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

Crowd gathered at AFSCME Council 25 hall to kick off referendum campaign against PA 4 chants, "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights."

Successful referendum petition will immediately freeze PA 4; lawsuit challenges state constitutionality

By Diane Bukowski 

June 30, 2011

DETROIT, – Labor and community groups from across Michigan are determined to deliver a fatal one-two punch to Public Act 4, popularly known as the Dictator Act.

PUNCH #1: VOTER REFERENDUM ROLLED OUT JUNE 18

Cecily McClellan has Morris Mays sign referendum petition against PA 4

“Voters around the state see emergency managers as a naked power grab by Lansing,” the Committee to Stand Up for Democracy said in a release June 17. “Thanks to PA 4, political opponents of officials on the local level don’t have to beat them in elections. They can simply circumvent the vote by getting Lansing politicians to appoint friends who support their political agenda. This is not democracy and it violates the right of Michigan citizens to elect a local, representative government.”

The Committee, a coalition of community, religious, labor and progressive organizations, rolled out a petition campaign at meetings in 13 cities across Michigan June 18, aiming to put a referendum vote on the state ballot in the Nov. 2012 elections. According to the State Constitution, once 161,000 signatures are collected and validated by the state elections bureau, PA 4 will be suspended until the state’s voters have their say.

Greg Bowens, media representative for the Coalition, said at an earlier meeting that current emergency managers would be forced to step down in the interim. He also explained that since the previous Local Government Fiscal Responsibility Act 72 of 1990, was replaced by PA 4, it is no longer on the book and will not be in effect either.

DPS EM Roy Roberts with Rick-tator Snyder

“Watch out, Joe Harris, Mike Stampfler, and Roy Roberts,” said one PA 4 opponent (who asked not to be identified), recently.  “You are about to lose your fascist powers and you had better hope you don’t meet the fate of previous Emergency Financial Managers (EFM’s) for the Detroit Public Schools as well, because justice WILL be contagious.”

Kenneth Burnley, RIP

Bobb

Former DPS EFM Kenneth Burnley, Jr., 69, who decimated the district with school closings, lay-offs, and massive privatization, died unexpectedly July 2 after undergoing knee surgery in Colorado. His successor, Robert Bobb, has been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Joe Harris

Joe Harris is currently EM of Benton Harbor and has already stripped the city’s mayor and city commissioners of their powers, along with banning the city’s residents from beautiful PUBLIC Jean Klock park and beach during certain hours (see VOD story at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=8318.)

Roberts is the current EM for DPS and is carrying out more school closings and charterization of what little remains of the district. Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson reported at an earlier meeting that Roberts told him he plans to abrogate the DFT contract.

Keith Johnson

All of DPS’ teachers have received lay-off notices and it is unclear who, if anyone, will be called back. Johnson said he is waiting to see what happens before taking legal action.

Mike Stampfler

Stampfler, Pontiac’s EM, dismantled Pontiac’s City Commission in May and later proposed that Pontiac be dissolved and merge with Oakland County. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, however, was averse to taking the majority Black city of Pontiac under the wing of the wealthiest (and predominantly white) county in the country.

At the AFSCME Council 25 hall in Detroit June 18, over one hundred union and community individuals showed up to get petitions and red and white T-shirts declaring “STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY!” They marched into the hall chanting, “GET UP, STAND UP, STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS,” taken from the famous Bob Marley song.

Herb Sanders

Attorney Herbert Sanders, who is also an international representative for AFSCME, addressed the gathering. Sanders, Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and a coalition known as “We Are the People” have already held massive rallies up to 10,000 strong in Lansing, Michigan to denounce PA4, Governor Rick Snyder and the state’s anti-labor, anti-community legislators.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW PEOPLE CAN VOLUNTEER TO STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY, AND COLLECT PETITION SIGNATURES, CALL 1-866-306-5168. The Committee is headquartered at 1034 N. Washington, Lansing, MI. 48906. Facebook page is at

http://www.facebook.com/LansingCommunityActionTeam?sk=wall&filter=2. 

Plaintiff Edith Lee Payne addresses press conference June 22 to oppose PA 4; plaintiffs Evelyn Foreman and Les Little are to her left; Attorneys Darius Charney and John Philo at far left, Monica Patrick (next to sign), Charles Brown and Councilwoman Joann Watson at far right

PUNCH#2:  STATE-WIDE LAWSUIT FILED IN INGHAM COUNTY JUNE 22

Four local law firms and New York City’s Center For Constitutional Rights filed suit against PA 4 on  June 22 in Ingham County Circuit Court. There are 28 plaintiffs from across the state from all walks of life. Defendants are Governor Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon.

The lawsuit, #11-685-CZ, has been assigned to 30^th Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina, but no hearings have been set to date. Aquilina was elected to her seat in 2008 after serving as 55^th District Court Judge since 2004.  She is a major in the Michigan Army National Guard, where she received a commendation medal for Operation Desert Storm and the Army Achievement Medal, and also an adjunct professor at Thomas Cooley Law School.

Press conferences announcing the filing of the lawsuit took place in Detroit, Lansing, Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Flint, and Grand Rapids June 22.

In Detroit, City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, along with three of the Detroit plaintiffs, Edith Lee-Payne, Evelyn Foreman, and Leslie Little, stood in front of the Spirit of Detroit statute outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. They were joined by attorneys including John Philo of the Sugar Law Center and Darius Charney of CCR, who flew in from New York for the event.

