There are a couple of stories making the rounds, that taken individually, might not pique everyone’s interest for very long, but taken collectively should be sounding alarm bells at the highest levels of what passes for leadership in the Michigan Republican Party.
Especially considering who was the actual cause behind it.
{Post continues below}
(14)Nuh Uh.
(0)Drug names are bad M'K?
There is nothing as seriously addictive as alcohol.
After watching two of the closest people to me drink themselves to death, one might think I would find drinking jokes to be offensive. At least if I was a liberal, politically correct, over-sensitized, whiny baby, perhaps. I don’t however. Humor has truths that can make us uncomfortable, but speak a different language.
I cannot get over the overblown, yet seriously pathetic apology for using the cultural name of [methyl (1R,2R,3S,5S)-3- (benzoyloxy)-8-methyl-8-azabicyclo[3.2.1] octane-2-carboxylate], or “Crack” for a french fry. It boggles the mind that anyone would so care about such a mild reference to something that is addictive, yet still, with any sense of propriety can still run an establishment that caters directly to those who suffer from the worst form of addiction, namely alcoholism.
This video is as priceless as it is pathetic and revealing of the cowardly culture we are backing ourselves into.
All is not lost however. Visit the video page itself, and enjoy the commentary while it lasts. If the snowflake who made the video is consistent, he will run from this video even faster than he did the ‘insensitive’ name for a deep fried potato.
H/T scales.
(14)Nuh Uh.(0)Former Detroit mayor seeks unlikely relief from well earned berth.
Things that make you go hmm.. Many times over.
Our country has always been the land of 2nd Chances! I am hoping, confidently expecting, that I will have the opportunity to boldly move into the next season of my life; outside of these prison walls. Also, that I will have the opportunity to help someone else get off the floor of despair, failure, brokenness and calamity…then walk courageously, confidently, and powerfully into their own new season, their own destiny.
By God’s grace, I have received a pardon from Him, through Christ Jesus. I pray that I will receive the opportunity for Pardon/Clemency from the President of the United States as well.
Changed.
“White Jesus” notwithstanding, change carries with it some personal responsibility, yes? Just a couple months ago, we saw how he is willing to own up to his former life as a corruptotician. From Click on Detroit
Kilpatrick was also ordered to pay $1,637,087 in restitution. He told the court in February that he doesn’t believe he should have to pay because it’s impossible to calculate the amount of money he took from taxpayers.
No comment necessary.
Other than even the folks out West aren’t writing scripts as good as this.
(13)Nuh Uh.(0)Fast Times At The Detroit Public Schools Community District
Norman Shy, the Detroit Public Schools vendor who stole $ 3 million with the capable assistance of 12 DPS principals and one DPS administrator, has begun paying his court-ordered restitution. The Detroit Free Press reported today that the Detroit Public Schools Community District has received $ 1.5 million from Mr. Shy, out of the total $ 2.7 million in restitution U.S. District Court ordered Mr. Shy to pay in September 2016.
The problem here? Mr. Shy’s scam looted the pre bailout/bankruptcy Detroit Public School District, not the new Detroit Public Schools Community District. The new Detroit Public Schools Community District was created in July 2016, before Mr. Shy’s sentencing but well after his 13 year long scam concluded.
The legacy Detroit Public School District still exists as a ward of the State of Michigan to pay off more than $ 500 million in ‘operating debts’. Debts which, in part, are directly due to Mr. Shy’s scam and dozens of other thieves. Michigan taxpayers at large are paying down those debts of the legacy DPS District, and will be paying until 2025 – if not longer.
Mr. Shy’s restitution payments should be paid to the legacy DPS District, not the new DPSC District. Its not like Michigan taxpayers owe these monies to the new DPSCD. Michigan taxpayers fronted the DPSCD $ 617 million as part of the 2016 bailout/bankruptcy, and the new, ‘debt free’ district is now being financed just as generously as every other school district in Michigan.
$ 1.5 million is real money. Restitution should be directed to those financially damaged. In this case, it is the taxpayers of Michigan – not the new Detroit Public Schools Community District – who were looted by Mr. Shy.
Anyone still wonder why Michigan residents are so ill disposed towards Detroit and its very creative government accounting practices?
