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

Photo montage by VOD

By Diane Bukowski

 Commentary on the Bing, Snyder, Duncan, Bobb, Lewis et al. orgy

DETROIT – Just before Mayor Dave Bing’s former executive assistant Rochelle Collins filed her lawsuit against him and his now former chief of communications Karen Dumas, Bing announced it contained “salacious” allegations.

Karen Dumas and Dave Bing: Detroit's latest celebrity couple

Collins levels charges in the suit that Dumas falsely accused her of authoring an anonymous letter stating Bing and Dumas were having an affair, and that Dumas told her the Mayor and his wife Yvette have a “strange” marriage.  She says Dumas ran around on shopping trips during a joint trip to Washington, D.C., preventing Bing from having a scheduled meeting with a U.S. Senator. (Lawsuit pdf too large to download to VOD; click on http://detnews.com/article/20110616/METRO01/106160424/Ex-Bing-aide%E2%80%99s-lawsuit-stirs-City-Hall-turmoil for link to lawsuit, at right of article. )

Rochelle Collins with husband Oreese Collins, Jr, former DPS purchasing chief; is this why she wanted mayoral control over DPS?

Here we go again. But whether Bing and Dumas were screwing around on the side, or whether Dumas was busy stocking up on Burberry apparel, is not the point.

The real and absolutely appalling affair exposed in the lawsuit is that between Bing and Governor Rick(tator) Snyder.  According to Collins, not only did those two have a relationship which gravely betrayed Bing’s oath of office, it was a regular orgy involving U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, DPS czar Robert Bobb, Bing’s Group Executive Kirk Lewis, and various and sundry staff members of all involved.

According to Collins, Bing, Snyder, et. al. were intimately involved in the birth of Public Act 4, better known as the “Dictator” Act. They also planned to eliminate officials elected by the people of Detroit, including the City Council and the Detroit Public School Board, and put the city and school district under the dictatorial rule of Bing as emergency manager. 

So the issue is not whether Bing is screwing Dumas, but that Bing, Snyder et. al. are screwing the people.

More players in Bing-Rick-tator gate orgy: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, billionaire advocate of charter schools Eli Broad

Dumas and Collins, while aiding and abetting this clandestine orgy, no doubt provided a titillating sideshow for its chief players. They are now providing a distracting “catfight” for the daily media to amuse itself with, while ignoring the real scandal. Unashamed, Dumas even had the nerve to appear on Channel 2’s “Let It Rip.”

The dark heart of the lawsuit is the following section:

Suit says DPS communications chief Steve Wasko and DPS czar Robert Bobb were part of conspiracy

“With the full knowledge and authorization of Defendant Mayor Bing, Plaintiff [Collins]participated in the strategy developed by the Governor and his Executive Staff,  the Emergency Financial Manager of Detroit Public Schools (DPS), Defendant Mayor Bing, and the Group Executive to transfer control of DPS to the Mayor of Detroit; including, but not limited to, performing the following duties:

• Worked with a consultant paid for by the Bing Institute (click on BING Institute helps put feet to big ideas) to conduct polling of Detroit citizens whether they support mayoral control of DPS, the results of which showed overwhelming support for the idea; 
• Scheduled clandestine meetings between Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, the Governor and/or his Executive Staff, and/or the DPS’ Emergency Financial Manager to develop and execute the strategy; 
• Worked with stakeholders to ensure that Public Act 4 contained all necessary provisions to accomplish the goals of the strategy, which included Defendant Mayor Dave Bing being named emergency manager for the city of Detroit and DPS, and dissolving both the Detroit City Council and the DPS School Board; 
• Participated in meetings with the Group Executive, the U.S. Department of Education, the Deputy Superintendent for DPS, and/or the chief communications officer for DPS to develop and execute the strategy; and 
• Handled every detail of the Group Executive’s transition to become the new Emergency Manager for DPS, and worked closely with the Governor’s Administration and the existing Emergency Manager to finalize details of the transition and ensure that all paperwork was in order.

 

Recount hearing called for by Tom Barrow (l) Dec. 23, 2009 was packed by his supporters

To add injury to injury, Bing was clearly not truly elected as Mayor of the City of Detroit in 2009. The recount conducted on the election, requested by his opponent Tom Barrow, found that up to 60 percent of the vote, including 100 percent of all absentee ballots, were classified as “non-recountable.”

Barrow has appealed his lawsuit to the State Supreme Court. But if the “mayor” becomes Bing-tator of Detroit and the Detroit Public Schools, the issue of whether he was honestly elected will become moot.

APTE Vice-President Cecily McClellan at Charter Commission meeting Aug. 10, 2010

Meanwhile, said Cecily McClellan, vice-president of the city workers’ Association of Professional and Technical Employees, the City Council needs to begin action to remove Bing for violation of his oath of office by conspiring to trash the Council, the School Board, the City Charter and the State Constitution. She said members of various organizations plan to appear in front of City Council to demand action Tues. June 21 during public comment in the morning session.

