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

Revelations called ‘disgusting,’ but not surprising

By Todd A. Heywood | 08.15.11 | 10:05 am

Michigan leaders in the fight against the foreclosure crisis reacted strongly Sunday to revelations that mortgage giant Fannie Mae appears to have been pushing banks to foreclose on homeowners rather than continue negotiating loan modifications.

March on Lansing against foreclosures in 2009

The story broke in the Detroit Free Press, which reported it had been given some 2,300 internal records and memos from Fannie Mae. Those documents included indications that lenders should proceed to foreclosure sales rather than allow any time for modifications, and memos which indicate the company was threatening to charge a penalty to lenders who allowed foreclosures to wait too long before they were executed.

Particularly troubling was the fact that these memos came at the same time that Fannie Mae officials were testifying before Congress that they were doing everything in their power to prevent foreclosures.

Fannie Mae offices

“I am thoroughly disgusted by the actions of Fannie Mae,” said Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, who is currently suing Fannie Mae and other lenders arguing that they failed to pay Ingham county millions of dollars in title transfer taxes. “What these internal documents show is that while Fannie Mae was being bailed out by taxpayers they were systematically pushing for citizens to be foreclosed. The reason for this is even worse. Right now we as taxpayers pick up the cost of every foreclosure, because we pay Fannie Mae’s loss in the foreclosure process. In other words they actually get paid more for a foreclosure than for a reasonable modification.”

Neeta Delaney, co-director of the Michigan Foreclosure Task Force, had a slightly more muted response.

“We see this on a daily basis. It is what we have been characterizing as the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing,” she said. Her coalition represents nearly 200 groups with a stake in ending the foreclosure crisis and is working to push new foreclosure related legislation through the legislature. “It’s not new news (foreclosures during modification negotiations). But the documents are new news. These documents are implying a policy behind this. It’s not just the banks being overwhelmed.”

Steve Dibert, a mortgage fraud investigator who owns the company MFI-Miami, said there was little surprise in the new revelations.

March on Chase Bank during U.S. Social Forum in Detroit June, 2010

“Like everything else that has come out of Washington since the crash, this double talk is nothing new from Fannie Mae,” Dibert said. “They’ve been doing it for years. Mortgage servicers and banks have also been doing this for years. Contrary to what was pitched to Congress and the American people, HAMP was not designed to help homeowners. It was done to essentially take the 5 million plus mortgages that were slated to default in April of 2009 and spread them over a two to three year period. The banks feared that had this number of mortgages gone into default all at once it would have collapsed the US banking system.”

The documents also may impact all foreclosures. Dibert notes that those documents appear to indicate an ownership of the mortgages.

“If Fannie Mae is claiming ownership of these mortgage at the time of the foreclosure then why is ownership being assigned to the the servicer (usually through MERS) prior to the sheriff’s sale?” Dibert said. “Under Michigan law, if the servicer forecloses they must disclose who the owner of the note is.”
The result of this, Dibert has noted in the past, could be the elimination of thousands of foreclosures because the law was not followed properly.

While Hertel would not discuss particulars in how these new documents and revelations might impact his ongoing lawsuit against the mortgage giant.
“It shows a direct willingness of Fannie Mae to lie to Congress and the American people,” Hertel said.

 “It also shows the incestuous relationship that Fannie Mae has with the major national banks. Finally, Fannie Mae claims tax exemptions saying they are part of the federal government. I am pretty sure this shows that Fannie Mae’s interest is in profits and not the public good or the goals of the federal government. This is further proven by their CEO’s almost $5 million dollar salary.”

Ultimately, however the disclosures shake out, Delaney says she knows who will lose.

“The upshot,” she said, “is that, no matter what, the homeowners lose.”

VOD ED: Attorney Vanessa Fluker, and the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs, were the first to expose the role played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the devastation wrought on U.S. cities by the mortgage companies and the banks. Fluker was also first to challenge and win a case finding that MERS has no authority to foreclose on homeowners. For more on the Coalition, located here in Michigan, go to http:// www.moratorium-mi.org/  and http://www.mecawi.org/.

Banner flown over Detroit by Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee May 16, 2011, one-year anniversary of her death

Re http://www.detnews.com/article/20110815/METRO01/108150321/1409/Detroit-seeks-gag-order-in-suit-over-Aiyana’s-death   

Protest against Detroit police murder of Aiyana Stanley Jones, held in downtown Detroit June 26, 2010

Detroit, August 15, 2011  –

“The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) in response to the City of Detroit’s request for a gag order in the civil lawsuit against the City of Detroit vehemently objects to this request on the grounds that the Detroit Police Department needs to provide transparency into what actually happened when Aiyana was killed by one of its officers, and so that Detroit citizens can get some relief in this case as it deals with the other horrific and mounting crimes around the city,” says JAJC Chief, Roland Lawrence.  

“Something is a foul with the Detroit Police Department.  As such, the family of Aiyana Jones, and the citizens of Detroit have been tortured enough, and need some answers.  Any reasonable person will conclude that the Detroit Police and the Mayor Bing and others are hiding something; and that “something” does not smell good.  Both the criminal and civil cases must move quickly to the center stage without further delay.” 

The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) was formed to exact justice for Aiyana Jones and her family as a result of the Detroit Police Department and other entities botched raid of her home which resulted in her death. 

Contact:  

Roland Lawrence (313) 989-8850 justice4aiyana@hotmail.com

VOD EDITOR: The court hearing on the requested gag order in Aiyana’s case will be held Friday Aug. 26 in front of Judge Daphne Means Curtis in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Now is the time for the people of Detroit to PACK THE COURT to demand an end to this travesty. Not only is the City stonewalling, the producers of “48 Hours” have refused to provide their videotapes of the police assault on Aiyana’s home, including the SRT team throwing a stun grenade through her living room window, and officer James Weekley shooting her in the head on entry into the home. This is a conspiracy of government and corporatocracy. Aiyana today, YOUR child next! Full story coming this week in Voice of Detroit.

Comment on above videotape, posted one month ago:

FUCK THE DETROIT POLICE THEY SHOOT AT ANY ONE I CANT TELL YALL HOW MANY TIMES THEY HAVE PUT A GUN TO HEAD AND CALLED ME WORTHLESS SHIT FUCK THE POLICE STRAIGHT UP RIP AIYANA JONES HOPE YOU WITH THE ANGELS NOW
187rougestatius

Mark Duggan, father of four, murdered by London police in Tottenham, leading to ongoing rebellions across England

Oppose state repression of British youth

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (UK)
11 August 2011

The elemental eruption of social anger that has swept London and other British cities in recent days has exposed the entrenched poverty, discrimination and police brutality faced daily by many working class youth.

The response of the entire political establishment and the media is to exclude any discussion of these conditions. In unison they insist that the riots and the instances of looting that have taken place are solely the consequence of a large “criminal underclass” of young people that “infests” the inner-cities and must be dealt with ruthlessly.

Carpetright shop in flames, Tottenham London

This is a slander against the youth. Those self-appointed custodians of morality who promote it–hypocrites of the first order!–fail to consider the implications of their own lies. What judgement is to be made of a social system that produces an entire generation of criminals?

The fact is that for 35 years the ruling elite and their political representatives have carried out a war against society. Ever y aspect of life has been subordinated to the interests of a parasitic financial elite that has looted public assets without restraint, leaving record levels of inequality and deprivation in their wake.