(10)Nuh Uh.(0)The Draft Roger Penske campaign cannot be for real, can it
Only in Michigan could we nominate a Republican who donated to his opponent’s war chest.
It would be one thing if Roger Penske and his wife donated to Debbie Stabenow 10 years ago, had buyers remorse (who wouldn’t), and then decided to rectify by running for the US senate seat to correct it. It is quite again another to donate $30,000 aggregately, less that a year ago, and expect to be nominated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good grief.
Take off the top-hat and tuxedo and pay attention. Even rich penguins remain to this day, birds that cannot fly.
Who comes up with these crazy ideas?
(13)Nuh Uh.(1)Detroit's Decline And Bankruptcy Were Indeed Due To Its Riots - Plural!
Apologists for the 1967 Detroit rioters and the feeble responses of Mayor Cavanagh and Governor Romney to that mayhem usually start off by noting that Detroit’s population and economy peaked in the early 1950’s. The implication being that the 1967 riots were just another incident in the long running, preordained decline of Detroit. Detroit’s population did peak in the early 1950’s, but its economy continued to grow right up to the 1967 riots due to productivity increases. And Detroit’s economic decline was not preordained, it was very much the consequence of both of its two major 20th Century riots.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) also studied the aftermath of the 1960’s riots in urban America, specifically their effects upon African-American economic well being. Two key NBER Working Papers examine the effects of the 1960’s riots on African-American income, employment, and real estate holdings. Unsurprisingly, these NBER Working Papers found the effects were decisively negative. Surprisingly, these NBER Working Papers found the adverse economic effects actually accelerated over time, with the worst hits coming well into the following decade.
The deceit in the apologists’ chronology of the decline of Detroit is their failure to mention or consider the June 1943 race riot in Detroit. The 1943 Detroit riot was unequivocally a race riot and its deaths and injuries were on a scale quite comparable to the 1967 Detroit riots. During the 1943 Detroit riots, 34 people were killed and 433 were wounded. Property destruction was then estimated at $ 2 million ($28.3 million in 2017 US dollars), but this estimate is probably quite low due to lower casualty insurance coverage rates at that time. By comparison, 43 people were killed and 1,189 were wounded during the 1967 Detroit riots. Property destruction in the 1967 riots is disputed, but was somewhere around $ 50 million ($ 366.7 million in 2017 US dollars).
The different ratios of deaths and injuries to property damage in the two 20th Century Detroit riots also reflects the fundamental difference in their basic character. The 1943 riot was most certainly a race riot whose participants targeted people, but not much property. The 1967 Detroit riots were an all out economic attack on small businesses, but 1967 rioters did not target people to any particular degree.
Prior to the 1967 Detroit riots, the 1943 Detroit race riot was tied with the 1965 Watts riot for the second worst American riot death toll during the 20th Century, and probably tied with Watts for the third worst American riot death toll of all time. The 1943 Detroit race riot had only been surpassed in death toll during the 20th Century by the 1921 Tulsa race riot at the time of the 1967 Detroit riots. The 1943 Detroit race riot has not been studied by academia or covered by the media in much detail because it exposed New Deal incompetence and reflected very poorly on the American war effort underway at the time.
The 1943 race riot certainly did affect the thinking of Detroit residents and Detroit’s economic actors well into the 1950’s. Most of them lived through those 1943 race riots and were intimately familiar with the the racial tensions it revealed, even if they were not much publicized. You need to consider the causality issue underlying the decline of Detroit’s population during the 1950’s.
Were the factors usually cited for Detroit’s population decline in the 1950’s sui generis, or a response to the 1943 riots?
(13)Nuh Uh.(0)A Cure Always Requires a Correct Diagnosis
All Americans alive in 1967, of all races, called Detroit’s five day long spasm of violence, arson, and looting in July 1967 a riot. Some labeled it a race riot, others just a riot. Not for long. Within a year, government and media were plying the public with a long list of racial grievances said to be responsible and an even longer list of expensive liberal programs which promised to cure them.