Also see upcoming stories on campaign for a referendum to repeal Public Act 4, which was rolled out at AFSCME Council 25’s hall in Detroit June 18, and 12 other cities across the state; the privatization of Catherine Ferguson Academy and other DPS schools under Evans Solutions (owned by Blair Evans, brother of Warren Evans, former Wayne County Sheriff and Detroit police chief);  and update on new assault on DPS announced today by Rick-tator Snyder.

By Todd A. Heywood | 03.30.10 | 7:31 am

Michigan Messenger

Michigan prisoner at work

LANSING — Under a budget proposal released by the Michigan House GOP last week, prisoners housed in the Michigan Department of Corrections would see their pay for work and educational assignments eliminated, and an increase the fees assessed for phone calls. Advocates for prisoners call the move “immoral” and the MDOC says it opposes the plan.

Under the proposal, the state would eliminate $11 million in prisoner pay, and raise an additional $4 million by charging prisoners more for phone calls.

The prisoner pay policy (pdf) on the MDOC website shows prisoners are paid anywhere from 17.5 cents an hour to $1.24 an hour. Some prisoners are eligible for pay of $3.29 per day to $3.34 per day.

John Cordell, an MDOC spokesperson, says prisoner pay is important to making prison life “more tenable.”

“It gives them a little bit of spending money,” Cordell said. “It allows them to buy some extra goods through their prisoner store.”

Prison store

Those items include food items and writing supplies. The prisoners are also allowed to use money in their accounts to purchase goods through “approved vendors.” Those goods can include tennis shoes and clothing, says Cordell.

“[If that pay is eliminated] then the state may be subject to that expenditure. That would be a greater loss [budget wise],” Cordell said.

Cordell said the money spent in the prisoner stores are then used to finance the store operations, as well as other prison related expenses such as purchasing new recreation equipment and paying for cable or satellite costs.

State Rep. John Proos (R-St. Joesph) called Cordell’s argument a “misnomer.” He said the legislature would be very willing to shell out $250,000 for exercise equipment in order to save the state $11 million in prisoner pay.

Asked if the MDOC supported the budget proposal Cordell said he had not discussed it with the administration of the department, but he said he “doubts” it would garner support.

He also said that there are other good reasons to maintain the program. “It provides an incentive for our prisoners to work or go to school,” Cordell said.

Penny Ryder, co-director of the Criminal Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee in Ann Arbor, says that the prisoner pay is about more than “incentive.”

A prison reform conference at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ included a panel of prison reform advocates representing various agencies accross Michigan. Left to right: David Tjapkes, Penny Ryder, Kay Perry, Miriam J. Aukerman and David Moore. Photo by Bethany Duemler

“The prisoners definitely need to have meaningful work. One of the big issues for many prisoners is that they never had a work ethic,” Ryder explained. “In our culture a work ethic is tied to some form of compensation. [Eliminating the pay] would be equating them with slaves again, and many of the prisoners are African Americans, and it doesn’t provide an appropriate philosophy in terms of the work ethic. We try to get them to understand that they need to put in a good day’s work for their pay.”

Ryder says her group encourages prisoners to save their payments for their eventual release. But she said they find many spend their money on food from the prisoner store because the prisoners don’t like the food served in the “chow hall.”

“Some prisoners have put their children through college — or helped put them through college — with the money they have earned, little by little with the work in prison,” says Ryder. “And they should be allowed to do that.”

“We are built on the idea of being a capitalistic society,” says Ryder. “We should show that standard and acknowledge that standard for prisoners’ work.”

Michigan State Sen. John Proos

Rep. John Proos, Minority Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Corrections and Human Services Subcommittee, said he takes Ryder’s views “very seriously.”

“I would not disagree with that perspective at all,” he said, “but during these extraordinary times, we have to make tough cuts.”

He said he would like to see the committee hold a hearing about the proposal to eliminate prisoner pay, so that the committee could fully hear the perspective of Ryder and her program. He said that in doing so the public may better understand the importance of the program and how it reduces recidivism.

Prisoner pay rates have not been increased in “at least” 10 years, Ryder said. And her group has been advocating for an increase, not an elimination or reduction. She notes that while prisoner pay rates have stagnated, costs in the prisoner store and for approved items from approved vendors has increased.

A second proposal would reinstate a surcharge on all phone calls from prisoners. The GOP plan says the surcharge would raise an additional $4 million. But exactly how much that surcharge would be was not detailed.

Proos said he could not recall what the original surcharge was, nor could he recall what the surcharge was that was used to calculate the $4 million revenue stream. But he said it was a conservative estimate based on technology, the former surcharge rate, and the cost of bidding the phone service out to a third party. The last of those items, he said, was particularly difficult and is currently undergoing a bidding process.

