VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

Children ride their bikes past a City of Stockton recreational building.

Court says city of Stockton, California may proceed with bankruptcy

• Creditors including Wells Fargo, BOA, Union Bank NA, IBM, Key Government Finance, Ambac, others object;  judge rebukes them
• Retirees still  in danger if federal law trumps state law guaranteeing pensions
• Detroit advocates of bankruptcy–beware

(VOD editor: As of April 14, 2013, VOD has corrected the original version of this post as follows:  A representative of The Bank of Stockton  contacted VOD earlir about the caption to the photo previously used at the top of the story, which showed a downtown building in Stockton displaying an ad for the Bank of Stockton. She indicated that the sub-title used for the photo when clicking on it appeared to indicate the Bank of Stockton itself was bankrupt, and she mis-stated the actual headline of the story, which remains as above. VOD responded that it would change the sub-title of the photo to clarify that it was not the Bank of Stockton that declared bankruptcy. Later, VOD received the following rather strongly, perhaps maliciously, worded email from the Bank’s attorney:

Rather than take the responsible action that I demanded, below, you reconfigured your story slightly to attempt to diminish the libelous nature and in so doing added a line, below a photograph of the advertisement for the Bank appearing on a downtown Stockton building, which now reads: “The Bank of Stockton is one of the city’s creditors.” And then you further called out the Bank by name in a list of creditors appearing below the referenced photograph. Your apparent source for the assertion that the Bank is a creditor of the City of Stockton is a document that is linked to your article. Your article references a linked document that you assert is “a creditors’ list from federal court records.” At the time I wrote my April 3 email, I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you had done adequate research to confirm the document was what you said it was and that the Bank was actually a creditor. We have since confirmed that neither is the case. The document is not an official creditors’ list as you claim, but likely is only a list of interested parties obtaining notice of the bankruptcy proceedings. In addition, the Bank is categorically not a creditor of the City. As a result, your article is false on two counts and both false claims adversely affect the Bank, particularly your falsely lumping the Bank in with the list of “capital market creditors [who] had failed to negotiate in good faith in a pre-bankruptcy mediation, as required by law, and [who were] also criticized [for] their refusal to pay part of the bill for mediation.” As a result of my April 3 demand and the exchange with Ms. Brusa, you apparently sought to temper the libelous nature of your original article by making the above-referenced modifications. The problem for your publication, however, is that in doing so you actually doubled down on the falsity of the assertions made against the Bank—assertions that—had you performed customary and appropriate research—should never have been made. You and your publication were therefore either reckless in republishing the story or are now republishing the story maliciously because the Bank pointed out the problems with your original story. Either scenario creates substantial liability for you and your publication. The Bank renews its demands for a complete retraction of the story, a cessation of use of the Bank’s advertisement in connection with the City of Stockton bankruptcy and an apology for the false assertions leveled against the Bank. You have two business days to do so. In all other respects, the Bank renews the demands and admonitions in my April 3 email. Please confirm by return email to me as soon as the required actions have been taken. Again, the Bank reserves all legal and equitable remedies to address this situation should you elect not to comply 

Mon, Apr 1 2013

By Jonathan Weber

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday approved the city of Stockton’s petition for bankruptcy in a case that sets the stage for a lengthy battle between bondholders and the California pension system.

U.S. NINTH DISTRICT BANKRUPTCY JUDGE CHRISTOPHER KLEIN

In a case being studied by other cash-strapped American cities including Detroit, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Klein’s decision was a setback for bondholders and insurers who had resisted the California city’s bankruptcy filing. Stockton is the largest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy.

The judge also signaled that the California Public Employees Retirement System’s [Calpers] position in the case was not above review. Stockton, a city of 300,000, has so far not reduced pension payments to retired city workers, although it has eliminated retiree healthcare benefits.

“This does not mean there is not potentially a serious issue involving Calpers,” Judge Klein said. “But at this point I do not know what that is.” He added that there were “very complex and difficult questions of law that I can see out there on the horizon,” relating to Calpers.

Stockton, CA city worker leaves city hall in Feb. 2013.

The decision on Stockton marks the start of a lengthy restructuring of the obligations that currently overwhelm its finances, which were crippled by the housing crisis and recession.

Investors in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market are concerned that if Stockton is able to avoid paying bondholders in full without cutting pension payments, other cities will pursue a similar strategy as they struggle to cope with budget shortfalls.

Kenneth Naehu, head of fixed income at Bel Air Investment Advisors in Los Angeles, agreed that the case could cloud the issue of where bondholders stand in relation to retirees and pension funds in a municipal bankruptcy.

STATEMENT OF STOCKTON, CA DEBT FROM 2011 CAFR

CALPERS ISSUE LOOMS; JUDGE REBUKES CREDITORS

In a lengthy preamble to his ruling, Klein delivered a stinging rebuke to the so-called capital market creditors – mainly the insurers for bondholders who own hundreds of millions of dollars of Stockton debt – who had opposed the bankruptcy filing.

