In spite of all the attention we have recently paid to Baltimore, it’s nothing new. We’ve had race riots on a regular basis for nearly 50 years. I’m not referring to events like Selma, which were peaceful demonstrations that were turned into riots by the racist cops. But even the assassination of Martin Luther King was merely an excuse for black people to run amok, making asses of themselves by burning, breaking and looting. What a great way to pay tribute to the man who preached passive resistance to racial injustice!

Ever since then, this has been an urban form of entertainment in every major city in America. Sometimes the fuse is lit by the local team’s winning or losing a championship game. More often, the trigger, so to speak, is some good-for-nothing being shot during a police pursuit.

Out here in L.A., we experienced a major riot simply because four cops were acquitted for beating on Rodney King, a career thug who had just led the cops on a 100-mph car chase and then resisted being cuffed, probably because he was high on PCP.

But the mob must be accommodated, so when the cops were acquitted, the feds stepped in and, pretending that the Fifth Amendment doesn’t prohibit double jeopardy, used the all-encompassing charge of denial of civil rights to try them all over again.

Every single time one of these riots takes place, we hear the same old claptrap about the cops not showing proper respect to the black community. What we don’t hear about is black parents instilling a respect for the police in their children. But, then, with black men reducing their own responsibility to that of sperm donors, the only male role models the kids have are other kids.

We were all heartened to see the woman in Baltimore knock her teenage son around when she spotted him behind the hood and the mask, but she was the only parent we saw who wasn’t raising havoc in the streets.

What we haven’t seen in Baltimore or L.A., Detroit or New York City, were blacks demonstrating in support of the cops. So it is always a one-way street. The blacks get to show their contempt for those sworn to protect the innocent, but we never see the slightest expression of gratitude for those who police the mean streets of America.

In Ferguson, all the early “witnesses” testified that they had seen Officer Darren Wilson shoot Michael Brown in the back. When forensics proved that to be a false narrative, the witnesses, suddenly facing perjury charges, all admitted they had lied, because they feared reprisal from their thuggish neighbors.

These are dark times, due in good part to dark people. We all know that most black people are not thugs, but, more and more often, it seems that most thugs are black people.

Another lie we keep hearing from the Democrats running these civic cesspools is that not enough money is being spent on inner city public schools. They are, of course, merely parroting the propaganda of the teachers unions. Whether it’s Chicago, where the teachers went on strike even though they were being paid upwards of $75,000-a-year, or Baltimore, which spends the third most dough of any city on its schools, lack of funds is not the problem.

Kids growing up in homes where the mother is either lying around collecting welfare or out working two or three jobs because there’s no husband-father in the home, is part of the problem. And stupid kids who denounce other kids who are trying to get an education by saying they’re “acting white,” are part of the problem.

Politicians, both black and white, who refuse to talk about the real cause of illiteracy and crime in the black community, are also part of the problem; as are those, such as Obama, who insist that drug laws shouldn’t be enforced because that way a lot of black men wouldn’t go to jail, although, as Jason Riley pointed out in his book, only a tiny percentage of black men are incarcerated on drug charges.

Of course another solution would be to remove rape, robbery and assault, from the books. Then we wouldn’t need jails at all.

Instead of straight talk, though, we have an ambitious young prosecutor named Marilyn Mosby who, hearing the voices of the mob, swore to give them justice, a statement which proved she didn’t even know the meaning of the word. Actually, when she announced, after studying the forensic evidence for all of two minutes, that six Baltimore cops would be indicted — one of them for first degree murder — the only voice she heard was the one in her head addressing her as “Mayor Mosby.”

Moving on, when I see what the Clintons have been up to, I am reminded that the most addictive drug in the world isn’t heroin or cocaine, it’s greed.

When asked if the Clinton Foundation would continue collecting contributions (aka bribes) while Hillary was campaigning, Bill said, “Oh sure, I have to keep paying our bills.” Inasmuch as neither of them has had to pay for airfare, meals, hotels or even security for the past 14 years, I’m not sure what bills he has in mind, unless, of course, with Monica Lewinsky no longer on call, he’s now actually having to pay hookers.

Clinton said he had checked with Hillary about any possible improprieties, and she had assured him that everything was on the up-and-up. That certainly put my suspicions to rest.

Clinton also explained that there was nothing unseemly about foreign countries, companies and individuals, paying him upwards of $500,000 for a speech because, after all, he often has to devote as much as two hours to research. The fact that nobody really believes he writes his own material is beside the point. That he would utter such claptrap proves just how out of touch this schmuck is with reality.

You would have thought that the amount of ridicule that rained down on Hillary when she claimed they were flat broke in 2001, somehow overlooking the $20 million in book deals waiting for them to turn off the lights in the Lincoln bedroom, would have given him pause. I realize it verges on heresy, but just maybe these two are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Or perhaps they simply share Jonathan Gruber’s contempt for the American voter, a contempt, I hasten to add, that is much deserved, considering that twice in the past seven years the lunkheads elected the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

In related news, John Kerry told Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif that he wished the United States had a leader like the Ayatollah Khamenei. Funny, but I thought we already had one.