He called the surcharge a “significant” revenue generator for the department. He sad the item was eliminated in the 2008-2009 budget, at the insistence of Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Salem Twp.).

“It’s an argument Chairman Smith made and it’s one she won on a public policy debate,” said Proos about the earlier elimination of the surcharge.

The GOP plan noted that when the surcharge was being charged to prisoners it resulted in a $10 million revenue stream to the state. Again, specifics of the surcharge at the time were not included in the plan.

But Ryder says the move to start the charge over again was “discriminatory.”

“We believed it was discriminatory. It unfairly targets a class of people and if you communicate with that class of people, you are gouged,” said Ryder. “I believe it is totally immoral and unethical for the state to try to bring in a tax for something like this.”

The charge, Ryder says, has been an unfair burden in years past. She said some family members, eager to continue communications with their loved one, racked up huge phone bills in the process. She said some families ended up declaring bankruptcy as a result.

“We fought and fought for years to get the cost of a telephone call down to where it is because we know communication with the outside world is very important,” Ryder said. “In some situations making telephone calls is necessary and with the focus on re-entry all studies have shown that a contact with a family is extremely important in the recidivism rate going down.”

Attorneys Jerry Goldberg and Vanessa Fluker (speaking) opened rally

ORGANIZERS MOBILIZE AGAINST ARCHITECTS OF CITY’S RUIN

PLANS INCLUDE: 

• Moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County; investigation of bank and mortgage fraud
• National moratorium on foreclosures
• Referendum campaign vs.  PA 4 to be kicked off Sat. June 18, 11 a.m. at AFSCME Council 25 in Detroit and across the state
• Class action lawsuit vs. PA 4 announcement Wed. June 22 at Spirit of Detroit and cities across Michigan
• Urban Marshall Plan to bail out the cities; $15 billion for Michigan
• Mass meeting at Erma Henderson Auditorium in late July to target the banks
• Seizure of homes illegally taken by banks and governments
• People’s control of government budgets
• International Tribunal vs. the banks at Dems Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Sept. 4 2012
• Take back the annual $700 billion military budget to fund needs at home; end U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere

By Diane Bukowski

Moratorium NOW! marches in downtown Detroit with unions, community Aug. 28, 2010

DETROIT – While Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council haggle over what services to cut from the budget of the poorest city in the country, while Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts gets set to close 45 more schools on top of 100 others, while metro Detroiter homeowners continue to be thrown on the streets, a group of activists convened June 11 to target the archenemy behind the devastation: the BANKS and their lackeys.

MAKE THE BANKS PAY! was the rallying cry for the small but influential crowd from Detroit, Cleveland, Wisconsin and North Carolina that gathered at UAW Local 22’s headquarters.  The meeting was sponsored by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition against Foreclosures, Evictions and Shut-Offs, and the Harriet Tubman School.

Protest against the IMF in Athens, Greece May, 2010

Speakers said they hope to build a massive people’s movement to reclaim the wealth the banks stole and return it to the people, like that which is rising throughout the rest of the world. 

“This is not an individual fight, this is not a legal fight, this is not a political fight—this is a justice fight!” said attorney Vanessa Fluker. “The people have to come together to make this happen! We need 50,000 people out in the streets to start!”

Fluker is battling an $18,000 fine levied on her by Judge Robert Colombo because of her determined battles against the banks to keep families in their homes. (See coming story on June 2 fundraiser for Fluker and the battle against foreclosures, held at UAW Local 600, for more on this, including comments by Fluker and Goldberg.)

Among points raised at the rally:

Fluker and Goldberg asked the audience to attend a public hearing June 13 to pressure the Wayne County Commission to pass a resolution, introduced by Commissioner Martha Scott, for a moratorium on foreclosures, and an investigation of fraudulent practices by banks and mortgage companies.

Rakiyah Curtis

Goldberg introduced his client Raziyah Curtis, the first person in Michigan to successfully challenge a bank eviction by demanding that the bank negotiate rental options, one of the requirements set forth under the federal TARP legislation that bailed out the banks and mortgage companies. Despite the law, only a very small percentage of homeowners have been able to get the banks to set affordable mortgage payments or rental options.

“Raziyah is an activist in her community,” Goldberg said. “She got hundreds of her fellow neighbors and others to rally around her home, and she is still in it, and now she owns it.

U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke

Newly-elected U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke announced that he has introduced legislation for a national moratorium on foreclosures.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson invited the attendees to hold a similar televised meeting targeting the banks in the Erma Henderson auditorium of the Coleman A. YoungMunicipal Center in July, in commemoration of the 1967 Detroit rebellion.