He rejected the arguments of bondholders and insurers that Stockton was not truly insolvent when it sought Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection last summer and that it had improperly failed to seek relief from its pension obligations.

Klein said capital market creditors had failed to negotiate in good faith in a pre-bankruptcy mediation, as required by law, and also criticized their refusal to pay part of the bill for mediation.

Calpers is far from off the hook, but the city’s obligations to the retirement system are properly addressed as part of the effort to finalize a “plan of adjustment” for emerging from bankruptcy, the judge said.

Child defends Detroit retirees during Sept. 30, 2012 Wastewater Treatment Plant strike.

Michael Sweet, a municipal bankruptcy lawyer with Fox Rothschild who is not involved in the case, said the judge’s remarks suggested that “somewhere along the line the city will have to go to Calpers, because otherwise they will have problems with discrimination in the plan.”

A plan of adjustment, like any bankruptcy reorganization plan, cannot favor one group of creditors over another.

“You’re going to see an issue teed up that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Sweet said.

Calpers asserts that California law protects pensioners from any haircut even in bankruptcy, but that position has never been tested in court.

‘SCORCHED EARTH’ TACTICS

Bob Deis, the Stockton city manager who is largely responsible for managing the bankruptcy process, called the judge’s verdict a “vindication” of the city’s position.

Artist Mark Bradford with his mural, “Scorched Earth.”

He criticized the “scorched-earth” legal strategy of the bond creditors as a waste of time and money, and said the city had already spent $6 million to $7 million on the mediation and legal costs.

Assured Guaranty Ltd, one of the bond insurers, said in a statement that it “disagrees” with the judge’s ruling but that it looked forward to working with the city on a “consensual approach” to resolving its debts. A company spokesman also said that it had tried to negotiate with the city prior to bankruptcy, but without success.

Others opposing the city’s bankruptcy included National Public Finance Guarantee Corp, Wells Fargo Bank, the Franklin California High Yield Municipal Fund and Franklin High Yield Tax-Free Income Fund.

Municipal bankruptcy court

Throughout his two hours of comments, the judge made it clear that he thought the city had done everything it could to avoid bankruptcy. He noted that sharp cost-cutting had begun years ago, and that 77 percent of the city’s budget was devoted to already-diminished police and fire services.

Klein agreed that further cuts in public safety and other services were not options.

It was not clear on Monday if any of the capital market creditors would appeal the ruling. A spokesman for Assured Guaranty said the company wanted to see the written ruling before it determined next steps. National Public Finance Guarantee had no comment on a possible appeal.

(Reporting by Jonathan Weber; Additional reporting by Michael Connor in Miami; Editing by Chris Reese, Tiziana Barghini and Will Dunham)

Stockton, California eligible for municipal bankruptcy protection: judge

Related story on Assured Guaranty: http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/bond-insurer-may-contest-stockton-bankruptcy/

In 2010, French workers carried out a general strike and protests in the millions across the country to stop changes to their pension systems, which allowed workers to retire at 60. The government wanted to change the age to 62. The workers were victorious. Photo shows protest in Lyon.

 (VOD: The Detroit City Council, under orders from its bosses anointed by the consent agreement, approved a contract with Milliman, Inc. to review the city’s pension fund systems, with the eventual objective of a takeover. Recent federal indictments of pension fund attorneys are linked to this objective. Detroit EM Kevyn Orr will have the power to appoint new officials to achieve the pension takeover.)

More on this is coming, but meanwhile,  following is a statement from the Detroit pension systems’ actuary. For comments from pension officials which state the funds are on solid grounds, including 102 percent funding of Detroit Police and Fire, and 83 percent funding of the General system, click on http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130321/METRO/303210470. A GRS report on the pensions’ status as of June 30, 2012 is due for release soon.)

GRS Views on Recent City of Detroit Studies  

February 27, 2013 www.gabrielroeder.com  

In Detroit in 2010, city workers including police and fire held large protest against Bing’s attempt to take over their pensions systems.

Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company (GRS) is the retained actuary for both the General Retirement System of the City of Detroit and the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit. GRS is a Michigan based company with a national practice, and is a leader in Public Sector Retirement Consulting. Milliman, Inc., a Seattle based consulting firm, was called in recently to perform certain actuarial analyses of the City of Detroit’s Retirement Systems for the review team under the financial stability agreement.

GRS performs an actuarial valuation of both Systems each year. The actuarial valuations develop the liabilities and funded ratios of the plans as of the valuation date. They also develop the City’s contribution rates for the fiscal year that starts one year after the valuation date, based on established funding policies. In addition, our reports typically present information that allows the reader to understand the extent to which contribution rates may be expected to increase (or decrease) in the future and may provide recommendations on the operation of the System.

City workers protest pension cuts July 26, 2012.

An article in the February 26, 2013 Detroit Free Press “Police, fire pension costs could crush Detroit’s finances, study shows” asserts that Milliman has “audited” our 2010 valuation reports and found that “the GRS numbers … don’t hold water.” We do not have access to the alleged audit by Milliman and thus can neither confirm nor deny that the Milliman report contains that statement. However, we can confirm the following:

• The GRS numbers do hold water.