Uprising in Liverpool

The immense social distress that presently prevails is set to worsen dramatically. It is no coincidence that the backdrop to the youth revolts is a new meltdown of the world’s stock markets. An orgy of speculation and greed on the part of a small, super-rich elite has produced an economic catastrophe.

In Britain, as elsewhere, the response of the ruling elite to the breakdown of capitalism is the imposition of austerity measures that will further impoverish tens of millions of people. This class war policy underlies the vicious response of the political establishment and the media to the disturbances. Their aim is to whip up the most reactionary elements so as to justify mass state repression and even more draconian attacks on social conditions.

London police bring armoured trucks out

That is why Prime Minister David Cameron is invoking the “rule of law” to sanction the use of water cannons and plastic bullets. It is the same reason that Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party while in government helped create the appalling social conditions against which young people are rebelling, demands the “strongest possible police response.”

Their denunciations of the “criminality” and “immorality” of the young are staggering in their cynicism and hypocrisy.

Revolt in Croydon neighborhood of London

They are made by the representatives of a bourgeoisie that is waging criminal wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya in which innocent civilians are killed daily. The very politicians–beginning with Cameron–who wax eloquent about morality have been exposed as the political bagmen of the multi-billionaire arch-reactionary Rupert Murdoch, whose News of the World was involved in criminality on an industrial scale, including the systematic bribery of the Metropolitan Police, the very force that is now being let loose on the streets of London to attack working class youth with impunity.

Rupert Murdoch

No action has been taken against Murdoch or any of his executives and bribed police officers–nor is any demanded. Murdoch and his son James are treated with grovelling deference by the politicians of all official parties as well as the media.

In all the condemnation of “lawlessness,” virtually no mention is made of Mark Duggan, the 29-year-old father of four whose fatal shooting by police last Thursday triggered the riots. There are no calls to bring to justice the police officer who murdered him.

Conservative Party leader David Cameron on billbaord in Liverpoor

Nor has a word of criticism been made of the mass arrests taking place across the country. Almost 2,000 people have been rounded up so far in the course of mass police sweeps in which young protesters have been indiscriminately attacked and seized. Courts are presently sitting through the night to process people charged with petty crimes, many of whom have bee n refused bail.

There is more than a whiff of fascism in the repeated appeals to “property owners” and “respectable citizens” to “take back the streets” from those described as “feral rats.” Writing in the Daily Mail, Max Hastings described the youth involved in the disturbances as “wild beasts” who “respond only to instinctive animal impulses.” In the early 19th century, Hastings continued, with undisguised approval, “spasmodic outbreaks of violence” by the “underclass” were dealt with “by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.”

In contrast, he complained bitterly, “Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.”

British leaders calling for reinstatement of death penalty

Such racist and fascistic rants are legitimized and disseminated by the “respectable” bourgeois press, while right-wing forces such as “libertarian” Paul Staines circulate electronic petitions to demand the restoration of the death penalty.

The re-called parliament is set to discuss stripping all unemployed people involved in the riots of their welfare entitlements, while the riots are being used to test out domestic counterinsurgency measures in preparation for the far broader struggles of the working class that are foreshadowed by these events.

I will burn this M-F down (Killer Mike): House of Reeves Furniture on fire in London

The youth revolts have above all brought into the open the contemptible and reactionary character of those who style themselves as “liberals” and even “lefts.” For years these privileged middle-class layers have accommodated themselves to rising social inequality. Utterly indifferent to the impoverishment of broad layers of the population, their “progressive” credentials are based entirely on their championing of lifestyle politics and various forms of petty bourgeois identity politics.

Their reaction to the inner-city rebellions is one of intense fear and loathing. Labour’s Ken Livingstone–once known as “Red Ken”–was amongst the first to call for the deployment of water cannons, while the black and Asian Labour MP’s and assorted “community leaders” who have utilized racial politics to bolster their careers and bank balances are the most vociferous in insisting that poverty is “no excuse” for rioting and that the police must respond with force.

Ian Dunt, editor of politics.co.uk, articulated the outlook of such layers most explicitly. In the past, he wrote, “those of us who consider ourselves civil liberties advocates” had been wary of calls for law and order by “authoritarians.” But not anymore. “Let’s be clear, we have seen a glimpse of the breakdown of society,” he continued. We “must show we understand the need for tougher sanctions when they are genuinely needed to protect the public, or else we’re just fanatics with no grasp of reality.”

Such statements speak to the political tragedy of the youth. Their entirely ju stified indignation has been unable to find any organized, progressive expression because of the utter rottenness and bankruptcy of the Labour Party and the various “left” tendencies. There is nothing fundamentally that separates these organisations from the Conservative Party and the right wing more generally. They simply speak for different sections of the same privileged elite.

As for the trade unions, their systematic efforts to sabotage and strangle any opposition to the government and its austerity measures have played a central role in isolating the youth, leaving them feeling frustrated and helpless.

The Socialist Equality Party unequivocally condemns the police assault that has been unleashed against young people and demands the immediate withdrawal of riot police from the areas they now occupy. Those held on petty charges must be released immediately without any further repercussions.

To the youth we say: all the resources you need to lead the fulfilling and productive lives to which you are entitled–well-paid jobs, free education, access to culture, sport and leisure and other essential provisions–can be attained, but only by challenging the monopoly exercised over society by the super-rich and their three political parties–Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat.

Your allies in this struggle are the working people in Britain and internationally. The working class–your class–is the only social force capable of overthrowing the capitalist system and reorganising economic life on the basis of social need, not private profit.

To workers and those genuinely concerned with democratic rights and the fight for social equality we say: come to the defence of the youth. Show them the way out of the nightmarish future of poverty, unemployment and war which capitalism offers.

From Color of Change

(VOD ed.: These cases are highly reminiscent of young Davontae Sanford’s case in Detroit. Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/01/15/free-davontae-sanford/ to read this paper’s story on Davontae, which was also published in The Final Call. Also put his name in VOD search engine for updates.)

Recent DNA testing has proven the innocence of 10 Black men who were only children when they were forced by Illinois police to confess to murders they didn’t commit.

Some of them have been imprisoned for nearly 20 years, but despite the overwhelming evidence, which has even linked the crimes to the real killers, the state of Illinois refuses to recognize their innocence.

If enough of us speak out, we can expose these injustices and force the state of Illinois to do right by these men. Please join us in demanding that State Attorney Anita Alvarez immediately agree to overturn their convictions. It takes just a moment:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Cook_County/

Robert Taylor, Dixmoore Five at 15

The Dixmoor Five 

In the first case, which occurred in October 1992, five Black teenagers, later called the Dixmoor Five, were arrested in Cook County, IL for the sexual assault and murder of 14-year-old Cateresa Matthews. Three of the five boys confessed to the crime in exchange for lighter sentences and testified against the others. They’ve since recanted their testimony, with one man claiming that he was tricked into signing a confession by local police.¹

Robert Taylor still in prison, age 34

A few months ago, DNA samples taken from the victim were tested using modern techniques. The DNA didn’t belong to any of the men accused of her rape and murder — instead it was linked to a convicted rapist and armed robber who was 32 years old at the time.²

In the face of this overwhelming evidence, the State’s Attorney’s office stubbornly downplayed the significance of the DNA evidence and opposed the release of the men.