The Detroit riots were deceitfully recast as an insurrection, rebellion, or an uprising to drive those liberal programs, but ultimately this revisionism just glamorized base criminality, Fifty years later, billions have been doled out in Detroit through those liberal programs and Detroit is in even worse shape by every metric.
Let’s start with some definitions from Merriam-Webster:
Note that the definitions of insurrection, rebellion, and uprising all state that these events are a defiance of established government, while the definition riot does not.
Were the events in Detroit from 23 to 27 July 1967 a defiance of established government?
(14)Nuh Uh.(0)And no. I don’t mean that thing where we exercise out "right" to set off large quantities of fireworks next month.
Last weekend, I spent some time with some friends who now live out of town.
We did the “usual touristy” things like Greektown and the Casinos.
They wanted me to go with them to the Grand Prix, but I’m more of a NASCAR Guy than IndyCar.
Afterwards, I insisted on changing things up and that we go down to Lafayette to eat.
I told them that it was part of the “Authentic Detroit” dining experience and that sort of thing.
They had never been down there and after initially scarring the hell out of them (along with equally confusing them with how the food was ordered/delivered), they settled down a bit and we started to catch up on things. They began to comment on local stuff, basically regurgitating what people like Gov. Snyder, et al, were shoveling to the rest of the country about how things have turned around since the bankruptcy.
I laughed at their comments and replied to the effect that, “Yeah! They wish!”
“Look at all of this new stuff downtown? How can you argue that things aren’t better?”, they replied.
I told them that “Yes”, the Downtown Area has improved. Large amounts of government money tends to eventually do that. “Yes” places like the Riverfront have gotten nicer.
But then I added, the same cannot be said for the rest of the city.
They didn’t believe me.
They couldn’t accept the fact that everything was as bad as I told them it was.
I told them, “Fine, want to go on a little trip?”
They were a little apprehensious to say the least, but we loaded up into their car and we went happy motoring…away from the freeways.
I took them in places where even Crowder wouldn’t dare to venture!
We went up and down places like Jefferson, and then Warren and Mack where it didn’t take that long to notice the large swaths of bombed out/burned out neighborhoods (at least I think they were neighborhoods at one time), large piles of trash and abandoned/stolen vehicles (along with boats…yes boats) strewn about, pretty much every other building covered with graffiti, I told my now visibly scared “driver” that I wanted to stop at the next party store because I wanted to get something to drink.
Yes, I did that on purpose.
So, while we parked across the street and started walking towards the party store, I got bombarded with a ton of questions (besides is this really safe) like why that particular store had a chain-link fence around the roof topped with razor wire, why there were thick metal plate doors next to the entrance and why was there a flashing green light on the sign outside of the building. When we went inside, they did a double-take at the walkway surrounding most of the perimeter of the inside of the building separated by 1-inch thick Lexan.
I casually grabbed a 2-liter of Rock N’ Rye, they didn’t get anything (I cannot imagine why) and we went back to their car. I still had more to show them.
Continuing our “tour”, they still couldn’t get over the flashing strobe light on the sign.
“Oh that? That’s Green Light.”
And here is where out story turns to next…
{More after the fold}
(7)Nuh Uh.(2)Judge Out-Of-The-Blue Change of heart raises eyebrows.
I cannot stand DDAs.
They operate surreptitiously, are usually populated with egotistical good-of-the-community jerks, and have little regard for process or the rights of taxpayers. I know, its just my opinion. I just don’t think its too much to ask for some better accountability.
One Judge pretty much agreed .. Until he didn’t. Nothing to see here:
“Exactly why Gillis changed his mind was not clear today. Paperwork filed Monday cancelling last week’s order cited “reasons state on the record” at a hearing on Friday. The hearing was about the DDA’s objection to Davis’ latest complaint. Davis said neither he nor his attorney were notified of the hearing and, therefore, didn’t know Gillis’ reasons. A receptionist for Gillis said the judge was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
Davis wasn’t even invited to a hearing about his complaint?
H/T Sue Schwartz
(7)Nuh Uh.(0)Let's see if they can last?
I’ve mentioned previously that get contacted fairly frequently asking for my input on various political things going on around the area.
This one is too good for me not to share with everyone here.
{Continued below}
(10)Nuh Uh.(1)