• GRS has not provided any information to Milliman in conjunction with an audit of the 2010 valuations.

• A traditional audit of an actuary’s work almost always involves an exchange of information between the retained actuary and the auditing actuary.

• Conditions are changing rapidly at the City. Any review or audit of work done in the past must take into account differences between current conditions and conditions in effect when the original work was performed. 

AFSCME protest at CAYMC.

The article goes on to state that contributions to the two Retirement Systems could rise to very high levels over the next several years, when expressed as a percentage of payroll. That is no surprise, given the shrinking covered payroll and the relatively large number of retirees. Contrary to the implications in the article, there is no inconsistency between the 2010 funded ratios calculated by GRS and potentially high future contribution requirements estimated by Milliman.

Gabriel Roeder Smith & Company stands by its work for the City of Detroit Retirement Systems. Our reports are accurate, complete, and provide policy makers with the tools they need to make informed decisions.

We are continuing to work with both Retirement Systems to provide meaningful long term solutions that all stakeholders can embrace.

Al Phillips, President of AFSCME Local 457, Detroit Health Department. Born Feb. 15, 1937, Died April 16, 1994.

If labor movement had listened then, the people would be thriving today

Pres, Al Phillips headed local union for Health Dept., now privatized

(VOD: the resolution below was brought by AFSCME Local 457 delegates to the AFSCME International Convention in 1992. It warned then that the union movement needed to take up the battle against the banks. A resolution against privatization which included the same call for a debt moratorium was passed by the AFSCME Presidents representing Detroit locals on April 15, 1994. The anniversary of Local 457 Pres. Al Phillips’ death the following day, April 16, 1994, is now approaching. It is long past time for a mass movement of working and poor people to overturn the power of the banks.)

AFSCME Local 457 President Al Phillips is shown at right with his local’s delegation to the national march in Washington against the first U.S. war against Iraq.

Council vote expected April 2 or 9; body’s last chance to stand up for Detroit, espouse Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream

Major federal lawsuit against new EM Act 436 filed March 28 as protesters march, occupy Coleman A. Young Municipal Centr.

By Diane Bukowski 

March 31, 2013

Dr. Martin Luther King leads freedom march in Detroit, 1963. It was the first time he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

DETROIT – Detroit’s City Council has one last chance to stand up for the people against the bankers’ seizure of the country’s largest and poorest Black majority city March 25. 

They blew earlier chances nearly a year ago April 4, 2012, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, with the 5-4 passage of a disastrous consent agreement. Most recently the Council failed to pursue its legal right to challenge Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s appointment of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr in court. 

Council Pres. Pro-Tem Gary Brown

Now, Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown is pushing for the Council to approve a contract with Orr’s previous employer, the Jones Day law firm, according to inside sources. He wants the Council to vote Tuesday, April 2 at its regular session, but the vote may be delayed until April 9. 

Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing tapped Jones Day, the world’s third largest law firm, to become the city’s “re-structuring counsel” under newly-minted Public Act 436.  Orr worked for the firm from 1984 until his alleged resignation to take over as EM. 

“I look forward to meeting [Orr] sometime today and talking about  . . . how do we reduce crime in the city of Detroit,” Brown told WWJ radio March 25, the day Orr took office in the Coleman A. Young Center next to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. Bing refused to fight the EM appointment. Orr’s spokeman  is William Nowling, a former campaign aide to Snyder. 

Brown did not address what may be the biggest crime in Detroit’s history.  That crime will reap huge profits for Jones Day and its client banks, which hold most of the City of Detroit’s $16.9 billion debt, a key factor cited in the takeover. 

These include UBS AG, which just paid a $1.5 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice for interest-rate rigging, Citigroup, which just settled another lawsuit brought by cities and pension funds for $730 million, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, and Muriel Siebert and Co., an affiliate of the SBS Financial Group. Their role is confirmed by debt documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request  by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, and postings on the Jones Day website. 

Debt documents are available at https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BwEVDvudxHBTX1lMcXFLdzNOSEU/edit?usp=sharing&pli=1

Most of the banks are also defendants in lawsuits world-wide brought by cities, states and investors, which claim they manipulated the “London Interbank-Offered Rate” (LIBOR), to increase their profits while defrauding public and private investors. It is estimated that $800 to $1000 TRILLION worth of securities and loans were affected. 

“A lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation of that client will be directly adverse to another client . . .” say the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct, section 1.7(a), Conflict of Interest. 

Attorney Jerome Goldberg

Attorney Jerome Goldberg of The Moratorium NOW Coalition Against Foreclosures, Evictions, and Utility Shut-offs earlier said that the role of Jones Day clients in Detroit’s economic collapse is indeed “directly adverse” to that of Detroit’s people.