Child wonders when legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be fulfilled

“I marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago both here in Detroit and in Washington, D.C.,” Payne said. “As a Christian, mother of two sons, grandmother of eight, and civil rights activist with experiences of racial and social injustices, I have a personal and moral duty to ensure my family and community continue to inherit the constitutional provisions they are entitled to morally and legally in every area of their lives. Countless Black Americans met their deaths with freedom papers in their hands because a select few people refused to acknowledge their rights and freedom.”

Payne has been active recently in battling DTE’s shut-off practices, neglect of Detroit neighborhoods, and takeover of the city’s public lighting provision.

Foreman is a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher who decried the damage that state takeovers have done to the district and the city’s youth, while Little is a long-time community activist, currently working with Hood Research.

Juanita Henry

A Benton Harbor plaintiff, The Honorable Juanita Henry, is a city commissioner who was stripped of her duties by EM Joe Harris.

“They are using Benton Harbor as a test case,” Henry said in earlier remarks. “If they have disenfranchised the people so badly they just don’t respond to anything, they can do this all over the country.”

Unionists and community activists confronted Governor Rick Snyder in person at the area’s Blossomtime Festival in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph (date go to), and previously protested outside City Hall (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=7162 for story.)

Tameka Ramsey

Pontiac plaintiff Tameka Ramsey said, “At a time when every community is struggling and tightening their belts, what Michigan families need and deserve are real solutions from Lansing. Instead, they now face bagmen from big banks who will end services and cut jobs with zero input from local families.”

Philo said the country’s big corporations and financial institutions are behind the enactment of laws like PA 4, which will make it easier for them to pillage the assets of local governments during their own economic crisis.

The lawsuit says PA 4 violates numerous provisions of the Constitution of the State of Michigan.

They include the Nondelegation Doctrine, which provides that powers of legislative bodies (like Detroit’s City Council) cannot be delegated to the city’s chief administrative officer (like Mayor Dave Bing, who was recently exposed in a lawsuit claiming that he met with Gov. Snyder and others to make sure PA 4 would include such provisions.
The Nondelegation Doctrine also bars powers of local officials from being delegated to emergency managers, says the lawsuit.

It says PA 4 delegates more power than the legislature possesses by allowing emergency managers to repeal acts taken by local government bodies, abrogates the right of local electors to form charters such as the Detroit City Charter, and to elect their own officials.

It also cites the Headlee Amendment, which requires that new rules enforced on local governments must be accompanied by adequate financing. PA 4 requires local governments to fund all the expenses associated with emergency managers, without providing any additional funds .

The lawsuit asks for a declaration by the court that the Act violates the State Constitution, and for injunctive relief “restraining present and future emergency managers appointed under the act from implementing or exercising authority and powers” conveyed by the act.

Philo said the lawsuit does not ask for monetary damages to citizens, although it does ask for “attorneys’ fees and costs, and for such further relief as is just and equitable.”

We are the People rally in Lansing April 13

Tanks roll down Linwood to confront Maryanne and Ariana Godboldo, a lone mother and child in their home, on Mar. 24, 2011

AlterNet / By Rania Khalek

Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force

The federal government has supplied local police departments with military uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, and training.

July 5, 2011  |  

Aiyana Stanley-Jones, murdered by Detroit police assault team

Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. (VOD ed. correction: the bullet struck her in the top of the head). The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl’s family.

The shooting death of Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.

Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation carried out by the Huffington Post’s Radley Balko, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

Police with assault weapons stalk Maryanne and Ariana Godboldo March 24, 2011

Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo’nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.

How did we allow our law enforcement apparatus to descend into militaristic chaos? Traditionally, the role of civilian police has been to maintain the peace and safety of the community while upholding the civil liberties of residents in their respective jurisdiction. In stark contrast, the military soldier is an agent of war, trained to kill the enemy.

Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a civil war-era law that prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing. For a long time, Posse Comitatus was considered the law of the land, forcing militarization advocates to come up with creative ways to get around it. In addition to assigning various law enforcement duties to the military, such as immigration control, over the years Congress has instituted policies that encourage law enforcement to emulate combat soldiers. Hence, the establishment of the SWAT team in the 1960s.

Birth of SWAT in LA police raid on Black Panthers

Originally called the Special Weapons Attack Team, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units were inspired by an incident in 1966, when an armed man climbed to the top of the 32-story clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and fired randomly for 90 minutes, shooting 46 people and killing 15, until two police officers got to the top of the tower and killed him. This episode is said to have “shattered the last myth of safety Americans enjoyed [and] was the final impetus the chiefs of police needed” to form their own SWAT teams. Soon after, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed the country’s first SWAT team, which acquired national prestige when used against the Black Panthers in 1969. (VOD ed: Click on  http://witnessla.com/lapd/2011/admin/41st-and-central-1969-the-black-panther-shootout-the-birth-of-swat/.)

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Rennie Gibbs (Facebook photo)

 A new front in the culture wars over abortion.

The Guardian / By Ed Pilkington

July 4, 2011  

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby’s death – they charged her with the “depraved-heart murder” of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

 Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

 “Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws,” said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). “It’s turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights.”

Bei Bei Shuai

 Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.

 Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

 In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state’s “chemical endangerment” law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.

Amanda Kimbrough

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down’s syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

 The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

 Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

 “That shocked me, it really did,” Kimbrough said. “I had lost a child, that was enough.”

