LinkBlog: michigan

Today, Detroit looks like a war zone. The slowly rotting corpse of what had been America’s backbone, the leading city in the industrial “Rust Belt.” Today, those cities are on the decline and scheduled to be bulldozed, shrunk and returned to nature. Detroit, Flint, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Memphis. These centers of production and high-wage working class jobs are now collapsing in every sense. Their city governments are broke. Foreclosures range around 1 in 5 in the worst areas. Neighbors are in decline. The last jobs are about to go.

The people of the Detroit Metropolitan region got a glimpse of the ruined block a few months ago when the police convened a press conference from the blood-stained porch of 654 Robinwood claiming they had rounded up 61 outlaws including the killer who assassinated the dope man at that address in broad daylight. And then like quicksilver, the police and the press slipped away. The six families remain. Trapped. "Do I live in Hell? Yes I do and no I don't," said Jerry Williams, who lives at 666 Robinwood and spoke through a steel gate dressed in a bathrobe and dirty socks. "It would be Hell if I was dead, but I ain't. So that just makes the place ugly. The most ugly thing that human beings can create."

When a 17-year-old high school senior called 911 as her father was having a seizure, the operator cursed at her and hung up – not once, but three times. Then, when she ran to the police department, she was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and “abusing 911.”

Home values have plummeted to levels not seen in 1/2 a century… and the 21% unemployment has in some cases been projected to double within 12 months if the auto industry totally collapses. To make matters even worse, Detroit has superseded New Orleans as the “worst city” in America…. but New Orleans had a Hurricane they could assign blame to… Detroit has no such natural disaster crutch.

"I miss my school, and that was a good house. Plus I miss my dog, Precious. We had to give her away to somebody," said Cherish, a pretty girl with her hair pulled into a puff on top of her head. "The hardest part was I lost all my best friends." The 8-year-old is one of a growing number of homeless children attending schools throughout Metro Detroit, where the number of children known to have no fixed address has shot up by more than 70 percent in the last three years. Cherish has lived in two shelters since her family was evicted from their Detroit home in November.

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an "angel from heaven" and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother's life. Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children's Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm. The girl's mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. . . . Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.

Josh was eventually allowed to leave but not before being cited for a misdemeanor and given a ticket. The comments section of the ticket reads "passing out 9-11 CD's," which is supposedly now a crime in police state America. Skoll's court date is to be set within the next few weeks. Skoll is not the first to be harassed and abused by police for handing out free information. In 2004, Kelly Rushing was charged with making "terroristic threats" after he handed out Alex Jones' videos and recordings of a Ron Paul speech on C-Span to Lyon County, Kentucky officials and Kentucky State Trooper Lewis Dobbs. A jury later ruled in favor of Rushing but he continues to be harassed by authorities and local law enforcement.

The Republican Party refuses to listen, despite Ron Paul's poll results and popularity among core Republicans. According to an Associated Press article :"The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday that he will try to bar Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy." Let me clarify. Because Ron Paul suggests that U.S. foreign policy may have had something to do with the Sept. 11 attack he should be barred from GOP debates DESPITE the fact republican constituents are in support of Ron Paul's message? When did America become a dictatorship? When did we as a people lose the ability to vote for the candidate of our choice?

Originally, the group had planned to sponsor a debate. We invited the members of YAF, a popular rightwing organization on campus to to debate us on the following issue: "Have the government and media lied to the public about the events of Sept 11." Though we issued several polite invitations these were declined. Next we tried the physics department at the University of Michigan as well as three departments in the school of engineering, Civil, Materials Science and Mechanical. We sent each faculty member a personal invitation as well as a copy of "Improbable Collapse" All of the invitations were declined or not answered; that's over three hundred invitations total for the University faculty. No one would defend the official story as related in the NIST, FEMA and 9-11 Commission Report.

I think it's safe to say the turnout at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings would be rather low if alcoholism were a crime pursued with zero-tolerance zeal.

With bidding stalled on some of the least desirable residences in Detroit's collapsing housing market, even the fast-talking auctioneer was feeling the stress. "Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with it. You do know that, right?" he offered. After selling house after house in the Motor City for less than the $29,000 it costs to buy the average new car, the auctioneer tried a new line: "The lumber in the house is worth more than that!"

Their theory is that explosives planted throughout the World Trade Center - not the burning fuel from the jetliners that crashed into the buildings - brought the Twin Towers down on Sept. 11, 2001. That proposition was intriguing enough that about 300 people showed up Sunday, some out of simple curiosity, at the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor to hear three speakers explain why they believe the U.S. government - not fanatical Muslim terrorists - was behind the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A group of scholars who argue that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by a controlled demolition - not by passenger jets piloted by terrorists - will speak in the Michigan Union Ballroom Sunday. Ann Arbor 9/11 Truth, a recently formed group of Ann Arbor residents who dispute the government's version of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, hope to persuade people that the government is lying.

September 11, 2001 was a catastrophic day in our country’s history. Three thousand people lost their lives in this tragic attack. As horrible as this loss has been it has, according to some, initiated an even greater loss to the nation: our civil rights. These speakers allege that, using 9/11 as a weapon, our current administration has terrified us into letting the NSA spy on our phone conversations, giving up our rights to habeas corpus and - mostly recently - allowing the government to open and read our conventional mail without a warrant. Anyone who dares object is "on the side of the terrorists".

I am a true Public Servant. Everything I do goes directly to the health and safety of the Citizens of Lansing. I'm a good steward. I cut costs wherever I can, and attempt to maintain the funding to provide the same high level of service to our public. My staff spends absolutely no money that isn't absolutely necessary, and they work their tails off. Due to staff cuts I've got one employee who is doing three people's jobs. She's a single mother with three children at home. Yet she never complains, or shows frustration to the citizens she serves. She is a true public servant. I am commited to the concept that the citizens are my employer, and I owe them the best possible job I can do. I'm even willing to take a pay cut to accomplish it. How about all of you in Washington? Are you public servants, or political servants? I'm hoping for the former, but I fear it's the latter.