Terrill Swift, Englewood Five, then

The Englewood Five

Two-and-a-half years later, five more Black Cook County teenagers, known as the Englewood Five, were taken into custody for the sexual assault and murder of a 30-year-old woman named Nina Glover. In this case, five juvenile confessions resulted in the convictions of four teenagers (aged 14-18 at the time). While one teenager wasn’t convicted, the other four received lengthy prison sentences. Recently, DNA extracted from the victim was matched to a now deceased serial rapist and murderer — a man who has a history of preying on women and strangling them.³

Terrill Swift in prison now

The State has argued that any DNA match in this case would be inconclusive due to the lifestyle of the victim, who was known to engage in prostitution. However, the semen found in the strangled body of Ms. Glover is from a man that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office has long believed was responsible for two strangulation-murders of prostitutes and violent assaults of at least five others.⁴

The Common Thread

The thread that connects both these cases? The teenagers were incarcerated as a result of confessions we now know were forced by police. Eight of the 10 teenagers confessed to police during intense and coercive interrogations, and six of the now grown men are still in custody.

Taminko Sanford, center, mother of Davontae Sanford, with his family outside court July 29, 2010

Coerced confessions play a part in almost a quarter of all wrongful convictions nationwide.⁵ Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that teenagers are particularly susceptible to falsely incriminating themselves during questioning from police and should not be subjected to harsh interrogation tactics.⁶

Coercive interrogation practices must come to an end. Ensuring the release of these men wouldn’t just help correct a gross injustice — it would send a message to law enforcement that they can’t get away with forcing teenagers to confess to crimes they didn’t commit, and that this practice compromises the entire public’s safety.

Please join us in demanding that Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez agree to vacate the convictions of these young Black men, and when you do, ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Cook_County/

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
   August 9th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU–your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

http://www.colorofchange.org/donate

References:

1. “DNA evidence links man to 1991 murder, may clear 5 convicted in case,” Chicago Tibune, 04-15-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/929?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=7

2. “State’s response to petition for relief from judgement,” Circuit Court of Cook County, 04-29-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/931?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=9

3. “Man convicted in 1994 rape, murder pins hopes on advanced DNA test,” Chicago Tribune, 03-25-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/930?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=11

4. “State’s motion to dismiss request for post-conviction DNA testing,” Circuit Court of Cook County, 01-19-2011
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/932?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=13

5. “Understand the Causes,” Innocence Project
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/934?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=15

6. “Supreme Court case J.D.B. v. North Carolina,” Supreme Court opinion, October, 2010
“http://act.colorofchange.org/go/928?akid=2097.871662.fahBAP&t=17

Also click on http://cwcy.org/ for Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth (Northwestern University) report on these cases and link to national Rutgers Law Review study.

FROM MOVEON.ORG 

Fed up with Washington? Frustrated by the way tea party Republicans successfully held the country hostage, to protect the rich at the expense of everyone else?

Well, you’re not alone. Dissatisfaction with Congress is at a historic peak.¹ But isolated anger isn’t going to solve anything. What we need are solutions and united action. What we need are Jobs, not Cuts.

March for Peace, Freedom and Justice in downtown Detroit Aug. 28, 2010

And while Washington was concocting a debt deal that sold the people out, 130,000 everyday Americans considered 25,000 solutions to create A Contract for the American Dream.

It’s a Contract to create jobs, invest in America, and rebuild the American Dream for all. And as a first step, if we can get at least 100,000 citizen signers right away, we’ll put the Contract in a full page ad in The New York Times, so America can see the solutions to our broken politics and struggling economy writ large.

Below are the main points of the Contract. Be among the first of many to sign it and get it in The New York Times this week. 

A CONTRACT FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM
Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity and give their kids a better life. Every one of us…has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact and our contract with one another…

March for Jobs, Justice and Peace, Detroit Aug. 28, 2010

We’ll be putting the principles of the Contract into action almost immediately. But the first thing we need to do is get Washington’s attention with a full page ad in The New York Times backed by over 100,000 Americans. 

Then we’ll take it directly to members of Congress during the August recess, start fighting for it in our local communities, and make it part of our national vision.

Be part of this crucial beginning by signing the Contract for the American Dream today.

Clicking here will add your name.

Thanks for all that you do,

–Justin, Tim, Stephen, Elena, and the rest of the team

P.S. See below for the full text of the Contract and then click here to sign your name to it.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. 1963: I HAVE A DREAM!  A CONTRACT FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM “I have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.” –Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 March on Washington We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice… for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity and give their kids a better life. Every one of us—rich, poor or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender—has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill—but only by working together. BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE, NOT THE BANKS! Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops and teachers—America’s everyday heroes—are being thrown out onto the street. We believe: AMERICA IS NOT BROKE. America is rich—still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes—and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America. AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS. Many of our best workers are sitting idle, while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis. To produce this Contract for the American Dream, 131,203 Americans came together online and in their communities. We wrote and rated 25,904 ideas. Together, we identified the 10 most critical steps to get our economy back on track and restore the American Dream: INVEST IN AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE. Rebuild our crumbling bridges, dams, levees, ports, water and sewer lines, railways, roads and public transit. We must invest in high-speed Internet and a modern, energy-saving electric grid. These investments will create good jobs and rebuild America. To help finance these projects, we need national and state infrastructure banks. CREATE 21ST-CENTURY ENERGY JOBS. We should invest in American businesses that can power our country with innovative technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal systems, hybrid and electric cars, and next-generation batteries. And we should put Americans to work making our homes and buildings energy efficient. We can create good, green jobs in America, address the climate crisis, and build the clean energy economy. MLK Day March at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School, Detroit INVEST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. We should provide universal access to early childhood education, make school funding equitable, invest in high-quality teachers, and build safe, well-equipped school buildings for our students. A high-quality education system, from universal preschool to vocational training and affordable higher education, is critical for our future and can create badly needed jobs now. OFFER MEDICARE FOR ALL. We should expand Medicare so it’s available to all Americans, and reform it to provide even more cost-effective, quality care. The Affordable Care Act is a good start and we must implement it—but it’s not enough. We can save trillions of dollars by joining every other industrialized country—paying much less for health care while getting the same or better results. MAKE WORK PAY. Americans have a right to fair minimum and living wages, to organize and collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity and to earn equal pay for equal work. Corporate assaults on these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be outlawed. SECURE SOCIAL SECURITY. Keep Social Security sound, and strengthen the retirement, disability, and survivors’ protections Americans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by removing the cap on the Social Security tax, so that upper-income people pay into Social Security on all they make, just like the rest of us. RETURN TO FAIRER TAX RATES. End, once and for all, the Bush-era tax giveaways for the rich, which the rest of us—or our kids—must pay eventually. Also, we must outlaw corporate tax havens and tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. Lastly, with millionaires and billionaires taking a growing share of our country’s wealth, we should add new tax brackets for those making more than $1 million each year. END THE WARS AND INVEST AT HOME. Our troops have done everything that’s been asked of them, and it’s time to bring them home to good jobs here. We’re sending $3 billion each week overseas that we should be investing to rebuild America. TAX WALL STREET SPECULATION. A tiny fee of 1/20th of 1% on each Wall Street trade would raise tens of billions of dollars annually with little impact on actual investment. This would reduce speculation, “flash trading,” and outrageous bankers’ bonuses—and we’d have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job creation.  STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY. We need clean, fair elections—where no one’s right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn’t buy you your own member of Congress. We must ban anonymous political influence, slam shut the lobbyists’ revolving door in D.C. and publicly finance elections. Immigrants who want to join in our democracy deserve a clear path to citizenship. We must stop giving corporations the rights of people when it comes to our elections. And we must ensure our judiciary’s respect for the Constitution. Together, we will reclaim our democracy to get our country back on track.