 She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. “I’m just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids,” she said. “They say I’m a criminal, how do I answer that? I’m a good mother.”

Women’s rights campaigners see the creeping criminalization of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs’ case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi’s highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion.

US judge frees 2 men wrongly jailed 30 years; Phillip Bivens, second from right, with (from left) attorney Robert McDuff and Emily Maw and Richard Davis of the Innocence Project New Orleans.

“If it’s not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is,” Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court.

 McDuff told the Guardian that he hoped the Gibbs prosecution was an isolated example. “I hope it’s not a trend that’s going to catch on. To charge a woman with murder because of something she did during pregnancy is really unprecedented and quite extreme.”

He pointed out that anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of a person under the state’s bill of rights to include a fetus from the day of conception.

Some 70 organisations across America have come together to file testimonies, known as amicus briefs, in support of Gibbs that protest against her treatment on several levels. One says that to treat “as a murderer a girl who has experienced a stillbirth serves only to increase her suffering”.

Another, from a group of psychologists, laments the misunderstanding of addiction that lies behind the indictment. Gibbs did not take cocaine because she had a “depraved heart” or to “harm the fetus but to satisfy an acute psychological and physical need for that particular substance”, says the brief.

Lynn Paltrow, second from left

Perhaps the most persuasive argument put forward in the amicus briefs is that if such prosecutions were designed to protect the unborn child, then they would be utterly counter-productive: “Prosecuting women and girls for continuing [a pregnancy] to term despite a drug addiction encourages them to terminate wanted pregnancies to avoid criminal penalties. The state could not have intended this result when it adopted the homicide statute.”

Paltrow sees what is happening to Gibbs as a small taste of what would be unleashed were the constitutional right to an abortion ever overturned. “In Mississippi the use of the murder statute is creating a whole new legal standard that makes women accountable for the outcome of their pregnancies and threatens them with life imprisonment for murder.” 

From protection to punishment

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced fetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.

 South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a fetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy. 

In other states laws designed to protect children against the damaging effects of drugs have similarly been twisted to punish childbearers. 

Ed Pilkington is the Guardian’s New York correspondent. He is a former national and foreign editor of the paper, and author of Beyond the Mother Country.

2004 March for Women's Lives Photo by Jo Freeman

Students and supporters rally against Prop. 2 in Lansing in 2006

• Tyranny of the majority overcome in Michigan

• “Thousands of talented Black, Latino and Native American students now have chance to receive education at the state’s finest universities”

By Diane Bukowski

BAMN attorney Monica Smith describes her experience in law school as Shanta Driver and George Washington listen, July 1. 2011

DETROIT, July 1 — In a stunning and long-thirsted for victory against the forces of reaction in this country, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declared Michigan’s Proposal 2 unconstitutional July 1, paving the way to re-instate affirmative action programs in the state.

Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, a state constitutional amendment, in Nov. 2006. It struck down all programs in public educational institutions granting “preferential treatment . . . to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

That included not only students, but workers and businesses contracting with the institutions. Nine out of ten Black voters voted against Proposal 2, but it passed by 58 percent because white voters supported it two to one.

NAACP, ACLU and others also rallied at state capitol in 2006, following BAMN's lead

“This decision means that thousands of talented Black, Latino and Native American students will now have a chance to receive an education at the state’s best universities,” said attorney Shanta Driver, who is National Chairperson of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the plaintiff in the case. “It is a great victory for the new civil rights movement.”

Driver and attorneys George Washington and Monica Smith spoke at a press conference in their downtown Detroit law offices July 1. They said the Sixth Circuit essentially ruled that Michigan could not prevent minorities from seeking admission programs that benefited them while allowing other groups, including children of alumni, athletes, and those scoring good grades in privileged high schools, to seek their own admission programs.

California "Civil Whites Initiative" 209

BAMN has a similar lawsuit pending in the Ninth Circuit against California’s Proposition 209.

“This puts affirmative action back on the national agenda,” Washington said. “The Sixth Circuit’s decision today applies to Proposition 209 and means that the Ninth Circuit has to reexamine its 1996 decision upholding 209.”

The 2-1 decision by the Sixth Circuit, authored by Judge Ransey Cole, Jr., was bold and unequivocal. (Click on  Prop 2 DECISION_BY_SIXTH_CIRCUITto read the full decision.)

“Our task is to determine whether Proposal 2 is constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Cole wrote. “Fortunately, the slate is not blank. The Supreme Court has twice held that equal protection does not permit the kind of political restructuring that Proposal 2 effected. . . . we find that Proposal 2 unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the Defendants-Appellees and order the court to enter summary judgment in favor of the Plaintiff-Appellees.”

Students at UM rally against Missouri Civil Rights Initiative April 2008 Photo by Nick King

The Sixth Circuit also denied motions by the presidents and boards of the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Michigan State University to be dismissed as defendants, in effect ordering them to restore their affirmative action programs.

Cole wrote that two previous Supreme Court decisions, Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467, and Hunter, 393 U.S. at 393, clarify that equal protection of the law is also “an assurance that the majority may not manipulate the channels of change in a manner that places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities . . . . an electoral minority is by definition disadvantaged in its attempts to pass legislation.”

U.S. Sixth Circuit Judge Ransey Guy Cole, Jr.

He thereby shot down arguments by the State Attorney General that people of color in Michigan could overturn the law by conducting their own referendum campaign.