“The U.S. has shown its willingness to rebuild the criminal banks and auto companies with our tax dollars, but has done nothing to re-build the city that is the home of the auto industry,” Watson said. “We cannot have a comeback of GM and Chrysler without a comeback of Detroit. The city needs to be bailed out, right now, it needs to be repopulated, not shrunk, it needs more jobs from a green economy. It doesn’t need to turn into ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson

 She passed out copies of an urban Marshall Plan she has given to Mayor Dave Bing, which demands massive intervention by the federal government to rebuild cities across the U.S., $15 billion for Michigan alone. (Click on Marshall Plan for copy of the plan.)

Watson announced that the We are the People Coalition, which has sponsored massive rallies of unions and community representatives in Lansing, will file a class action lawsuit June 22 to overturn Public Act 4, the emergency manager or “dictator” bill. The lawsuit includes plaintiffs from across the state. Attorneys and advocates have been meeting for months at the AFSCME Council 25 hall in Detroit to generate the suit.

Watson said a press conference announcing the lawsuit against PA 4 will be held Wed. June 22 at 10 a.m. in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue on Woodward at Jefferson, along with other announcements the same day in Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Flint, and other cities in Michigan.

Watson staffers Debra Taylor and Monica Patrick rally the crowd in Lansing April 13

Watson said the state owes Detroit $220 million in unpaid revenue sharing money. She called on the city to stop paying Blue Cross/Blue Shield $200 million a year for city workers, and instead assist their unions in creating their own insurance plans. She also demanded that $47 million in federal Neighborhood Stabilization funds the city has received from U.S. Housing and Urban Development department (HUD) be used to create jobs for Detroiters, as required by federal law.

Herb Sanders addresses crowd in Lansing April 13

Herb Sanders, International Representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), who co-chairs the Coalition with Watson, confirmed separately that the coalition is also participating in a campaign to repeal PA 4 by referendum.

Anti-PA4 referendum petitions will be distributed, and signatures collected, beginning Sat. June 18, at 11 A.M. at AFSCME Council 25’s headquarters at 600 W. Lafayette. 

At an earlier meeting, Greg Bowens, a referendum organizer, said state law provides that once the required number of signatures is collected and certified, PA 4 will be frozen and emergency managers thrown out until the referendum vote in Nov. 2012. (Click on  Michigan Constitution referendum language  to read language in Michigan Constitution).

Bowens said 161,000 signatures are needed, but that organizers across the state are aiming to collect at least 250,000 as a cushion. He said the coalition has until next March to collect the signatures. 

Bob Day

Bob Day is an attorney with the Legal Aid and Defender Association (LADA), who represents people facing evictions throughout the tri-county area. He is also president of LADA’s AFSCME Local 2095. He did not mince words.

“The property of the rich is nothing but theft,” Day said. “The wealth of the banks came from the people, it belongs to us. Government debt service to the banks be must canceled, and we must seize their assets.

Ordinary people across the world are rising up in the millions, to stand against the banks, facing bullets and torture and dying in the streets, from Egypt to Tunisia to Spain to Greece to  Mexico and Latin America to Wisconsin here in the U.S.”

Deutsche Bank

He said that not only have the banks robbed people nationwide by foreclosing on them, they are coming back for a second round. Companies like Paramount Land Holdings, Inc., the Rice-Peters Financial Corporation, Destiny Ventures and others are buying thousands of foreclosed Detroit homes in bundled packages for $1 each from Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and others who evicted the original owners.

Those banks already made huge profits because the full sums of their mortgages were guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in addition to money they got from insurance against vandalism, and the trillions in bail-out tax dollars from the U.S. government.

“The developers are putting up signs saying ‘Buy, don’t rent,’ and even going to churches to recruit unaware victims to buy the homes on land contract.” Day said.

Lansing marchers demand foreclosure moratorium 2009

“One of my clients bought a $1 home for $45,000, put $750 down, and made her monthly payments,” he explained. “But when her furnace went out and she tried to get state aid to fix it, she did not show up as the owner of record because Paramount had not put the legal description of her property in the land contract, so she couldn’t register it. Then she got a notice of property tax foreclosure because Paramount hadn’t paid taxes on the home. Another client got hit with an outstanding $13,000 water bill.”

• Day advocated mobilizing the people in the thousands to seize homes foreclosed by the banks as well as by city and county governments. He said they should be given to those who need them to fix them up and put them back on the property tax rolls, to rebuild the city. 

Cheryl Labash

“They are telling us, we are too old to work, but too young to die,” said Cheryl Labash, a City of Detroit retiree. “They’re attacking our pensions, which are nothing but deferred wages. Even retired city workers may be given the option of giving back their guaranteed defined benefit plans and getting a lump sum in a defined contribution plan which they can invest in the stock market. Who wants to invest in a stock market that is constantly tumbling?”