Source:

1. “Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks,” The New York Times, August 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=262766&id=29637-18985933-qn6Danx&t=6

Dollars for drug trials

CENTER THAT REPORTED GODBOLDO TO CPS HAS $$$ TIES WITH DRUG COS.

Other organizations, individuals in case connected in possible conflicts of interest 

By Diane Bukowski

August 7, 2011 

The New Oakland Child-Adolescent & Family Center, which reported Maryanne Godboldo to Child Protective Services for taking her 13-year-old daughter off the controversial drug Risperdal, has had paid connections with pharmaceutical companies since at least 2004.

Kimberly Smith, LMSW, head of New Oakland's pharmaceutical research division

According to the Center’s website, Kimberly Smith, LMSW, of China, Michigan, has been Director of Pharmaceutical Research for all its facilities since 2004. It says she also provides “clinical support and supervision” for the Clinton Township facility. Additionally she heads the Center’s Office of Recipient Rights.

“Presently, Kimberly is coordinating Adult and Pediatric CNS [Central Nervous System] Clinical Trials for a number of pharmaceutical companies and has been for the last ten years,” says the site.

The center, a private facility, is headquartered in Livonia and has sites in Centerline, Clarkston, Clinton Township, Davisburg, and West Bloomfield.

VOD contacted Ms. Smith at her office Aug. 4. She admitted that she is paid by the drug companies she works with, and that trials she is paid to conduct are among those carried out at New Oakland’s facilities. She refused to give further information on specific drug trials, saying that information is “private.”

“We must sign a confidentiality agreement with the company,” she said. She claimed reports are only published after the FDA approves a drug.

National Institues of Health Clinical Center, Bethesda, Md.

That statement is only partially true, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, on their site at http://ClinicalTrials.gov.

The site indicates, “The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA or US Public Law 110-85) was passed on September 27, 2007. The law requires mandatory registration and results reporting for certain clinical trials of drugs, biologics, and devices.” (For further information click on http://prsinfo.clinicaltrials.gov/fdaaa.html.)

A clinical trial of Depakote, sponsored by Abbott Laboratories, for which New Oakland recruited participants, was listed on the site while it was still ongoing with the following details:

 “Clinical Trial: An Outpatient Study of the Effectiveness and Safety of Depakote ER in the Treatment of Mania/Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents. . . .New Oakland Child/Adoles. and Family Center, Clinton Township, Michigan, United States; Recruiting: Kimberly Smith MSW, 586-412-5321 ext. 310, ksmith@newoakland.org, Ismail Sendi, M.D. Principal Investigator.”

Ms. Smith said that parents are required to complete a detailed form when their child participates in such a study, but said she did not have a blank copy of the form she could send to VOD. A sample consent form for a drug research study can be viewed by clicking on http://www.niams.nih.gov/Funding/Clinical_Research/invest_form.asp

Drug companies’ payment of medical professionals both to recommend, market and prescribe  their products is a national scandal, according to many sources. (Click on VOD post http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/07/u-s-johnson-johnson-wrongly-marketed-risperdal-to-kids/.  )

But even beyond the New Oakland Center’s drug connections, those involved in seizing Ariana Godboldo-Hakim are connected to each other in a tangled web, getting big bucks for children they take from families, and for medical treatment, including drugs, that are given to the children.

DHS head Maura Corrigan with Govr. Ricktator Snyder

Government officials including Judge Lynne Pierce, Department of Human Services chief Maura Corrigan, and others also have their ties. (See chart for condensed info.) As Supreme Court Justice, Corrigan was a member of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care and also of the ultra-right wing Federalist Society. (Click on Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care to read its executive summary.) She is now head of the Michigan Department of Human Services, and recently partnered with Governor Rick(tator) Synder to advocate speedy adoptions of foster care children. Many believe this may lead to speedier termination of parental rights as well.

Children's Center

Maryanne Godboldo first took her daughter to The Children’s Center, located at 79 W. Alexandrine in Detroit, when she began experiencing adverse reactions to the immunizations she received in September, 2009. Unknown to her at the time, the Children’s Center is one of six partners in Behavioral Health Professionals, Inc (BHPI), a non-profit based in Michigan. 

The others are Development Centers, Inc., Hegira Programs, Inc., Neighborhood Services Organization (NSO), New Center Community Mental Health Services, Northeast Guidance Center, Southwest Counseling and Development Services, and The Guidance Center. 

BHPI is the parent organization for ConsumerLink and CareLink, which network with insurance companies and refer children to the various partners and other organizations.  

Amber Kozlowski, a “social worker/hospital liaison,” testified Aug. 5 that she was responsible for Ariana’s admission to Hawthorn Center on March 25. There, her prosthesis was removed in violation of her disability rights, she was re-medicated with Risperdal and other drugs, and allegedly became the victim of sexual abuse, as stated in a police report filed by her family. 

Kozlowski said she works for NSO directly and contracts with ConsumerLink for the hospital liaison part of her job. NSO’s board of directors includes executives from various health and insurance agencies, including the Detroit Medical Center, Pro Care Health Plan, and the Health Alliance Plan. 

But that’s not all about Children’s Center, which is primarily funded by the Department of Human Services. It has its own foster care/adoption division, and is funded at the rate of $34 per day for foster care provision, according to state budget documents. Such funds, which are also funneled to numerous other private foster care agencies in the state, originate with the federal government. 

Lauren Phillips, atty. at Dykema Gossett, Judge Lynne Pierce's daughter

The Children’s Center also receives substantial grants from Ford Motor Company, and three Ford family members sit on its board. Judge Lynne Pierce’s daughter Lauren Phillips is an attorney with Dykema Gossett, and the Judge has frequented the firm’s offices for various events, including a Women Lawyers of Michigan luncheon this past March.

Dykema-Gossett counts Ford among its top clients. Dykema Gossett also has a separate Family Law practice, run by Attorney Joanne Lax, which assists clients with adoptions.

When such matters become thorny, according to their website, “In the sensitive area of family law, many of the services our clients require fall outside the realm of legal counsel. In these cases, we can recommend a network of highly experienced counseling agencies and professionals to provide the appropriate assistance and advice.”

Atty. Joanne Lax

Lax also specializes in Health Care Law at the firm. According to its website, “Joanne represents health systems, hospitals, prepaid in-patient health plans, nursing homes, homes for the aged, assisted living facilities, hospices and home health agencies” regarding various matters.

These include state and federal regulatory compliance, and litigation and hearings in numerous areas such as licensure and certification, Medicare/Medicaid and provider enrollment, human subject research and clinical trials, medical records access and retention, and patient rights and biomedical ethics, including those involving recipient rights and minors and legally incapacitated individuals.

Wayne Co. Exec. Robert Ficano (r) with Pierce husband Raymond Andary at Carribean Getaway

Pierce’s husband Raymond Andary is also an attorney, although his practice is dissimilar to their daughter’s. However, he recently participated in a 2011 March of Dimes Caribbean Getaway July 20, which raised money to support children with serious illnesses. The March of Dimes this year gave a grant to the Northeast Guidance Center, one of BHPI’s six partners.