“[Michigan State Treasurer Andy] Dillon is fully aware of the real basis for the city’s deficit,” Goldberg said.  “He and the city’s first financial review team concluded that without interest payments to the banks, the city would have more than enough revenue to fund its expenses. Their report showed the city owes a total debt of over $16.9 billion, with $4.9 billion in interest. The banks’ fraudulent lending procedures, including a $1.5 billion pension obligation certificates (POC) loan [by UBS AG and SBS] in 2004, forced the city to pay an additional $1 billion to hedge funds for betting the wrong on which way interest rates would go.” 

Goldberg said that money should be spent instead on the people of Detroit, including jobs, affordable housing, street lighting and other services. He called for the city to declare a moratorium on its debt payments, an action which working and poor people across the globe have demanded, protesting by the millions, as banks exact draconian austerity measures. 

Opponents including the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network filed a federal lawsuit against PA 436 March 27, which if successful would negate Orr’s appointment and that of other EM’s, almost exclusively in Michigan’s majority Black cities. The lawsuit says PA 436 is returning African-Americans in the state to virtual conditions of slavery. It cites discrimination based on race and wealth, and violations of the National Voting Rights Act and the 13^th and 14^th Amendments guaranteeing due process. (See separate article on lawsuit. Click on EM lawsuit 3 27 13 for full text.) 

Over 200 protesters then marched on the federal court building in downtown Detroit, and occupied the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center for two hours demanding to meeting with Orr. 

Protesters jam CAYMC lobby March 28, 2013.

“We are fighting for our children, we shall not be moved, just like a tree that’s standing b the water, we shall not be moved,” the occupiers sang. Sharpton promised that thousands more will descend on the city after NAN’s national conference next week. 

“There will be a threat to everyone in this nation if the emergency manager in Detroit stands,”  Sharpton said.  “If they get away with it in Detroit, they can do it all over the country.  .  .  . This is not a march, it is a walk to file a lawsuit. When we march, there will be thousands. We will engage in non-violent civil disobedience, and fight until this is overturned.  .  .” 

Protesters call Synder a dictator in Benton Harbor, during annual parade.

Meanwhile, Gov. Snyder and Wall Street ratings agencies celebrated the takeover. 

“Moody’s Rating Service today announced that it has revised the State of Michigan’s Rating Outlook for all bonds to Positive from Stable,” a March 28 release from State Treasurer Andy Dillon’s office said. “Moody’s also affirmed Michigan’s General Obligation Credit Rating of “Aa2.” 

Snyder and Dillon met with all three ratings agencies in New York the previous week, according to the release. 

Detroit EM Kevyn Orr is waiting to dine on Detroit’s assets.

“This is great news for Michigan, on the heels of our recent visit and on-going discussions with credit rating agencies,” Snyder said. “We have been optimistic that Wall Street would recognize all of the hard work we have put in, to get Michigan’s fiscal house in order.  This is yet another sign that Michigan is the comeback state.” 

The release added, “Earlier this month, Moody’s indicated that expanded oversight of Detroit’s finances by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr under Public Act 436 of 2012 would ‘help expedite the city’s progress towards financial and operational stability.’ . . . The EM’s ability to amend the current year budget…could be a first step toward imposing fiscal stability and improving the city’s illiquid cash position.”

Standard and Poor’s, which is facing a $5 billion fraud lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, chimed in earlier. 

“The appointment of an (emergency manager) allows the city to move forward in a more efficient manner, continuing to make the types of adjustments necessary to regain structural balance,” S&P credit analyst Jane Hudson Ridley said in a statement.

Standard & Poor’s, banks responsible for “predatory lending” to Detroit.. Here Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings and Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor;s (center) press UBS $1.5 billion debt on City Council Jan. 31, 2004.

Meanwhile, however, S&P is keeping Detroit’s general obligation debt at junk level, citing budget deficits, cash-flow problems, and long-term liabilities including pension and retiree health benefits. Amazingly, they also mentioned potential payments on interest rate swaps. Ironically, keeping Detroit’s ratings downgraded provides more interest for the banks on new loans.

Millions protest bank-imposed austerity measures in Spain.

Representatives of S&P and Fitch Ratings pressed for the UBS AG $1.5 billion POC loan at the City Council table in 2004, despite objections from residents, pension board and union leaders that the loan represented tremendous risk if the market “went south,” as it indeed did in 2008.

In addition to their role in representing criminal banks, Jones Day represents clients far right wing clients opposed to Voting Rights Act, contraception, and corporate regulation, and the major media, including McClatchy, which owns the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. They are one of the major law firms which represented the tobacco industry against the states in a 1998 master settlement agreement, and continues to pursue action on their behalf to diminish payments under that agreement. (For details on these issues, click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/27/detroiters-march-in-cleveland-tell-jones-day-and-banks-get-out/.)

For history of the disastrous $1.5 billion pension bond deal, written largely by this author in the pages of the Michigan Citizen, click on Pension bond stories MC.

Published on Mar 26, 2013

Overturning Emergency Manager In Detroit! – – A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod – – Overturning Emergency Manager In Detroit!