In effect, he took a page straight out of The Tyranny of the Majority, Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy, by Lani Guinier, former candidate for head of the U.S. Justice Civil Rights Department. She proposes alternative scenarios for an electoral process that inherently disadvantages citizens in “minority” groups, who will always lose in a racially-charged climate.

Washington, Driver and Smith said the BAMN court victory resulted from years of struggle by hundreds of .thousands of people, beginning with a 2003 march of 50,000 on the U.S. Supreme Court, when the Court was about to hear two lawsuits challenging the University of Michigan’s affirmative action programs.

Smith entered Wayne State’s law school in 2006 just before Prop 2 passed, and graduated in 2009.

WSU Law School Student Board of Governors

“There were 22 Black students in my class [a total of 145 students graduated in 2010 according to WSU law website],” Smith said. “The next year that number dropped to 11. We have been fighting for years for equality, for the right to live up to our full potential. I graduated from Cass Technical High School, which was 95 percent Black, and I faced many kinds of discrimination at Wayne State, but I passed the bar on my first try. The reason we are victorious now is because we built a movement, we showed our opponents that we do have the power and we will win!”

UM Med School residents, class of 2013

Driver added, “As we watch the rise of the new Jim Crow, this victory is really sweet. Affirmative action programs were always desegregation programs. We saw the most dramatic effects of Proposal 2 in law schools and medical schools. WSU’s medical school used to rank among the best in the country in graduating Black doctors. Their numbers dropped dramatically after Prop 2 passed. At UM’s law school, there was a 75 percent drop in the number of Black and Latino students. We had seen it happen in California with Proposition 209, and we knew it would happen here.”

Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a statement that he will appeal the ruling through a formal request for rehearing enbanc (with the full U.S. Sixth Circuit Court). He claimed Proposal would remain in force pending their decision.

Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette

He cynically called Proposal 2 “The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” (MCRI), the name used by the group which put it on the ballot, led by California regent Ward Conerly and financed by millions in donations from right-wing foundations. BAMN battled to keep the proposal off the ballot, gathering numerous affidavits from witnesses indicating that its petition gatherers were telling signers that it supported affirmative action.

“MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law,” said Schuette. “Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law.”

But BAMN’s attorneys welcomed the opportunity to broaden the struggle. They said if the case ends up at the U.S. Supreme Court, they will mobilize millions more across the U.S. in support of affirmative action.

George Wallace standing in Mississippi school door to prevent Blacks from attending

“Schuette and Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder are standing in the schoolhouse door just as George Wallace did in Mississippi,” Washington said.

The attorneys also stressed the necessity of building a movement for fully-financed, free public education at all levels.

Smith recently coordinated the battle to save Catherine Ferguson Academy, a Detroit Public School which garnered national attention because it educates teen mothers and their children as well. On June 16, CFA achieved a partial victory, when the district announced the school would remain open as a charter.

Rally to save CFA May 11, 2011

Most of the Detroit Public School system has been decimated. Over half of its schools have closed during two state take-overs since 1999, thousands of Detroit resident teachers and support staff have lost their jobs, and private contracts have been doled out to wealthy corporations like candy.

Under state law, Detroit Public Schools students receive approximately $7,600 in state per-pupil aid, while students from wealthy suburbs like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills receive approximately $12,000.

Smith said the effect on Detroit’s youth has been disastrous, and along with the ban on affirmative action further limits their opportunities to achieve their full potential by attending college and securing well-paying jobs to support their families.

Go to www.bamn.com for more information on the group’s national struggles; Monica Smith can be reached at 313-585-3637,

Translation of Gaddafi speech by Karim Budabuss:

The leader is talking now. He is saying that this is a historical day, and he is challenging Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama to switch on their TVs and watch the crowds and he is saying that they will find out that they are delusional because they entered a war which they never win, he also says if you continue targeting our houses we can do the same because Europe is not far away but he said let’s not do this and watch the crowds, kids and women. They are not here because I ordered them to, it is their free will. In this war you are not facing me you are facing these crowds. I am nothing, if you want peace with Libyans, it is up to the crowds. If you want anything , negotiate with the crowds. The regime is not a Gaddafi regime, it is a Libyan regime. Even if many got scared, defected and escaped, the Libyans will remain, and each coward will be replaced with a hero. Is it a democracy to bomb the civilians? We don’t want a democracy which comes with bombs. The socialist Jamahyria will win, the real democracy which serves the people.

I advise you to stop bombing, and stop becoming merecenaries for some rebels. The Libyans said their words, they marched, their tribes made it clear that the future is for Libyans, the oil is for Libya, Libya is ours. You are delusional, a group of traitors convinced you that Libya is easy to get, you hired mercenarie , propaganda, psychological war, but all that didn’t allow you to make any progress on the ground. Turn on your TVs and watch the longest Libyan flag 4.5 km, I didn’t make this flag, people donated to make this flag. Those rebels are no different from who betrayed Libya during the Italian invasion. Libyan people go in millions without weapons to liberate the regions under rebel control. You Libyan people are the only one who can finish this war with a victory. If they want to negotiate we welcome that, otherwise we are continuing and they are definitely losing no matter how many weapons they drop with parachutes to the rebels. We will not betray our history nor our children and their future. The glory is for you brave Libyans, the struggle will continue.