She called on  GM and the other corporations to pay restitution to Detroit for the moving plants and jobs out, and an end to the massive amounts of property and income taxes that go to the banks for debt service.

She noted that the City of Detroit’s budget is over $3 billion a year.

“We need people’s control of the budget!” she demanded. “We must come out in the masses and stop business as usual. We have the freeways, we have trucking, there are lots of ways we can make our power felt.” 

Bryan Pfeiffer, who recently moved back to Wisconsin and is in the thick of the fray there, said that the massive people’s struggle that began last February continues every day on the streets of Madison, despite the lack of coverage in the big business media.

Walkerville tent city at capitol in Madison, Wisconsin

He said that the previous week, thousands of high school students walked out once again, and that tent cities are being set up in the capital. He said despite metal detectors and other barriers set up in the capitol building, people are still getting through and stopping committee meetings on right-wing legislation.

He recounted the massive struggles that have taken place in Wisconsin since February.

Bryan Pfieffer

“The courts reflect what’s happening in the streets,” Pfieffer said. “It was the mass movement that forced the judge to grant a permanent injunction against the union-busting legislation in Wisconsin,” Pfeiffer said. “It must be the same in Detroit.” 

Susan Schnur, paratransit worker and a board member of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 268 in Cleveland, Ohio, said she has asked the treasurer of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) there, “Is the authority about transit or is it about investors?” She and others are calling on the RTA to negotiatiate with the banks to reduce debt payments and provide the transportation the people of Cleveland desperately need. 

Lisa Franklin, president of Warriors on Wheels (WOW) in Detroit, chimed in.

Lisa Franklin, President Warriors on Wheels

“The cuts in regular bus service have hurt people in our community too,” Franklin said. “You have to wait almost an hour to get a bus, and then if you’re taking the bus to cash a check, you have to wait in the check cashing place for three hours just to get a bus back.  For regular riders, they cut routes and hours and didn’t even publicize it ahead of time. People are still standing at bus stops not knowing what has happened.”

Marguerite Maddox of WOW, who was at the meeting, must use a service dog. Franklin said in Detroit and across the country, people are being denied the right to take their service dogs on public transportation.

“The civil rights movement began in public transportation, with Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott,” Franklin said. “We have the RIGHT to public transportation and we must mobilize to get it!” 

Crowd applauds Lisa Franklin of Warriors on Wheels

Youth organizer Derrick Thacker said that $826.5 billion in student loans is now owed to the federal government, and one-quarter of that, $206.5 billion, is being held by the banks, who are profiting royally from the interest.

Derrick Thacker

“Many people owe up to $40,000 a year when they graduate,” Thacker said.“Meanwhile, tuition costs are going up, scholarships and federal aid are being reduced, there are incredible cuts in education. The Detroit Public Schools are being strategically dismantled. As the city dies, so does the future of hundreds of thousands of our young people.”

“There must be a people’s state of emergency declared,” Thacker said. “We want an immediate moratorium on school closings and lay-offs, cancellation of all student loan debt, and cancellation of all public and private debt to the banks. We must institute a public works program to employ the youth, they are the heirs of our legacy and they can rebuild Detroit.”

 Ben Carroll, of FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) lives in Charlotte, N.C

Ben Carroll

“Along with UE Local 150 and Black Workers United for Justice, we are calling for an International Tribunal to put the banks on trial during the Democratic Convention in Charlotte Sept. 4, 2012,” Carroll said.  “The Bank of America has extended a multimillion-dollar line of credit to the Dems. Their world headquarters is in Charlotte, along with the largest utility company in the U.S., Duke Energy, which is carrying out tens of thousands of shut-offs. They must all go on trial before the people.”

Abiyomi Azikiwe of the Michigan Emergency Coalition against War and Injustice analyzed the international banking crisis, which he said is far worse than it is being portrayed in the U.S. media.

“Even a recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of the crisis differed markedly from those offered in the U.S. and Britain,” Azikiwe noted. U.S. Hands off LibyaHe called for an end to U.S. direct and proxy wars abroad, in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Colombia, Palestine and elsewhere.

“The military budget is over $700 billion a year, and more is being spent on Homeland Security,” he said. “We can rebuild Detroit with just $5 billion of that, and the rest must come home to rebuild the rest of the country and supply the people’s needs.”      

The Moratorium Now! Coalition has a website at www.moratorium-mi.org  and can be reached at 313-680-5508.

People's Task Force members, including families of wrongfully convicted prisoners, testified at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is second from right in red; Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey is at left

Rally Fri. June 17 8 a.m. Frank Murphy Hall, St. Antoine and Gratiot

Demands include:

• Remove Worthy from crime lab review
• Forensic investigation of lab evidence independent of city and state
• Freedom for wrongfully convicted prisoners with no time limits
• DPD, MSP, prosecutors, corrupt lab staff be disciplined and charged

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; former Group Executive for Public Safety Saul Green is at right

New revelation: Prosecutor’s office destroyed all pre-1995 files in violation of state law

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – The Detroit People’s Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted believes that not only the Detroit Police, but Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and the state police are liable for crimes related to falsification and destruction of forensic evidence that go far beyond the recent expose of materials left behind at the shuttered Detroit police crime lab.