In the video below, Gov. Snyder and DHS Director Maura Corrigan swear in new DHS workers, most for CPS, as they pledge to speed up adoption process, imperiling rights of biological parents. 

Maryanne Godboldo with sister Penny (center front), Mubarak Hakim (center rear), and supporters at court hearing Aug. 3, 2011

 “First Ms. Parks took a stand, and now it is Ms. Godboldo.” (Charles Wright)

“I am not going to let Missy and Massa take our children.”  (Maryanne Godboldo)

By Diane Bukowski

Aug. 6, 2011

DETROIT – Testimony in the Ariana Godboldo-Hakim custody trial so far has painted a vivid picture of a loving family traumatized and torn apart by a web of inter-connected private institutions and state agencies. Many have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, while others are paid per head for treatment of children and adolescents on Medicaid, and removal of children from their homes.

Judge Lynne Pierce (r) with daughter Lauren Phillips, an attorney with Dykema Gossett, a firm which defends large corporations and health care institutions

Presiding over the jury trial is Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Lynne A. Pierce. She and her family have ties to some of these agencies and are active with organizations that sponsor foster care and adoption, frequently the ultimate fate for children taken by the state’s Child Protective Services (CPS) system. (See chart and story below for more information.)

 CPS, aided by an army of Detroit police carrying assault weapons and manning tanks and helicopters, seized Ariana Godboldo, 13, from her home on Blaine near Linwood on Mar. 24 as her mother Maryanne Godboldo sought to protect her. 

“First Ms. Parks took a stand, and now it is Ms. Godboldo,” VOD reader Charles Wright commented on the case.  

Rosa Parks after arrest for sitting in "whites only" section of bus in Montgomery, Alabama

Godboldo has garnered world-wide support for her defense of her daughter from CPS and their insistence that she take the dangerous psychotropic medication Risperdal. She has also received support from a large community that has questioned the safety of immunizations. Godboldo says Ariana had a severe reaction to multiple immunizations in 2009, causing her initial problems that led her to seek medical help at the places that referred her to CPS.

The Godboldo-Hakim custody trial began Aug. 2, with assistant state attorney general Deborah Carley as prosecutor. Wayne County is the only county in Michigan where the State Attorney General prosecutes child custody cases. 

So far, employees of the New Oakland Child-Adolescent & Family Center, the Children’s Center, the Department of Human Services, and the Detroit police have testified for the prosecution. The health workers said they referred Godboldo to CPS because “the mother was not compliant with prescribed medications” (Lisa Kalinsky of New Oakland). 

Deborah Carley

In her opening statement, Assistant Attorney General Deborah Carley said Ariana has mental health conditions and requires treatment for delusions, depression, aggression, and visual and auditory hallucinations, but that Godboldo has refused to help her. ** See reference at bottom.

In the most recent developments Aug. 5, Carley called Ariana’s parents Maryanne Godboldo and Mubarak Hakim to the stand over vehement objections by their attorneys Adam Shakoor, Wanda Evans, and Roger Farinha. Godboldo faces criminal charges over the March 24 stand-off with police. 

Renowned Detroit attorney Adam Shakoor

“You are making a travesty of these proceedings,” Shakoor told Judge Pierce when she ruled in favor of Carley. “I do not believe [the prosecutor] can parade Ms. Godboldo in front of the jury and make her look foolish when she has to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights [not to incriminate herself] after every question related to March 24.”

Pierce would not limit questions to events prior to the police stand-off. Carley put both parents through grueling testimony. However, both managed to tell the story of their lifelong love and support for their daughter calmly, despite the prosecutor’s clearly hostile demeanor. 

Carley hammered away at Godboldo over issues involving her employment, child support from Hakim, details of Ariana’s birth and resulting physical disability, and statements she allegedly made to CPS worker Mia Wenk likening CPS to a plantation. She demanded that Godboldo produce extensive medical and school records for Ariana although Godboldo had not been expecting to testify. 

But Godboldo remained serene and dignified. Tears welled up only briefly in her eyes when Carley repeatedly questioned her on the details of the amputation of Ariana’s leg after her birth. Godboldo said the leg was infected due to a doctor’s mistake, while Carley insisted it was a congenital defect. 

Carley also demanded to know why Ariana was named differently in the hospital. Godboldo responded that the hospital would not discharge her until she named her baby, although she had not yet made up her mind. She said she later legally changed Ariana’s name before the child’s first birthday, so the birth certificate could read accordingly. 

“Her name is ARIANA GABRIELLA GODBOLDO-HAKIM,” she testified firmly, and later corrected Carley’s mispronunciation of the child’s first name. 

Ariana and Penny Godboldo join dancers performing "Testify" at rally at Hartford Memorial Church

“I have not worked since before my daughter was born,” Godboldo told the jury. “My daughter needed all my attention. She is an amputee below the right knee and was hurt many times in school. She was bruised and pushed down the stairs by other little children who don’t understand disabilities.” She also said that some of the schools she went to were not adequately equipped for disabled children. 

Godboldo said she also cares for her 98-year-old mother, who lives with her. Previously, she was a concert dancer who studied in New York and later worked with her sister Penny Godboldo’s dance troupe. 

She said she had a mutual agreement with Ariana’s father, both financial and emotional, for the support of their child. Carley demanded to know exact weekly cash details from Ariana’s first year of life onward and why he didn’t have health insurance for Ariana.

Godboldo said Hakim, who is a self-employed vendor and musician, has given both cash, in-kind and emotional support “regularly” throughout their daughter’s life, and that the two are in constant consultation over her care. She said Hakim drove her to her daughter’s early well-baby appointments, visits Ariana three to four times a week, has taught her to play the drums, and spent hours of time with her. 

She said Ariana is covered by Medicaid. Godboldo later told this reporter that she has NEVER received cash assistance from the state, despite the prosecutor’s obvious attempts to paint her as a lazy “welfare mom.” 

Carley demanded that Godboldo produce records of her daughter’s immunizations from years back, records of her injuries in school, and educational records from from kindergarten until the third grade, when Godboldo began home-schooling her, as she is legally permitted to do. 

She kept demanding to know why Godboldo hadn’t put her in public schools instead of sending her to private and charter schools. 

New Oakland facility, Livonia, Michigan

When Godboldo described Ariana’s reactions to vaccinations she received prior to entering the sixth grade at a Montessori school, Carley demanded to know the names of the doctors who had diagnosed her. Godboldo identified them, and explained calmly that her child received chelation therapy from a holistic practitioner who is also a medical doctor, who diagnosed her with encephalitis.
Godboldo said the chelation therapy “helped immensely.” 

She said when she took her daughter first to New Oakland Child-Adolescent Family Center that she told them she did not favor giving psychotropic drugs to children, but they insisted on prescribing Risperdal. She said she would try it (per court records, the consent form she signed gave her the right to take the child off the drug at any time). She said New Oakland also wanted to hospitalize Ariana for mental illness, but she refused. 

Godboldo said she thoroughly researched Risperdal online, and when Ariana got worse, the doctor who had diagnosed her with encephalitis said she was suffering from the side effects of the drug.. The doctor weaned Ariana off the drug over a six-month period. Godboldo said she had just finished when the police showed up at the door to take her child. 