We oppose Emergency Managers because they rob us of our right to elect our own local representatives and deny democratic self-rule at the local level. We demand our elected leadership remember that they were elected by the same people who will voted out Public Act 4 on Nov. 6th, 2012. We demand that you abide by their decision. Now we’re working to “Overturn Emergency Manager In Detroit!” We ask you to

Sign our “White House Petition: At: http://wh.gov/wGJK

• End the Consent Agreement/ No Emergency Manager.
• Begin the Justice Department Intervention, and
•  Stop Voter Suppression and Constitutional Violations.
• We also ask you to join us in our 1) Our Mass demonstrations, rallies, press conferences to protest and denounce the actions of Governor Snyder and his collaborators;
•  To expose the criminal nature of the banks and the corporations who are at the root of the financial crisis in Detroit and throughout the State of Michigan;
• We must link this struggle in Detroit with the plight of other cities throughout Michigan like Benton Harbor, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, Ecorse, Muskegon. As well as dozens of other cities in the USA like California, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Rhode Island and many others facing similar crisis.

3/25/2013 – – A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of 1} From Victimization To Empowerment… www.trafford.com/07-0913  eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience! {Photo Book}
YouTube: I have over 390 Video’s, over 133,300 hits averaging 4,700 a month on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

Even Detroit children marched against Jones Day in Cleveland March 25, 2013.

Jones Day is city’s “restructuring counsel” under EM Kevyn Orr 

Clients include:

• Banks who hold most of city’s debt
• Major media, including McClatchy, which owns News and Freep
• Far right-wingers opposed to Voting Rights Act, contraception and abortion, corporate regulation
• The tobacco industry  

By Diane Bukowski 

CLEVELAND – A busload of Detroiters protested the emergency manager takeover of their city outside the Cleveland, Ohio offices of Jones Day March 25, the first day of for Jones Day attorney Kevyn Orr’s tenancy as Detroit EM.  The Jones Day law firm is the “restructuring consultant” for Detroit. 

Ranging from young children to seniors with walkers, marchers picketed for two hours in snow and cold, chanting, “Jones Day has got to go,” “Kevyn Orr, get out the door,” and “Detroit will live and not die.” 

Marchers challenge third largest law firm in the world.

Jones Day staff  brought coffee and tea to the picket line, which the protesters would not touch, but executives refused to answer questions from the media. 

Jones Day execs watch protest; Jones Day is not known for “diversity,” although Detroit EM Kevyn Orr headed their diversity recruitment division.

Jones Day is the third largest law firm in the world, with 2,407 attorneys and gross revenues of $1.6 billion in 2012. It was founded in Cleveland and is currently managed by Stephen Brogan out of its Washington office. It has 37 offices across the globe, in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, England, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, both Chinas, Japan, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (where it has three).

Former Detroit school board member Marie Thornton was among the protesters. 

“Here we are in Cleveland, walking in front of Jones Day with seniors and babies,” Thornton said. “They had the nerve to bring hot coffee to us, while taking complete control of our city. This is a complete travesty.’ 

Senior marches with walker, determined to save Detroit from clutches of Jones Day.

Rev. Charles Williams, leader of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network (NAN), said “We believe Jones Day and Kevyn Orr’s real goal is to protect the banks, in addition to disenfranchising our people. We are standing up and calling on other folks across the country to join us as we protest at Jones Day locations. This is just the beginning. This is a protracted struggle that will continue until we get our vote back. We fought too hard and marched too long. Too many of us were hit by water hoses, bit by dogs, and lynched; too much of our blood has been shed.” 

Pastors Charles Williams II of NAN and Cleveland pastor Aaron Ellis, who promised to bring hundreds more to next protest.

Jones Day represents most of the global banks which hold the City of  Detroit’s total debt of over $12.9 billion, including UBS AG, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch,  and Muriel Siebert and Co., an affiliate of the SBS Financial Group. (See   )

“I am very very upset that the EM going to strip the history of Detroit away from our children’s children,” Phyllis McMillon, President of AFSCME Local 542 which represents Recreation Department workers, said during the protest. “The citizens of Detroit will not have access to the taxes they pay in their own city. They are planning to take away Belle Isle like they took away Jean Klock Park in Benton Harbor.  Roger Penske, who wants Belle Isle, and others said they are going to donate vehicles to the city, but contractors will be driving them, while city workers are laid off.”

Marchers chanted, “Detroit will live and not die.”

Wonder why Detroit media including the Detroit News and Free Press strongly favor the installation of Orr and Jones Day and the elimination of Detroiters’ right to self-determination? 

Jones Day represents some of the biggest media and media-related companies in the country, including the McClatchy Company (formerly Knight-Ridder), which owns the News and Freep. Others include DirecTV, GE, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Liberty Media Group, Time Warner, the Tribune Co. and the Washington Post Co. 

Jones Day security officer at left threatened to have this reporter arrested when she tried to go inside to talk to Jones Day spokesperson.