Translation from: http://www.facebook.com/VivaGaddafi

(VOD ed. note: Cynthia McKinney is back in the U.S.; at time of press conference sponsored by Min. Louis Farrakhan in video above, she was still in Libya)

Press Conference on War Against Libya
Atlanta, Georgia (in front of Congressman John Lewis’s District Office)
29 June 2011

Pres. Obama places medal of freedom on U.S. Cong. John Lewis; Lewis did not join the majority of the House of Representatives in voting against continued funding for the war on Libya

At a time when the American people have been asked to tighten their belts, teachers are receiving pink slips, the vital statistics of the American people reveal a health care crisis in the making, and the U.S. government is in serious threat of default, our President and Congress have decided that a new war, this time against the people of Libya, is appropriate.

This comes at a time when the U.S., by one estimate, spends approximately $3 billion per week for war against Iraq and Afghanistan.  The President and Congress continue to fund the war against Libya despite the fact that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. had no strategic interest in Libya; and despite the fact that the Senate Chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence admits that the U.S. really does not know who the “rebels” are; while the rebels themselves, according to a Telegraph report of 25 March 2011, admit that Al Qaeda elements are among their ranks. 

So while the apparatus of our government has been used for over ten years to inform the American people and the global community that Al Qaeda is an enemy of freedom-loving people all over the world, our President chooses to ally our military with none other than Al Qaeda elements in Libya and other people whom U.S. intelligence say they do not know.

Libyans rally in support of Qaddafi at house where his son and three little grandchildren were murdered by US/NATO bombs

Additionally, U.S. Admiral Locklear admitted to a Member of Congress that one of NATO’s missions was to assassinate Muammar Qaddafi.  And, indeed, NATO bombs have killed Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren, just as US bombs in 1986 killed his daughter.  NATO bombs just recently killed the grandchildren of one of Qaddafi’s associates in a targeted assassination attempt. Targeted assassination is not within the scope of the United Nations Security Council Resolution and targeted assassination is against U.S. law, international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law.  Targeted assassination is also a crime.  We certainly cannot encourage others to abide by the law when we so openly break it.

While in Libya, I witnessed NATO’s targeting of civilians:  NATO bombs and missiles landed in residential neighborhoods, hit schools, exploded near hospitals, destroyed parts of the public broadcasting infrastructure, and narrowly missed killing students at Al Fateh University.  When civilians are targeted in war, or “low kinetic” activities, crimes are committed.

Israel's deadly assault on Gaza

NATO practices in Libya are exactly like Israel’s practices in Gaza:  fishermen are killed as they go about their fishing business, a naval blockade allows arms to flow to NATO’s Libyan allies, but stops food, fuel, and medicine from entering non-NATO ally-held areas.  The entire population suffers as a result.  Collective punishment is illegal when Israel practices it against the people of Gaza and collective punishment is illegal when NATO practices it.

NATO and hyperbolic press accounts have introduced a kind of race hatred that the Libyan people have been trying hard to erase.  Approximately 50% of Libya looks like me.  Innocent darker skinned Libyans have been targeted, tortured, harassed, and killed.

The people of Libya have the right to self-determination.  They have a right to “resource nationalism.”  They have a right to live in peace.  They have a right to determine their future and they need not exercise their rights underneath the shock and awe of NATO bombs and missiles.

•  New Catherine Ferguson charter operator Evans Solutions runs prison schools as Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy (BKBA)
• Blair Evans (shown at left) is former DPD Police Chief and Sheriff Warren Evans’ brother
• Original BKBA resident agent was Jeriel Heard, now Chief of Wayne Co. Jails and Courts
• For-profit Evans Solutions not registered with state as a business
• Non-profit BKBA not registered with IRS
• Numerous past no-bid contract scandals involving Evans Solutions, Inc.

 By Diane Bukowski

June 29, 2011 

DETROIT – The major daily media, and even so-called “progressive” media, have celebrated the supposed “salvation” of Catherine Ferguson Academy and its young mothers and children by Blair Evans. Evans allegedly runs a for-profit company variously called Evans Solutions, Inc., or Evans Educators, as local activist and urban farm advocate Grace Lee Boggs termed it (http://michigancitizen.com/cfa-an-important-victory-p9982-77.htm.).

Evans Solutions, Inc. HQ in former Akwaaba Center at 8045 Second

Evans Solutions runs Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy (BKBA), an alleged non-profit agency, which will also take over two other Detroit public schools this fall, Barsamian and Hancock. BKBA primarily runs charter schools in juvenile prisons and involuntary “residential” settings.

Evans is the brother of former Wayne County Sheriff and Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans, who previously co-owned Evans Solutions. According to Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, Blair Evans “began his career in juvenile justice and information technology before moving into charter education 10 years ago.”

Evans touted as farmer

 “Evans is well-known by CFA,” Michigan Citizen weekly columnist Shea Howell said on the Boggs Blog. “He accompanied the group to South Africa. He is committed to ideas of urban agriculture and has worked with Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee. Evans came to the school saying he was glad they had ‘found a solution to what was becoming not just a local but a national and international concern.’”

CFA grad (l) with mother at June 16 rally outside school

CFA advocates earlier expressed apprehension about its takeover by Evans Solutions and/or Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy. CFA is an alternative school for teen mothers and mothers-to-be, one of only three in the country according to its principal Asenath Andrews. Infants and children come to school with their young mothers, where they also receive age-appropriate instruction.