In a telling comment on the state of affairs in Detroit, the portion of the police crime lab which studied current cases was located in the closed Stephen Foster Elementary School; adjudicated evidence is kept at police HQ

The lab was completely closed in 2008 after a forensic audit of its firearms and ballistics testing unit found a 10 percent error rate. The Michigan State Police Crime Lab found that Detroit firearms technicians, all of whom were Detroit police officers, bordered on “misconduct” when they produced false lab results.

“The task force has been fighting for three years for an independent audit into the investigations of adjudicated cases of wrongful convictions,” the group said in a release. “With the recent revelations of yet more scandals involving the Detroit Police and the Prosecutor as it concerns these cases, enough is enough.”

This statue outside the Frank Murphy Hall of (In)Justice belies the horrors that take place there every day

The Task Force includes prisoners, their families and advocates. The lives of thousands of men and women currently behind bars, many for decades, are at stake, they say. 

 “We are demanding a federal investigation,” Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey said. “We also want Prosecutor Kym Worthy to be removed from handling the crime lab review because of conflict of interest, that she return the $2.7 million she obtained from the city for it, that prisoners wrongfully convicted be set free, and that the police, the prosecutor and crime lab staff who falsified evidence be disciplined and charged.”

Roberto Guzman, Task Force paralegal

Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is the mother of prisoner Kelly Nobles, who says ballistics evidence in his case was falsified. Task Force paralegal Roberto Guzman said Worthy refused to review his case, saying it fell a few months short of the 2003-2008 limit she placed on cases subject to review.

“We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Jordan asserted. “When Worthy asked for the money from the city, she said nothing about time limits, and she has no jurisdiction anyway. Now she suddenly says it is impossible to review 31,000 cases, when she hasn’t even reviewed all the original 147 cases specified by the audit.”

The City Council passed a resolution granting funds to Worthy in Feb. 2010, but nothing in the resolution itself specifies a time limit on cases reviewed.  (Click on CC lab resolution, MOU   to read resolution.)

Worthy has refused to review Kelly Nobles case because he was incarcerated (for life) in 2002

An exhibit entitled “Forensic Evidence Review Unit” which did include that time limit was attached to a three-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Worthy, the city’s executive staff, and on behalf of the Council.

“I want members of the City Council to be held accountable as well,” Jordan said.  Task Force members say the Council should have exercised due diligence prior to voting on the matter, as well as recognizing that Worthy had no jurisdiction.

After hearing testimony from the People’s Task Force, the previous Detroit City Council, chaired by President Pro-Tem Monica Conyers during Pres. Maryann Mahaffey’s illness, voted unanimously on May 11, 2009 for a federal investigation of the lab, instead of a review conducted by Worthy. Council member JoAnn Watson made the motion.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson in Feb. 2009

Meanwhile, Worthy’s office recently revealed that a massive amount of their own records, essential to the continued appeal of prisoners’ cases, have been destroyed.

Edward Sanders with author, who was visiting him at Mound Road before he was transferred

In February, VOD made a Freedom of Information Act request for the prosecutor’s file on Edward Sanders, incarcerated since 1975.

“It appears the file you requested has long since been destroyed in a routine purge of files,” said FOIA officer Barbara Brown in a letter in response. “An administrative decision was made to destroy all pre-1995 files, as a remedy to a shortage of shelf space for our office as the archives.” (Click on Worthy files before 95  to read letter.)

Sanders, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile at 17, has been fighting to re-open his case for the 36 years he has been imprisoned. He contends among other matters that shell casings involved in his case, and the condition of the gun, will show that the shooting, committed by a man riding in his car, was unintentional.

According to the State of Michigan’s General Retention Schedule #19 for prosecuting attorneys, files in capital cases (any crime with a life sentence) must be retained “until final disposition of the case plus 50 years, or the felon dies, whichever is sooner.”

(Click on http://www.michigan.gov/documents/hal/mhc_rm_gs19_195723_7.pdf to read document.)

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s spokesperson, Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller, said the destruction of files did not happen under Worthy’s administration.

“Since she has been the elected prosecutor we do not destroy any capital felony files,” Miller said. “In fact, we keep indefinitely all homicide cases, and any cases in our Special Victim’s Unit (which handles  child abuse, domestic violence , criminal sexual conduct and homicides).  Our appellate division keeps all homicide cases indefinitely as well under the file retention policy.”