The law firm is tied to ultraconservative organizations including the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute (co-founded by Charles Koch of the infamous Koch Brothers), the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Center for  Competitive Enterprise. It produced U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, appointed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Many Jones Day clients oppose provisions of the National Voting Rights Act, patients’ rights to contraceptive care and abortion at federally- funded religious hospitals, regulation of  corporate executives under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and anti-trust laws.

It is notorious for representing the tobacco industry for decades in state and national litigation that continues to the present.

It was cold! Marie Thornton, in middle, bundled up in blanket.

Most recently, Jones Day partner Michael Carvin spoke at a Heritage Foundation briefing on the “(Un)Constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” in Washington, D.C, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Shelby County v. Holder. 

Section 5, which Shelby County, Alabama is trying to overturn, requires that certain States and localities, located primarily in the South and Southwest, obtain federal preclearance for all voting changes before they may be implemented. To obtain preclearance, a jurisdiction must demonstrate that the change neither has a discriminatory purpose nor a discriminatory effect. 

Snyder comes to Clieveland from Berlin, Hitler’s home.

White voters are “wide open to electing black Democrats … as much as white Democrats,” Carvin told the audience, according to a Feb. 24 article in the Roll Call newspaper.

Jones Day, represented the National Federation of Independent Business which along with dozens of other groups unsuccessfully challenged “ObamaCare” before the  U.S. Supreme Court.

In league with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, it zeroed in on the contraception mandate in the health care reform law.

Cleveland even has a monument to Detroit’s City Council, a giant rubber stamp (lol).

“Forty Catholic agencies and institutions across the country launched a veritable legal holy war against the Obama administration, filing coordinated lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services over the proposed contraception mandate in the new health care reform law,” Mother Jones magazine reported in Feb. 2012,  

“The effort is being spearheaded by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which has been clashing with the Obama administration for months over the mandate and other White House decisions that the bishops view as anti-Catholic. The church certainly brings a lot of money and high-powered legal fire to the fight—the lawsuits were filed by the Jones Day law firm, where Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once worked.” 

Edward Moore, at front, said, “The federal and county governments are in deficits and they don’t have EM’s. I’ll be damned if Detroit will have one.”

In 2008, Jones Day represented the Free Enterprise Fund in a challenge to provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Sarbanes-Oxley is a federal law that sets stricter standards for U.S. corporations and accounting firms. It requires top management to individually certify the accuracy of financial information and increases the severity of penalties for fraudulent activities. The bill was enacted in response to major corporate and accounting scandals including Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom among others.

In June 2010, the USSC held in a 5-4 vote that restrictions on removal of members of the  Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which supervises Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, were unconstitutional. The act had limited the power of the U.S. President to remove the principal officer of the PCAOB.

Marchers snubbed Jones Day coffee tray.

Most notoriously, Jones Day represented R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris, two of four defendants, against lawsuits from 46 state attorney generals, which resulted in the 1998 “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.” That agreement provided $206 billion over 25 years in compensation to the states for Medicaid-related health care costs resulting from tobacco smoking.

Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, as it was then known, authored a 460-page document setting forth common arguments against the tobacco companies, and then refuting them.

To this day, Jones Day continues to defend tobacco companies against ongoing litigation, arguing meanwhile for changes in the MSA that would benefit the companies.

Jones Day Cleveland HQ glowers over the city.

>

President Hugo Chávez, A Special Tribute! – – A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod *

Published on Mar 7, 2013

Long live President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela!

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías  (28 July 1954 — 5 March 2013) was the President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until his death.

Following his own political ideology of Bolivarianism and “socialism of the 21st century,” he focused on implementing socialist reforms in the country as a part of a social project known as the Bolivarian Revolution, which has seen the implementation of a new constitution, participatory democratic councils, the nationalization of several key industries, increased government funding of health care and education, and significant reductions in poverty, according to government figures. Under Chavez, Venezuelans’ quality of life improved according to a UN Index, and the poverty rate fell from 48.6 percent in 2002 to 29.5 percent in 2011, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America

Statement from the Black Left Unity, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the New Afrikan People’s Organization on the Passing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias

Latin American socialist leaders (l to r) Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Like many around the world, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Black Left Unity and New Afrikan People’s Organization mourn the tragic loss of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. In an age defined by imperialist globalization, neo-liberal regression, and ecological collapse, revolutionary leadership has been at a premium. President Chavez stood as a defiant, yet visionary tower of revolutionary leadership in this challenging era. His courage, passion, and vision gave expression to the social movements of Venezuela within the vehicle of the Bolivarian national-state, and inspired millions throughout Latin America and the world to re-envision socialism and the liberation of humanity.