Carley then questioned Godboldo about alleged statements she made to Wenk about plantations. 

Mother's child being sold away from her at slave auction

“Don’t you know our history?” Godboldo asked Carley, who is white. “Don’t you know we were slaves on the plantation? That’s what it felt like. I am not a slave. I am not going to let Missy and Massa take our children. This is all about racism and power control.” 

Every one of the mental health practitioners who have testified so far have been white. Mia Wenk, the CPS worker who called the police, is of indeterminate racial heritage, but lives in a 98 percent white community, as does Judge Lynne Pierce, also white. The police officers who first came to Godboldo’s door to take her child were white. A worker who accompanied Wenk during the seizure, who was Black but never got out of the car, testified that two police cars passed by after Wenk called 911, but said she did not summon them over. It wasn’t until a third car came an hour later that Wenk flagged them down. 

Carley then questioned Godboldo about the events of Mar. 24. To most questions, she read a written statement given to her by her attorneys invoking the Fifth Amendment per her constitutional rights. 

Godboldo did say she purchased a gun prior to her daughter’s birth, after she was robbed in front of her home while she was five months pregnant. She said she kept it secured in a closet that Ariana could not access. She said the gun was registered and that she had forgotten she had it. 

Under Carley’s questioning, Hakim remained similarly composed. 

Mubarak Hakim, Ariana's father

He estimated that he has given Godboldo $75 to $100 a week out of his income, which varies, and that they are not under the jurisdiction of the Friend of the Court. He explained his work as a licensed street vendor and musician. 

Then Carley delved into his early criminal record, which consisted of one conviction for armed robbery when he was 17. He detailed two other offenses for which he only paid fines or served probation, both more than 10 years ago. 

“Ariana is very intelligent,” he said. “She was at the top of her class in school. She loved to read and write. She would bring her homework home and I would help her with it. I agreed with her mother’s decision to home school her, she was the captain of the ship and I trusted her. She kept me well-informed of what was happening with her. I’ve been there with her from day one, when she was born. I was there when she was born.” 

He said police brought Ariana to Children’s Hospital after the March 24 stand-off, he went in to see her, that she was with her aunt Penny Godboldo and was calm. He said CPS told him to leave, which he did, thinking she had to go for some testing. He said, however, that when he came back, she was gone and it took the family two days to discover she had been sent to the Hawthorn psychiatric hospital in Northville without his or any relative’s consent. This was despite the fact that CHM has its own pediatric psychiatric division and consultants. (Click on http://www.childrensdmc.org/pediatric-psychiatry-and-psychology for further information.)

Hakim said he visited her every day at Hawthorn. 

Prior to the parents’ testimony, details of how that hospitalization occurred came out in the testimony of  Amber Kozlowski. She said she is employed by the Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO) as a “social worker/hospital liaison.” She said she has a master’s degree in social work, but she is not listed on the state’s website as a licensed social worker. 

Kozlowski admitted Ariana to state psychiatric hospital, Hawthorn in Northville

She said she works for NSO, and is a hospital liaison for Consumer Link. (See story below for connections among the organizations.) 

Kozlowski testified that although she is not a psychiatrist or medical doctor, she authorized Ariana’s hospitalization at Hawthorn, after the hospital first rejected her attempts several times. 

She said she met with Ariana at CHM for “15 minutes,” and with “the DHS worker and the hospital social worker” for the rest of the hour she was there. She said she viewed only the medical records compiled at CHM. 

“She [Ariana] wouldn’t speak with me verbally,” Kozlowski said. “She appeared a little agitated, a little paranoid. She was moaning and covering her head with the blankets and looking at the wall around her.” 

She said she visited Ariana about four times at Hawthorn, during which she continued to refuse to speak to her and was “paranoid” and “aggressive.” 

“I came with the hospital social worker to her bedroom, and she lunged forward at me and attempted to hit and kick me. She grabbed her wheelchair and spun it around towards me and spit at me.” She claimed Ariana yelled and shouted curse words at her. 

On cross-exam by Godboldo’s co-counsel Wanda Evans, Kozlowski said she was not supervised by a psychiatrist or doctor when she authorized Ariana’s admission to Hawthorn. She said she did not speak to any of Ariana’s relatives. She admitted that it might be reasonable that a child who had just been taken from her home by force might appear upset. 

She said she never saw a psychiatric evaluation of Ariana, or a court document ordering her admission to a psychiatric institution. 

“Are you familiar with the Mental Health Code?” Evans asked her. “You do know that a parent has the right to take a child off psychotropic medications. You do know that in the case of a child with a disability, the disability is the first priority in her treatment?” 

(Ed. note: When Ariana was admitted to Hawthorn, they took away her prosthetis, which she had worn all her life, and put her in a wheelchair. They also re-medicated her with Risperdal and three other medications until her attorneys obtained a court order to take her off the drugs. Judge Lynne Pierce later vacated that order, although she would not vacate the original order, not even viewed or signed by a judge, which led to police taking Ariana.  

During Ariana’s six-week stay at Hawthorn, the staff there took her to CHM for treatment of an STD. Godboldo filed a police complaint that Ariana was sexually abused at the hospital because no STD was present during CHM’s initial physical exam of her child. To this date, the state Department of Community Health has refused to provide records of complaints against Hawthorn, a state hospital not required to keep them on site as are private hospitals, despite VOD’s submission of a Freedom of Information Act request.)

Thal and Julian Wendrow

**Click on Deborah Carley and other Oakland County Prosecutors sued for improper removal of autistic teen from home to read about 2007 case where prosecutors falsely alleged sexual abuse of autistic teen by father, using “facilitated communication,” where facilitator holds individual’s hand or arm as they type messages on a keyboard. (Carley previously worked for Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Gorcyca until her dismissal by current Prosecutor Jessica Cooper.) The parents, Thal and Julian Wendrow earlier won a $1.8 million settlement against West Bloomfield Township and its police, who arrested the father. All charges against him were later dismissed. The Detroit Free Press ran a six-part series on the false allegations.

From Communications Workers of America (CWA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)

Aug 7, 2011

Company Refuses to Bargain Seriously, Verizon Proposals Would Take Workers Back Decades

CWA, IBEW, SEIU all active in strike

Washington, D.C. — More than 45,000 workers are on strike today at Verizon Communications. Bargaining continues. Since bargaining began on June 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands. As the contract expired, nearly 100 concessionary company proposals remained on the table.

As a result, CWA and IBEW have decided to take the unprecedented step of striking until Verizon stops its Wisconsin-style tactics and starts bargaining seriously.

Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle class workers and their families. 

Verizon strikers: Photo/peoplesworld.org

CWA and IBEW members are prepared to return to work when management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement. If not, CWA and IBEW members and allies will continue the fight.

Verizon financials

• 2011 annualized revenues are $108 billion and annualized net profits are $6 billion.
• Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend.
• Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years.

The contract covers 45,000 members of CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from New England to Virginia.

STATEMENT BY CWA

Aug 6, 2011

Washington, D.C. — Following is a statement by Candice Johnson, CWA Communications Director, on contract negotiations between CWA and Verizon. The current contract expires at midnight tonight:

“Negotiations between the Communications Workers of America and Verizon Communications are not moving forward. Contracts covering 45,000 Verizon workers are set to expire at midnight tonight.

