What's this?! MY hometown mentioned on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?
That's right, baby! Thanks to embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his cover-up/perjury/text messaging scandal, the Residence Inn, right here in beautiful Madison Heights, Michigan, gets mentioned!
I just hope the Kwame Media Watch - Kilpatrick's private coalition, who are funded by unspecified (read: city and taxpayer) funds, to protect his *ahem* "good name" - don't take Jon Stewart and Comedy Central down!
I would like to mention that The Daily Show handled this PERFECTLY. While anyone with half a brain should be able to figure this out, there are still some Kwame supporters out there who don't realize that the issue at hand is NOT that he had an extramarital affair. The issue is that he spent $8.4 MILLION DOLLARS to cover up text messages that proved he not only perjured himself in a court of law, but that he also conspired to fire several members of the Detroit Police. The Daily Show did a great job of bringing up the firing of Officer Gary Brown BEFORE bringing up the sex scandal.
Let me break this down for you, just in case you still don't get it. You live in Detroit, you pay taxes - you have just paid for Kwame Kilpatrick's stay at the beautiful Residence Inn in Madison Heights (Room 311, Building 3 - I hear they call it the Mayoral Suite). This is not a personal, private issue between Kwame and his wife. He has just taken the money YOU pay for city services, property ownership, etc. and spent it to have an extramarital affair, which he then LIED about under oath in a court of law. This is a CRIMINAL matter.
And it's not just the $8.4 million dollars, but think of the lost revenue from businesses that no longer want to have anything to do with the city thanks to the Mayor. Imagine what $8.4 million dollars could do for the city of Detroit. You know how it snows like crazy here in Michigan? Well, some of that money could be put towards snow removal services. How about that garbage that has been sitting on your curb for a month. Yeah, sanitation services could clean that up for you with some of that money he used to cover up his lies.
It slays me that people don't seem to understand that this is not about a man cheating on his wife and that there are people currently living IN the city of Detroit that still support a man who used THEIR money to cover his own ass - and believe me, every dollar of that $8.4 million would be necessary to cover such an exceedingly LARGE ass.
This is the same man who took credit for steps made by the previous administration towards improving the city. This is the same man who attempted to buy a $50,000 Lincoln Navigator for his wife on the city's dime. This man has done nothing but waste the city's money since he got into office, and there are still people dumb enough to support him. To those people, you deserve whatever you get. Have your "Hip-Hop Mayor". To the good, hard-working people living in Detroit, I am truly sorry you have to suffer through this moron.
Perhaps worst of all, this whole scandal paints a negative picture of African-Americans. Let's face it, this country has a long way to go when it comes to equality. This just gives the foolish, small-minded, bigoted assholes that slink around our society more ammunition to say "Look, this is what happens when we put blacks in charge." This isn't an indictment of African-Americans, it's one stupid asshole involved in a scandal and if you'd really like, I can begin citing all the white politicians involved in similar scandals and corruption to prove my point.
I hadn't intended this to turn into a little mini-rant, but I suppose it did. I know a rant when I see one, and this, my friends, is a rant. Now if you'll excuse me, I must run and hide before the Kwame Media Watch (TM) comes after me too.
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