barry block: one close friend and supporter already pleaded guilty to corruption, others are under investigation by the FBI, and Gray is in the FBI’s sights.

But that’s small potatoes compared to Emmanuel Onunwor, of East Cleveland, Ohio.  He’s in prison for racketeering, extortion, mail fraud, and tax fraud.  As far as Democrat mayors go, Mr. Onunwor is a bit of an over-achiever.

In Atlanta, Bill Campbell was arrested for racketeering, bribery, and wire fraud, but they only convicted him of tax evasion.  Up in Baltimore, Sheila Ann Dixon was arrested and convicted of stealing gift cards intended for poor children.  (Wow, isn’t she a lovely person?)  Down in New Orleans, Ray Nagin, the guy who mismanaged the Katrina response, received free vacations from a city contractor who got no-bid city contracts.

Out in San Francisco, Gavin Newsome ran for governor while he was mayor and when the effort failed he paid off four campaign workers with city jobs.  Down in Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, who was recently in the news for running the fake voice vote at the Democrat Convention (the fake voice vote that put God back in the Democrat platform), accepted free tickets to entertainment events for five years without reporting them on disclosure forms or tax returns.

As long as we’re talking about California, the mayor of Sacramento is Kevin Johnson, the guy people compare to Barack Obama by calling him “Baby Barack.”  He faces allegations of sex with a 17-year-old at a local charity he ran, similar to allegations that he had sex with a 16-year-old back in 1997.  In addition, the FBI is investigating him for obstruction of justice and the Inspector General recommended prosecution for misuse of federal grant money.

Probably the two most corrupt cities are Chicago and Detroit.  Chicago was run for decades by the Daley Machine.  The last Daley, Richard Daley, left office last year but on the way out he rewarded himself and family members with special pension deals and city contracts.  Then Rahm Emanuel took over.  Rahm has been linked to the Mark Foley scandal, is still under investigation for connections to the Rod Blagojevich scandal, and was a director at Freddie Mac when that scandal erupted in 2001.  He hasn’t been in trouble as mayor yet, but give him time.

The corruption in Chicago is so bad it oozes across the border into East Chicago, Indiana, where the last two mayors are both guilty of corruption.  George Pabey was found guilty of conspiracy and theft and sentenced to five years in prison, and Robert Pastrick was taken to court by the state of Indiana and has to repay $108 million for running a 20-year scam involving sidewalk and road repairs.

In Detroit, where Coleman Young presided over the scandal-ridden rape of the Motor City for twenty years, Kwame Kilpatrick came into office and turned the mayor’s mansion into Al Capone’s headquarters, replete with stripper parties and mysterious assassinations.  He’s in prison serving a sentence for corruption and faces trial for fraud and tax evasion.  Tax evasion is what they finally got Capone for, so the charge is kind of appropriate.

Instead of ten, I just listed twenty corrupt Democrat mayors and I could name more.  Many of these crooks are in prison but seven of them are still in office.  Meanwhile, every single one of the cities mentioned is a basket case.  At some point, for the sake of our nation, the people living in these cities need to stop voting for Democrats.

That’s... today’s dose of common sense.

“Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, and they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals and is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, and if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.” —William Blake

“Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.” —Charles Dickens

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September 15, 2012 - The obvious conclusion is that the country needs to stop voting for Democratic presidents for similar reasons. – Katherine, Reno