Over months of negotiations, there has been no real bargaining by Verizon management. In fact, every major concession demand — more than 100 in all – remains on the table.

Even at the 11th hour, with contracts set to expire, Verizon continues to seek to strip away 50 years of contract gains. Following the game plan of Wisconsin, Verizon is trying to destroy the collective bargaining process by refusing to engage seriously on the issues.

In the few hours left before contract expiration, Verizon can show that it’s serious about bargaining. If not, CWA members and our allies throughout the union movement are ready for the fight.”

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg

Verizon is sitting on big assets – it has $100 billion in revenue and net profits of $6 billion. Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend. Verizon’s executive compensation is sky-high, and Chairman Ivan Seidenberg is paid 300 times what an average worker earns. The top five company executives were paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past four years.

The contract covers 35,000 CWA represented workers and 10,000 IBEW-represented workers.

Read updates at www.cwa-union.org/verizon

Media Inquiries

Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, 202-434-1347 (office), 202-415-6566 (cell), cjohnson@cwa-union.org, and Robert Master, CWA District 1, 212-344-2515 (office), 917-657-6483 (cell), rmaster@cwa-union.org

The Underbelly of the Proposed Verizon Strike: Why Customers Should Care 

By Bruce Kushnick, Chairman, Teletruth http://www.teletruth.org 

Executive Director, New Networks Institute, http://www.newnetworks.com

The Verizon Communications Workers of America (CWA) members are correct in worrying about the future. In the last two decades, there’s been over a 50% decrease in the number of employees-per-line, while there’s been a 100% increase in the Bell companies revenues. And construction in Verizon is down over 53% in the last three years.

Verizon customers are treated badly too

However, there’s an another dark side of this discussion that no one wants to talk about — How customers are being affected by staff cuts and slashes in construction budgets. Everyone knows that service has been declining and prices have been increasing, but the real scam is that instead of reinvesting in the networks and staff, Verizon is using the profits to fund excessive executive compensation and pay for massive overseas losses from bad investments.

Some customer examples?

When I called Verizon to pay my phonebill over the telephone, I was told that it would cost an additional $2.50 to use a credit card because Verizon was using another company to take credit card orders. With $67 billion in annual revenues, 227,000 employees, as well as a global presence that extends to the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, you would think that Verizon could take its own credit card payments over the phone.

When a customer’s phone service died last year, he found out that even though we live in a 24-7 world of the Internet, Verizon is closed on Sundays. —- And let’s not talk about the hassles once he wanted service restored. See: http://www.teletruth.org/About/newsletter/SexliesVerizon.htm

When a customer called his Internet Service Provider in New York City to order DSL, she was told that there wasn’t enough copper in her building to give her service. To read about the issues surrounding DSL and broadband see: http://www.newnetworks.com/PRISPPETITIONS.html

Verizon prices too high not because of workers but because of profits

And you would think that a strike of workers at Verizon would cost customers more money — “They’ll just raise our rates to pay for keeping staff”. The slap in the face is that even though there’s been over a 50% cut in the employees per-line since Verizon formed in 1984, the prices of services have continually increased. In fact, phone rates have nothing/little to do with the actual cost of service because of a number of regulatory-bam-boozles known as “Deregulation”.

Ironically, this “deregulation’ was granted because Verizon promised to upgrade everyone’s home and office to a fiber-optic service. In Pennsylvania, Verizon charged customers hundreds of dollars for fiber-optic upgrades they will never receive. Half of the state should have been rewired by 2004, including rural and suburban and urban areas equally. See: http://www.newnetworks.com/Libertybellstolen.htm Continue reading →

ARTICLES FROM CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL at http://www.cchrint.org/tag/risperdal/

Claim: J&J Wrongly Marketed Antipsychotic Drug Risperdal to Kids

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

BNET – August 3, 2011
by Jim Edwards

The FDA told Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in 1997 that its request to market the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for children was “without any justification.” In the following years, J&J’s army of pharmaceutical sales reps made 100,000 sales calls on child and adolescent psychiatrists, justifying this by “qualifying” the docs if they had as few as one adult patient exhibiting signs of schizophrenia, according to a lawsuit.

It was a distinction only a lawyer can love, and now the Massachusetts attorney general is using it against J&J and its Janssen unit, alleging that J&J’s promotion of Risperdal for children was misleading.

Mass epidemic of psychotropic drugs given to children

J&J had initially asked the FDA to approve the drug for use in children, and the FDA eventually allowed limited use in the over-10s in the 2006 and 2007. But in 1997, without clinical evidence to back its request, the FDA frowned on use of the drug for children. In a latter the J&J, the FDA wrote:

To permit the inclusion of the proposed vague references to the safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients and the nonspecific cautionary advice about how to prescribe Risperdal for the unspecified target indications would serve only to promote the use of this drug in pediatric patients without any justification.

“Promote use of this drug in pediatric patients” is exactly what J&J then did, according to the suit:

From January 1994 through September 2006, Janssen sales representatives directly promoted Risperdal to thousands of child and adolescent psychiatrists and pediatricians even though Risperdal was not approved to treat any pediatric conditions until October 2006.

Doctors were paid $1,000 to attend J&J’s pediatric “advisory board” meetings held at posh resorts, and eventually Risperdal reached a 50 percent share of pediatric antispychotic category, the suit alleges.

Kids grew breasts, docs went to the Four Seasons

This success came at some price to the children receiving the drug, as Risperdal’s side effects include weight gain, diabetes and “galactarhea,” the premature production of breast milk in both boys and girls. One of J&J’s sales reps made this internal sales call note on that issue:

An August 2, 2001 call note (000000244279 ) reports on a sales call with a Braintree doctor: “. . . . She is using Risperdal with great success in kids ala Biederman. She did mention galactarhea so I told her how Biederman is using Dostinex. She is going to get more info on this dopamine agonist. She is going to attend the 4 Seasons event.”

Dr. Joseph Biederman, the new Josef Mengel

The Biederman name is familiar to anyone following the Risperdal saga, of course. Joseph Biederman was the Harvard medical school doctor who was paid by J&J to churn out reams of studies promoting Risperdal in kids. He became infamous when he suggested in a deposition that he was one pay-scale below God.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-business/claim-j-j-wrongly-marketed-antipsychotic-drug-risperdal-to-kids/9344

For more information on Joseph Biederman – http://www.cchrint.org/2011/07/22/pharma-funded-psychiatrists-behind-bogus-child-bi-polar-epidemic-disciplined-for-conflicts-of-interest/

Attorney General Alleges Jansen Illegally Marketed Antipsychotic Drug – to kids and the elderly

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Coakley alleges Janssen illegally marketed drug

By Jessica M. Karmasek – LegalNewsLine.com

August 2, 2011

BOSTON (Legal Newsline) — Drug manufacturer Ortho-McNeil-Janssen is being sued by Attorney General Martha Coakley for illegally marketing Risperdal, an atypical antipsychotic medication.

Massachusetts Atty. General Martha Coakley

Coakley’s lawsuit alleges that Janssen promoted the drug to treat elderly dementia and a number of uses in children and adolescents when these uses had not been shown to be safe and effective and had not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The complaint, filed this week in Suffolk Superior Court, further alleges that Janssen failed to disclose serious risks associated with Risperdal’s use, including the risk of excessive weight gain, diabetes and, for elderly dementia patients, an increased risk of death.