In the challenging days ahead President Chavez’s leadership and contributions will sorely be missed. Even now, the enemies of the Bolivarian revolution, both foreign and domestic, are mustering their forces in the effort to overturn the gains of the revolution. Progressive forces throughout the world must remain vigilant over the next days, months, and years to ensure that imperialism does not strangle the Bolivarian revolution and regain a foothold in Venezuela. We must stand at the ready and be prepared to fight against the aggressions of the US government, NATO, and local and regional reactionary forces.
However, despite the challenges being directed at the Bolivarian revolution by the enemies of humanity, we rest assured knowing that the legacy of President Chavez will endure as his fighting spirit was part and parcel of the enduring will of the Venezuelan people and their ongoing quest for social revolution and human development that cannot and will not be extinguished.

The Bolivarian revolution will continue to advance, as the Venezuelan masses will continue to march forward in the memory of President Hugo Chavez.

Long Live Hugo Chavez! – Long Live the Bolivarian revolution! – In Unity, Struggle, and Love. Black Left Unity, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, The New Afrikan People’s Organization. Thursday, March 7, 2013 – –

A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of 1} From Victimization To Empowerment…www.trafford.com/07-0913  eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience! {Photo Book}

YouTube: I have over 380 Video’s, over 129,100 hits averaging 4,000 a month on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

Detroit and DeKalb County Schools face takeovers by vampire capitalists.

Disaster capitalism is the manufacture of phony “crises” to divert government revenue directly to banksters and sell government assets off to privatizing looters. City government in Detroit, and the school system in suburban Atlanta’s Dekalb County, population 700,000 each have been nullified, while black political elites in both these majority African American constituencies are impotent or complicit.

By Glen Ford, BAR Managing Editor

March 20, 2013

What do Detroit MI and Dekalb County GA in suburban Atlanta have in common? Each has about 700,000 people, and both are majority black, Dekalb at 55%, and Detroit over 80%. Both elect local officials to manage local affairs, like city government in Detroit, and the school system in Dekalb County GA. In both cases, phony fiscal and educational crises have been manufactured in accordance with state law to allow state governors to sideline or fire outright local elected officials — City Hall in Detroit, and the elected school board in Dekalb GA, to impose programs of vicious fiscal austerity and privatization.

Dems blind Blacks.

The crises exist because corporate media, and our bipartisan political elites, including the black political class, tell us they do. And although the laws in Michigan and Georgia which enable governors to sweep aside elected officials in these “crises” were passed by Republican legislators and the triggers are being pulled by Republican governors, the virtually all-Democrat black political class has rallied no resistance, its pundits and intellectuals have proposed no alternatives. At most, some like MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry have offered the standard neoliberal justifications for austerity and privatization as if they were explaining some impersonal, automatic phenomenon like gravity — “there’s no money…. budgets have to be balanced” and invite us to fruitlessly wonder whether the whole thing was “racist” or not. Really, who cares?

In the first place, the “crises” are fabrications of corporate media, and the wealthy banksters, bondholders and privatizers whose “solutions” are inevitably pushed upon us. In Detroit, bondholders and banksters declared they feared the city would miss or default on the interest payments for previous loans, and that was just about all the governor needed to sweep aside Detroit City Hall and appoint what amounted to a dictator over every aspect of local government.

Pres. Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan favor charter schools.

In Georgia, the private organization which accredits public school systems is a captive of the US Chamber of Commerce and right wing pro-charter and privatization foundations, so it threatened to revoke the accreditation of a county school system serving 100,000 children based upon spurious, insubstantial, and in some cases anonymous charges against elected school board members, so the governor could fire and replace them with his own appointees. In both locations, the gubernatorial appointees will impose massive job, wage and service cuts, and are expected to privatize everything that’s not nailed down.

This is the hollow soul of vampire capitalism — the conversion of local government from an engine which collects local tax revenue, user fees and dollars from state and federal levels to pay living wages, health care and pensions to its service-providing employees, into an engine that diverts tax revenue straight into the pockets of banksters for debt repayment, and sells off public assets like city and school district real estate for a song to well-connected looters and privatizers. On the economic level bloodsucking fiscal austerity is just about as rational a the brain deciding to strip mine the liver and kidneys for minerals.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. organized mass protests to win victories for the Black community.

The black political class of politicians, preachers and business people from whom the ranks of establishment black leaders are drawn doesn’t just lack a vision of how to do things better. They lack the soul that believes a better world, a more just society, with high quality education for everybody’s children, jobs at living wages, decent housing, a clean environment, justice and an end to war are even possible. Our black political class has been entirely captured. They are held hostage by their own perks and job prospects. While local governments in the heavily black constituencies that made their rise to prominence possible are being nullified by “crisis” and “emergency management” laws, they toast and roast and coast on the victories of the sixties, instead of leading campaigns of mass action and defiance that might enable African Americans and all Americans to dream a new world and begin to build it. All that our black misleadership class knows how to do any more is get paid.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the GA Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/vampire-capitalism-comes-detroit-michigan-and-dekalb-county-georgia-where-black-political-cl

“Detroit and the people of Cyprus share the same enemy. The Lords of Capital, who are preparing to snatch chunks of cash straight out of ordinary people’s accounts in Cyprus, to pay for a bank bailout, are the same class that has “devalued the franchise of the 49 percent of Michigan’s Black population that live in municipalities and school districts under the thumb of outside financial managers.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

From Nicosia, Cyprus, to Detroit, Michigan, the global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society, stripping away public and individual assets in a vain attempt to fend off its own, inevitable collapse. The bankers’ “troika” that effectively rules Europe prepares to reach into the individual accounts of ordinary depositors on the island nation of Cyprus to fund the bailout of their local banking brethren. Across the Atlantic, a corporate henchman makes arrangements to seize the assets and abolish the political rights of a Black metropolis. The local colorations may vary, but the crisis is the same: massed capital is devouring its social and natural environment.