(Further comments from Miller in response to this article are included in an addendum at its conclusion.) 

Many of the prisoners who are part of the People’s Task Force were also incarcerated prior to 1995, for life terms.

Darryl Dulin-Bey

Darryl Dulin-Bey, incarcerated in 1988 for life, says the gun produced at his trial was not the gun used in the killing involved, and that he did not shoot either gun. He says the police and prosecutor were fully aware of this.

“During my trial, there was no actual murder weapon presented but there was an unrelated 9 mm handgun and shotgun shells presented, also bullets that were on display on the prosecutor’s table in front of my jury and the and the prosecutor presented and waved this evidence like a flag,” Dulin-Bey wrote.

Michael Harris, a founding member of the People’s Task Force, has been in prison since 1983 and says the Michigan State Police (MSP) crime lab falsified evidence in his case, as well as many other cases.

Michael Harris

“My attorney helped to expose two Michigan State Police DNA experts in 2004, Lynn Helton and Charles Barna, who fabricated evidence against me in Washtenaw County,” Harris said in a letter. “They used my blood samples to wrongly contaminate crime scene evidence and frame me for murders.”

In the wake of daily media reports that evidence was left behind after the crime lab building closed, Worthy has turned over the investigation to the Michigan State Police. She is also using the MSP labs to review crime lab evidence as part of a “Forensic Integrity Unit” she set up after the Detroit crime lab closed.

Harris called instead for an independent forensic investigation of both the Detroit and Michigan crime labs. He encouraged people to attend the June 17 rally in a recent letter from Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, where both he and Sanders are incarcerated.  

Part of Kinross Prison, located in Kincheloe in the Upper Peninsula

“Kym Worthy [must be] removed from the Detroit police crime lab investigation on the grounds of a conflict of interest,” he said. “Also, all Detroit crime lab cases must be removed from the jurisdiction of the Michigan State Police crime labs. The Detroit Police Crime Lab has falsified ballistics test results .  .  .  . the Michigan crime labs were exposed for forging DNA records.”

Guzman said the case of Johnnie Henderson, grandson of Essie Henderson, also a member of the Task Force, is one of the most glaring examples of prosecutorial atrocities.

Johnnie Henderson

“The court transcripts showed the ballistics and physical evidence did not match,” he said. “They didn’t find any bullet in the deceased victim, claiming it had somehow slipped out. This is one of the cases Worthy is trying to cleanse because Henderson’s defense attorney also asserted that it was likely the fatal bullet came from a police officer’s gun.”

Larry Porter, now 59, was sent to prison in 1989 and is also a founding member of the People’s Task Force. 

Larry Porter

“Ms. Worthy, you haven’t shown one ounce of any genuine concern for those of us who are wrongfully convicted, let alone any compassion for our families and loved ones,” said Porter, Harris, Dulin-Bey, and Nobles in an open letter in 2008. “That comprehensive program you purportedly designed to address the failures of the Detroit Police crime lab has virtually fizzled out .  .  . simply because none of the wrongfully convicted have been set free yet!”

Worthy recently said that it is “impossible” to review even the 31,000 cases adjudicated between 2003-08 with her current staff, including that financed by the city.

Former MGM Grand Casino, slated to be new police HQ with MSP crime lab

In addition to giving Worthy $2.7 million, the current  City Council voted in July, 2010 to issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds to finance the purchase and renovation of the former MGM Grand Casino in downtown Detroit into a new Detroit police headquarters and Michigan State Police crime lab.

The bonds are guaranteed by the city’s revenue-sharing funds from the state, which are in line to be cut under Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s budget.

“We don’t want to hear her sob stories now,” Guzman said.

Asst. Pros. Robert Moran, speaking during Kilpatrick court hearing, heads Worthy's crime lab investigative unit; Task Force members say Worthy should focus on freeing the wrongfully convicted rather than garnering publicity for her prosecution of Kilpatrick

“Kym Worthy knew going into this that the cases were in the thousands,” he continued. Her fingerpointing is nothing more than a sinister effort to throw the scent off her staff, which knowingly prosecuted many of these cases with falsified forensics evidence, to say nothing of the convictions in which prosecutors also deliberately concealed exculpatory forensics evidence at trial. Worthy herself should have invited a federal probe as we have repeatedly insisted since the lab debacle first exploded in 2008.”

The Detroit Free Press itself is calling for a federal investigation. (Click on    http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105290502 to read article.)

The article quotes David A. Moran, co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, who said his office has been requesting evidence from the lab for years through the FOIA, to no avail.

Attorney David Moran (r) with Marvin Reed, freed through U-M's Innocence Project

“I wouldn’t be surprised, if in FOIA requests where we got a response saying, ‘Sorry, it’s gone,’ the evidence is sitting in that crime lab,” Moran told the Freep. He added, “A federal investigation is really called for here. … Everyone had been led to believe that the crime lab scandal had been contained, and that it was in the hands of police, but that wasn’t done.”