 “When I was told I was being assigned to CFA, I thought I was going to a detention center of some kind, but CFA turned out to be entirely different,” one young CFA graduate told VOD during the June 16 rally (see VOD story at  .) She and her mother credited CFA with her current post-high school education and career ambitions. CFA graduates 90 percent of its students, all of whom continue on to college.

Another CFA advocate said, “CFA students are not ‘criminals’ because they are teen mothers or pregnant. They deserve not to be treated as such.”

CFA has complete curriculum, not just urban farm

CFA has a complete academic curriculum in addition to its much touted urban farming program.

CFA student listens to teacher Nicole Conaway, who was arrested during April 15 sit-in to save the school, at rally June 16

Its qualified Detroit Public School teachers, however, have been told that they will have to re-apply for their jobs at CFA. Evans Solutions’ human resources representative has so far missed two meetings scheduled with them to talk about their terms of employment, wages and benefits.

“Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy is a strict discipline academy that opened in September 2001 in two sites,” according to an Oct. 2010 report by BKBA’s charter authorizer, Wayne RESA.

“It now has six sites, with plans to open two more. As a strict discipline academy, B.K. Bruce Academy enrolls students who have been placed by the courts or students who have been expelled from their previous schools and are required by law to attend strict discipline academies only, or are referred by their parents. . . . Due to the demographic nature of student population (i.e., court placement), the number of students fluctuates throughout the year. Although enrollment figures show approximately 375 students are enrolled in the six sites operated by the Academy, it is estimated that the Academy serves approximately 2000 students annually.”

Blanche Kelso Bruce runs lock-up schools, files no non-profit reports required by IRS

According to Wayne RESA and other state records, Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy runs schools in the following “residential” (read lock-up) institutions:

*Spectrum Juvenile Justice Services: HQ Westland, MI. The mission is to rehabilitate delinquent youthful offenders, substance abusers, sex offenders, violent offenders and those with specialized learning needs.

Wayne County Juvenile Detention Center across from adult prison in downtown Detroit

**Wolverine Human Services, based in Grosse Pointe Park, got more than $37 million state funds in 2007 to lodge and provide education and counseling for juvenile offenders who commit violent crimes, the company’s tax return indicates. The not-for-profit organization runs residential camps, mostly for 13- to 17-year-olds, in Buena Vista, Detroit and Vassar.

1. Wayne Co. Juvenile Detention Center: numerous past reports of abuse of residents.

2. Calumet Center: Spectum  operates two juvenile detention centers for males, Calumet Center in Highland Park and Eliot Center in Detroit.  Unclear if BKBA still operates Calumet.

Calumet Youth Detention Center, Highland Park

3. The Wolverine Assessment and Diagnostic Center: emergency placement for males, ages 6-18. Many clients have been removed from violent or emotionally tense situations. Clients are also placed at the center after being removed due to the client’s behavioral problems.

Wolverine Diagnostic Assessment and Treatment Center

4. Depaul Youth Treatment Center: A medium-security mental health facility, The Center will provide short and long term mental health treatment services.Will serve youth referred by the Wayne County Care Management Organizations. 27 Boys, 12 to 17 years old.

5. St. Jude’s Home for Boys: residential group facility for males, ages 12-17 suffering effects of abuse and/or neglect. Many of these clients have failed in foster homes or relative placements.

St. Jude Home for Boys

6. Samaritan Center:  A Michigan charter school, serving youth outside of “the educational mainstream” in grades 5-12. Partnering with local, regional and national resources to effectively serve  students and their families. 

7. Victor Center: WHS provides long-term treatment services to male adolescents, ages 12-17, who present as cognitively low functioning and have a history of sexually reactive behavior or sexual acting out. All clients are referred through the Michigan Department of Human Services.

BKBA receives per-pupil state aid, approximately $7,600 for each student, along with unknown amounts of other federal funds available for at-risk and impoverished children through various grants. Records of how it uses these public funds are not publicly available. BKBA is not listed on Guidestar.org, which provides copies of financial reports and annual IRS form 990’s for non-profits. If the non-profit does not send these to Guidestar, the IRS does.

As indicated above, state records show no evaluation of academic achievement for BKBA facilities, except for one “level 5” rating for Samaritan Center under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

VOD has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Wayne RESA for these records for all BKBA facilities with its charter authorizer, Wayne County RESA.

Evans Solutions not registered with state or county

Warren Evans in trailer for reality show "The Chief"

It is questionable whether Evans Solutions, Inc. itself even exists. It is not registered, either under that or any similar name, including Evans Educators, with the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth. All private corporations in Michigan are required to register with the state. Neither is it registered on Wayne County’s “assumed names” list. It has no website.

According to earlier media reports, Evans Solutions, Inc. was co-owned by Blair and Warren Evans until Warren Evans allegedly put his share of the business into a trust. Warren Evans headed the police department under Mayor Dave Bing until the existence of a secret contract with a film company to profile him in a regular series surfaced last year, and he was fired.

Aiyana Jones classmate Diamond Howard with her photo, father Charles Jones grieves behind her

He was police chief when Detroit cop Joseph Weekley and a Special Response Team (SRT) shot and killed seven-year-old Aiyana Jones after bombing her home, while A&E’s “48 Hours” was filming. No discipline, discharge, or criminal charges have been brought against them to date.

Evans Solutions is headquartered at 8045 Second Avenue, former home of the Akwaaba Center.

Wayne County Treasurer records show only two taxpayers at that address: the Pan-African Orthodox Church and Residential Care Alternative, Inc. In the Wayne County Register of Deeds, Evans Solutions, Inc. appears only because of numerous liens placed on it by the Michigan Employment Security Commission (MESC).