Either we liquidate the banksters, or Wall Street will liquidate us.

The proposed seizure of a big chunk of every ordinary Cypriot depositors’ accounts, in the guise of a one-time “tax,” was shocking even by the standards of the Euro Zone’s overlords: the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. The original diktat to finance new lines of credit for Cyprus’s over-extended banks called for snatching 6.75 percent of the cash of customers with balances below 100,000 euros ($129,500), and 9.9 percent above that threshold.

When the public went berserk, it was proposed that depositors with 20,000 euros or less be spared – but Cypriot lawmakers balked. The banks are now closed, to prevent people from withdrawing their money. But Europe’s ruling triumvirate at the bankers’ lair in Brussels continues to demand that the public-at-large pay to keep the global criminal financial enterprise humming, or be starved out. “In the absence of this measure, Cyprus would have faced scenarios that would have left deposit-holders significantly worse off,” they said – disaster banksterism.

“Orr’s firm’s clients have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit.”

Detroiters blockade freeway traffice to protest EM.

A rapscallion Black lawyer for the notorious corporate law firm Jones Day delivered the bankers’ ultimatum to Detroit. Emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr, anointed by Michigan’s Republican governor, is a bankruptcy specialist whose mission is to liquidate the assets of the 82 percent Black city, especially the revenue-producing Water and Sewerage Department.

Orr’s firm’s clients – which, according to their website, include “more than half of the Fortune 500 companies” – have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit. Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the local NAACP, says Wells Fargo has “done more foreclosures in Detroit and the state of Michigan than any other firm,” and is Detroit’s number one property tax scofflaw. Jones Day also represents Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and CitiGroup.

Kevyn Orr of Jones Day. The firm has been tapped to be Detroit’s re-structuring counsel, although it represemts the majority of the banks holding Detroit’s debt

“These are firms that not only got billions in TARP bailouts, but they’re also the same ones that defrauded people into signing these predatory leases which cause the crash of the housing market,” said Hollowell. “Detroit has been hit harder than anyplace in the country on that score” – hugely aggravating the city’s money problems. Financial manager Kevyn Orr’s job is to extract more booty from Detroit for the bankers’ vaults.

To facilitate the theft of the city’s property, its citizens must first be stripped of their political and civil rights, through the neutering of their elected officials. Orr looks forward to the project. “While I understand there’s a lot of concern and emotion behind the concept that I’m depriving people of certain rights,” he said, “actually it’s very consistent with both the history of this country and specifically in this state.” What he’s about to do “is democracy in action.”

“Financial manager Kevyn Orr’s job is to extract more booty from Detroit for the bankers’ vaults.”

MLK Day March in Detroit, 2011

This corporate concept of democracy has already devalued the franchise of the 49 percent of Michigan’s Black population that live in municipalities and school districts under the thumb of outside financial managers, a violation of both the Voting Rights Act and the one man-one vote rule embodied in the 14^th Amendment, says the NAACP’s Hollowell.

Black Baptist pastors and the AFSCME and UAW unions will join the NAACP’s planned legal action against the “hostile takeover” of Detroit – which is fine, as a civil rights response. But this is a much bigger battle.

Detroit and the people of Cyprus share the same enemy, a class that is beyond the reach of simple civil rights suits. The Lords of Capital on Wall Street and the City of London and the Federal Reserve in Washington and in the “troika” at Brussels confront their own existential crisis, which compels them to liquidate the public sector so that it can eventually be transferred to their own balance sheets.

There are many ways to accomplish this, through privatization of existing public institutions, or by simply blowing a hole in public services and allowing privateers to fill the void, subsidized by public funds. However, nothing can save the banksters from inevitable, and increasingly imminent, collapse. Ever-increasing profit margins must be achieved, somehow, or the system implodes. Hundreds of trillions of notional dollars in derivatives must be serviced and fed by a class that makes nothing and can only survive by chicanery and coercion by governments under their control.

In Cyprus, they are prepared to brazenly snatch euros directly from working and retired people’s accounts to fund a bank bailout, without even bothering to construct a convoluted pathway from the victims’ accounts to their own. They have reached the point of outright confiscation, and will not stop until they have stripped society of the potential to save itself from the ruins.

We have no choice but to confiscate them – to destroy them utterly as a class.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .

 http://blackagendareport.com/content/detroit-cyprus-banksters-search-prey

Glen Ford’s blog