“Manufacturers should not promote uses of their pharmaceutical products that have not been established to be safe and effective,” Coakley said in a statement Monday.

J & J's Janssen Pharmaceuticals tests and markets drugs including Risperdal world-wide

“Janssen put profits ahead of patient safety by promoting Risperdal for uses that had not been approved and by failing to disclose serious risks associated with Risperdal’s use.”

According to the attorney general’s lawsuit, Janssen’s unfair and deceptive practices included:

* Omitting and/or concealing material facts regarding Risperdal’s efficacy and safety in its communications with Massachusetts health care providers and consumers;

* Concealing, omitting or minimizing the side effects and risks associated with Risperdal’s use;

* Promoting Risperdal to treat elderly dementia without disclosing to prescribers the serious risks associated with Risperdal’s use in dementia patients, including an increased risk of death;

* Promoting Risperdal to treat elderly dementia without disclosing to prescribers that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration had rejected the company’s request to market Risperdal for this use because of unaddressed safety concerns;

* Promoting Risperdal’s use as safe and effective to treat conduct disorder and other conditions in children for more than a decade before receiving FDA approval to market Risperdal to treat any conditions in children;

* Making misleading and deceptive statements to prescribers about Risperdal’s safety, particularly with respect to weight gain and the risk of developing diabetes;

* Paying physicians to participate in sham consulting programs that were, in fact, thinly disguised marketing programs touting unapproved uses; and

* Targeting its sales and marketing efforts to prescribers who rarely, if ever, prescribe Risperdal for its FDA-approved uses, primarily the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder.

According to the attorney general’s complaint, Janssen’s illegal marketing and sales tactics helped the company generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales in the state.

Citing company documents, Coakley’s lawsuit notes that these illegal tactics helped make Risperdal a market leader in both the children and adolescent and elderly market segments.

 http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/233450-coakley-alleges-janssen-illegally-marketed-drug

 Pharma-Funded Psychiatrists Behind Bogus Child ‘Bi-Polar’ Epidemic- Disciplined for Conflicts of Interest

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Alliance for Human Research Protect

Harvard Psychiatrists Disciplined for Conflicts of Interest

Alliance for Human Research Protection – July 21, 2011

 by Vera Sherav

Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman was funded millions by Pharma while promoting child “bipolar” disorder

Pharma ad for personnel in Moscow, Russia

The primary promoters–inventors, one might say– of diagnosing children with “bipolar” disorder, who for over a decade, aggressively promoted the biopolar diagnosis and use of antipsychotics in children, were disciplined by Harvard University and its affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

An investigation, prompted by Sen. Charles Grassely, was conducted by Harvard University-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. It concluded (earlier this month) that psychiatrist Joseph Biederman and two of his proteges, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens -each of who failed to disclose millions of dollars they had each received from the makers of antipsychotics, the drugs they promoted for the treatment of bipolar in children–had indeed violated the University’s/ and hospital’s conflict of interest reporting  standards.

Thomas Spencer

They have also taken millions of dollarrom the drug companies.”The companies that paid them millions include: Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb.The Senator brought public attention–and to Harvard University administrators’ attention–the financial conflicts of interest, “Out of concern about the relationship between this money and their research.”Indeed, documents uncovered during litigation confirmed that the research was scientifically corrupt and commercially-driven. The New York Times reported that Dr. Biederman promised Johnson a& Johnson that a study (yet to be conducted) in preschool children who would be given the company’s antipsychotic, Risperdal (risperidone) “will support the safety and effectiveness of Risperdal in this age group.”“The psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, outlined plans to test Johnson & Johnson’s drugs in presentations to company executives. One slide referred to a proposed trial in preschool children of risperidone, an antipsychotic drug made by the drug company. The trial, the slide stated, “will support the safety and effectiveness of risperidone in this age group.”Dr. Biederman was the lead author of a trial published last year concluding that treatment with risperidone improved symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in bipolar children.

”The three wrote a mea culpa letter stating “we want to offer our sincere apologies…” acknowledging “our mistakes…”However, no mention was made anywhere about the profound consequences of these psychiatritsts’ commercially-driven clinical recommendations. No mention about the corruption of the scientific literature, about clinical practice that deviated from the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm,” nor was any mention made about the harm suffered by children whose doctors were misled about the safety and efficacy of highly toxic drugs.Child psychiatrists and pediatricians throughout the US were guided by these exceedingly influential Harvard psychiatrists.As Sen. Chuck Grassley noted in 2008 in the Congressional Record, “they are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field.

Another of Biederman’s Harvard ignoble disciples was Jeff Bostic, who is also at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was named in a 2009 lawsuit joined by the US Department of Justice alleging Forest Laboratories promoted its antidepressants for pediatric use without FDA approval and paid kickbacks to docs to encourage prescriptions. He received $750,000 in payments for giving talks on using these drugs in children.

Strangely, the National Institute for Mental Health, which had awarded thse psychiatrists millions of dollars at taxpayers expense. It appears that NIMH officials did not see fit to even conduct an investigation into the corruption of science and violation of federal regulations. This demonstrates a lack of professional and moral integrity at the NIMH whose administrators think nothing about the misappropriation of public money for commercially-driven, junk research.

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/828/9/ Continue reading →

Since this march in downtown Detroit June 26, 2010, initiated by Jewel Allison of New York City (shown with her daughter Honesti) there have been no mass protests regarding Aiyana Jones' murder by Detroit police in Detroit, although there is international outrage.

August 4, 2011
 
 
 Ms. Mildred Gaddis
WCHB
Detroit MI
 
Dear Ms. Gaddis:
 
I attempted, but failed, to rise above and beyond, me, and my group’s claim, that WCHB has unfairly protected the wrong-doing of the Detroit Police Department’s involvement in the death of Aiyana Jones, by calling into your show this morning to contribute monies to sponsor one youngster to attend the August 28, 2011 tribute and monument dedication to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, DC.  Maybe, I should not have made this pledge, because you refused the donation.
 

When will Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream be realized?

I will, on Malcolm, bet that if Dr. King were alive today, that he would be front and center in the campaign to express his outrage and distain for those who killed little Aiyana.  Dr. King would be just as upset that due process has not been had in Aiyana’s death because no one or entity has been charged with anything.
 
Who knows the ‘why’ – those in leadership capacities – including those at WCHB, have opted to stay in their closets, versus, on the daily, demanding out loud – justice for Aiyana Jones.  I do know, however, that this community will be stuck in their tracks for doing nothing in this regard.  No festival, new building or grand ball will revive Detroit, because Detroit has chose to “move on” versus dealing with an issue that is central to the fundamental soul of our essence which is freedom from a rogue and brutal state force.
 

Youth at March for Peace, Freedom and Justice in Detroit Aug. 28, 2010, carried Aiyana's sign

The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee will support the MLK Jr. Tribute, and will do so by attending.  We will also abandon our boycott against WCHB, because we think that a lot of the programming on WCHB is important.  Thus, we want people to continue listening to WCHB.  However, we will, instead, ask the people to ‘not’ support the sponsors who purchase ads on WCHB due to WCHB helping to silence justice of Aiyana Jones.
 
Most sincerely, 
Roland Lawrence
Chairman
Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee

The JAJC Committee flew this sky banner over the city on May 16, 2011, the anniversary of Aiyana's murder by cop