BKBA President is Genesee Asst. Prosecutor; agent is Chief of Wayne County Jails

Jeriel Heard, BKBA agent, now County Chief of Jails

Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy is registered with the state, but Evans’ name is not listed as its resident agent, president, CEO, or director. He has been described as its superintendent in one report. Its president is listed as Anson E. Rhodes, of 950 Dewey St. Lapeer Michigan, an attorney currently employed as an Assistant Prosecutor in Genesee County.

According to state documents, BKBA was incorporated in 2001. Its resident agent then was Jeriel Heard, currently Chief of Wayne County Jails and Courts under county Sheriff Benny Napoleon. According to the County’s website, he was an Assistant Wayne County Executive and Director of the Wayne County Department of Community Justice from 1997 through 2002. Prior to that, Heard held the position of Deputy Director of the Department of Community Justice from 1991 to 1997.

(Click on http://www.waynecounty.com/sheriff_divisions_exec_jheard.htm.)

Neither Evans Solutions, nor Evans Educators, nor Blair Evans, nor BKB were among the eighteen charter operators who bid on 45 Detroit Public Schools slated for the chopping block under former DPS czar Robert Bobb (victim of what some might call a “what goes around comes around” fate).

Evans Solutions involved in numerous no-bid contract scandals

Wayne Co. Sheriff Benny Napoleon among those sued in whistleblower lawsuit citing Evans Solutions

The connections between Evans Solutions, BKBA and law enforcement figures are likely no accident. Scandals have surfaced repeatedly since 2000  regarding  Evans Solutions contracts  involving Wayne County, the Wayne County Jail, Detroit Public Schools, and the Wayne County Airport Authority.

They include:

• A whistleblower lawsuit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court against Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, Asst.Exec. Azzam Elder, and Sheriff Benny Napoleon in Nov. 2010 by Ralph Kinney. Kinney, employed by the County since 1986, was Director of its Dept. of Community Justice in 2003, and later Asst. County Executive until he was fired in Nov. 2007. 
• He alleges among other matters, “In approximately Feb. 2003, Mr. Kinney discovered and turned over information to the FBI regarding questionable contracts between Wayne County and Evans Solutions, Inc., a company closely connected to then Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans.” Kinney says Wayne Co. Undersheriff Larry Meyers met with him to threaten him with being charged with a crime if he continued cooperating with the FBI. He was in fact later charged, but the charges were dismissed in 36^th District Court.

• 

  Wayne Co. Exec. Robert Ficano (r) and his executive Azzam Elder (l) are being sued by Ralph Kinney; Ficano aide Turkia Mullin is in center

   A similar whistleblowers’ lawsuit was filed by Marlene Hagans, Deputy Director of Children and Family Services, after her discharge the following year.

• Former Wayne Co. Commissioner Susan Hubbard filed an affidavit stating, “In March, 2003, Daniel Mercier informed me he had been hired by Ralph Kinney to investigate suspected illegal activity in the Wayne County Dept. of Children and Family Services, including various contracts between the Department and various entities who were supposed to provide services for the Depart. Mercier said such contracts included those related to Evans Solutions, Inc., a company owned at least in part by Blair Evans, the brother of Warren Evans.”

• 

  Bruce Nisbet, Pres/CEO Spectrum Human Services

  As a result of allegations by Kinney and Hagans, Inspector General David Esper audited Dept. of Children and Family Services (formerly the Dept. of Community Justice) contracts. In a 28-page report, Esper found that the department failed to bid out two multiyear contracts for the operation of an 80-bed secure juvenile treatment facility. One contract was with Calumet Center for $20 million and one with Spectrum Human Services Inc for $25 million.

• The Free Press reported, “Among those named in the report were Jeriel Heard, director of the community justice department from 1997 to 2002, and Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans. Heard is alleged to have steered a lucrative contract to a company — Evans Solutions Inc. — co-founded by Evans and run by the sheriff’s brother, Blair Evans.”
• Previously, Wayne County Auditor General Brian Dunleavy filed a whistleblower suit against county officials alleging that he had been discharged for forwarding audits to the FBI identifying more than $1 million in overpayments to nonprofit agencies contracted to provide care for troubled youth, and claims that Warren and Blair Evans benefited from no-bid contracts with the Wayne County Airport Authority.

• 

  Robert Bobb’s Inspector General John E. Bell, Jr. of the FBI should have been looking into Bobb’s no-bid contracts.

  Apparently, Blair Evans was not scared off by the Auditor Generals or the FBI, which has never lodged charges against him. A Wayne County jail employee alleged later, “Blair Evans received $373,000 thru 7 different payments to Evans Solutions between August 2007 to September 2008. He was supposed to design a program to get inmates working in the jail kitchen certifed in culinary arts. Problem is they have all the cashed checks, but cannot find ANY inmates that went through the program.” 

• According to a May, 2011 report by former DPS czar Robert Bobb, a company called Evans Consulting Services, also not listed with the state, received total of $421,855 from a DPS no-bid contract in the previous six months. In his Nov. 2010 report, Bobb also listed over $55,000 in payments to an unregistered company called Evans Food Services. 

VOD ed. note: Prior to this story’s publication, Blair Evans did not respond to a phone call and a follow-up email from VOD asking to interview him, although he has been quoted extensively in various other newspapers. He is welcome to respond to this article in writing to Voice of Detroit, P.O. Box 32684, Detroit, MI 48232.

Members of Detroit and Muskegon delegations to Benton Harbor march against PA 4 visit beautiful Jean Klock Park beach May 7, 2011 Photo: Diane Bukowski

RACHEL MADDOW BLOG  http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/

By Laura Conaway
–
Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:32 PM EDT

The thing about living in Michigan and having an emergency financial manager take over your school district or your town is that the emergency manager really does have dictatorial power. If that person says your school is closing, then it’s closing, unless that person changes his or her mind.

Sign at entrance to Jean Klock Park beach

In Benton Harbor, a mostly black and poor town with an emergency manager, folks are just waking up to an order the manager issued on May 4 that restricts access to the public waterfront park. Jean Klock Park was deeded to Benton Harbor in 1917 “in perpetuity.”

Part of it has been turned into a luxury golf resort, with the help of an economic development group that until recently included the sponsor of the emergency manager law on its board of directors.

Harbor Shores Golf Club in Benton Harbor

Under the new order, first reported by the Michigan Messenger, people will only be able to use the park between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. — no more early morning walks along the lake. What’s more, emergency manager Joseph Harris has decreed: “The annual season during which Jean Klock Park is open begins on each May 1 and ends on the following September 30, inclusive.” That would appear to mean that “in perpetuity” could stop in the fall and pick up again in the spring.

Harbor Shores condos encroashing on Jean Klock Park

Friends of Jean Klock Park say it had been open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. year-round. Park advocate Clellen Bury has posted a letter to Mr. Harris suggesting that the park has been closed off because of preparation for upcoming athletic events, including a Senior PGA tournament next year. The new order violates both the deeding of the park and the city’s lease with the golf resort, the advocate writes. The message includes this: “As my tax dollars are being used to pay for your salary, I would appreciate a full and prompt response to the concerns and points I have raised in this letter.”

Children of Benton Harbor need Jean Klock Park

But Mr. Harris need answer to no one in Benton Harbor. He has stripped the local elected officials of all but their most ceremonial powers. Benton Harbor is now run by one state-appointed person. Over on Eclectablog, you can find a critique of the emergency manager law from a Tea Party perspective — I recommend reading it. UPDATE: We’ve got a call in to Mr. Harris, and he’s hosting a town hall tonight. If we find out more, we’ll post it.

Rev. Edward Pinkney leads mass march against golf course opening, sponsored by Whirlpool, last year Photo: Daymon Hartley

Sent by Cynthia McKinney, June 29, 2011

Cynthia McKinney

June 29, 2011

 

The US Corporate Media, and the US government, continue to methodically hide, from the public, the fact that the Libyan rebels they are supporting have been, and continue to, rape, mutilate and brutally murder Black Africans within Libya. The rebels are not who they say they are—they are brutal racist killers who are completely being supported by the US government and its corporate media minions. The video above is an example of the aforementioned…from 

http://yourworldnews.org/blog/?p=791

Uploaded by Libyaalwasatiya on Jun 26, 2011

Two young African-American men are taken from the Grand County Jail and lynched in the public square. August 9, 1930 Marion, Indiana, USA

This is the fate of everyone pro gaddafi without any trial, any justice just kill them, this is pure murder. What you do now will haunt you later, where is the shuyookh of the ummah why aren’t they talking about this (harj/killings) or have they all become puppets? Why don’t they come out on television stopping this, this is getting ridiculous killings by rebels and nato and claims from G this will never end until you’re all dead and it made Shaykh al Qaradawi and NATO happy. Wake up you drunken fools! To kill one soul is not a party, you will abide in hell therein wallahi you guys are effing drunk with anger running your blood like a need runs a vein.You don’t know what you’re doing, stop supporting this this is fitnah a huge fitnah of harj/killings.

Lynching in the U.S.

COMMENTS

• Shameful, vile, disgusting. I can’t believe that so many on the left are choosing to deliberately overlook the character of the so-called “revolutionaries” in Libya.
• A bunch of primative savages. A disgrace and an outrage to humanity. What people will do for oil profits. On the left, ignoring this? What did Bush and his fellow criminals do to Iraq for oil profts? They murdered and displaced its people .pludering the country. This is sick, and the cancer started growing here in the USA.
• John McCain’s heroes… no comment…
• rebels monsters
• This is just a video of NATO supported rebels lynching a black man. I had heard from other sources that racism, violence, and fundamentalism are common among them. Many of the rebels are apparently former mujaheddin. My reference to DU and drones come from other news reports.
• We could add to this that Congress is not happy that the President entered this war without even consulting them. The Constitution says only Congress has the authority to declare war.
• Let me get this straight. NATO is using depleted uranium and US drone bombers against civilians in Tripoli in order to protect a gang of thugs who are lynching black people?
• these people are scumbags, filthy animals. It was so hard for me to watch this video. Extremely upsetting
• I didn’t expect anything less, they are all complicit.
• speechless 

Pres. Barack Obama claims wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end but supports war on Libya

VOD editor:  Absolutely heart-wrenching and sickening; the video above made my chest hurt and my heart race. I can only imagine what effect it would have on millions of African-Americans whose heritage includes hundreds of thousands of incidents like the 1930 lndiana lynching shown above.

How can Pres. Barack Obama stand before the U.S. public as he did in his press conference this week and support the US-NATO war on Libya? 

STOP!!!!