However, said the Freep, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade refused comment on such an investigation, saying only, “We are looking into the situation.”

In fact, the National Academy of Sciences has called for all crime labs to be separated completely from any law enforcement agency, including the Department of Justice.

“Forensic scientists who sit administratively in law enforcement agencies or prosecutor’s offices, or who are hired by these units, are subject to a general risk of bias,” the Feb. 18, 2009 NAS report said. “The potential for conflicts of interest between the needs of law enforcement and the broader needs of forensic science are too great.”

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589.

The report called for the creation of an independent National Institute of Forensics Sciences, which would conduct scientific research, set national standards, and certify, regulate, enforce and standardize forensic testing and testimony.

Below is a response from Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller on behalf of Kym Worthy to issues raised in this story, along with a reply from the Task Force’s Roberto Guzman.

RESPONSE FROM APA MARIA MILLER, COMMUNICATIONS CHIEF FOR PROSECUTOR KYM WORTHY

Here is some background about the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) that was formed in 2010.

The unit consists of CIU Chief, Robert Moran, CIU Director APA Patrick Muscat and three other APAs assigned to the unit.  The WCPO has been reviewing these cases with SADO [the State Appellate Defenders Office) since 2008.  The Michigan State Police does all of the re-testing of firearm evidence.  Continue reading →

Joyce Moore, Charter Commissioner 93-97

June 11, 2011

(VOD ed. note: Many Detroiters do not realize that they have the final say so on the draft Charter recently produced by the Charter Revision Commission. As former Charter Commissioner Joyce Moore says, we CAN and SHOULD vote NO!  VOD will publish an additional analysis of other problems with the proposed Charter revision.)

SUBJECT:   CHARTER AND DISTRICTS

As you know crucial issues are coming before the voters in this upcoming November election.  These issues could become the demise of our city unless we continue to educate ourselves, our voters and mobilize now.

AFSCME Co. 25 President Al Garrett speaks against charter changes as others line up to call for a NO vote on revision, at Charter meeting Aug. 24, 2010

One of the greatest threats to the existence of Detroit is the revision of our City Charter which was not to be revised until 2018 and in a gubernatorial election (Section 9-403.)

The Detroit City Charter is our Constitution as it outlines the city council’s and the mayor’s responsibility and authority to the people.  It also determines the ownership of our valuable assets, such as Belle Isle, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department, the Public Lighting Department, Cobo Hall and the Zoo to name a few.

Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos bought prime downtown land for his HQ for $1 a block

The main issue of this Charter Revision is Districts.  The proposal for Districts was placed on the ballot illegally and was passed in the November 2009 election.   This issue of Districts alone now poses an even greater threat due to the need to draw boundaries. Ultimately, Districts will:

• clear the way to take control of more of our assets, 
• reduce the voting power for all the citizens, 
• consolidate the voting blocks of those who wish to confiscate the most desirable and valuable areas in our city, 
• finalize the concept as far back as 1972 of, a “City within a City”, and 
• the Mayor will be in charge of city services.  The better services will be provided to those districts of choice. 

A clear example of these events is Midtown.  It is one of the choice areas of the City for Districts and is being populated by rewarding people to move into this particular area. 

One of Detroit's impoverished neighborhoods: what will happen to them?

The sad and devastating part is that most of the general public is unaware of the politics that is changing our city, partly because the mainstream media has not provided accurate information to the public. YOU MUST VOTE ‘NO” ON THE CHARTER REVISION IN THE NOVEMBER 2011 ELECTION and  BE PREPARED FOR A RE-COUNT.

 Detroiters cannot afford to sit by and watch others benefit from our struggle.  We must recognize our collective power to protect our votes and rebuild the city to benefit US.

By Joyce Moore – Charter Revision Commissioner (1993-1996) 

AFSCME Local 207 President and DGRS Pension Board Trustee John Riehl

PENSION TRUSTEE REPORT

BY JOHN RIEHL

(VOD ed. note: John Riehl has been a militant, dedicated, honest union leader as President of AFSCME Local 207, representing water and public lighting workers, for many years. He was recently elected by city workers to sit on the Detroit General Retirement System Board.)

Since being elected as a Pension Board Trustee I have learned much about our system and the dynamics of the dangers to our retirement security.

There are politician driven schemes in many states to reduce or eliminate public employee retirement benefits. On a recent 60 Minutes program New Jersey ’s governor was attacking that state’s retirement benefits. An alert reporter did follow up with an important fact that the state had failed to make 13 of the last 16 required contributions to the retirement systems.

Detroit city worker at mass rally in Lansing April 13

Since the start of the current recession there has been an enormous redistribution of wealth in the United States away from the working class. Millions lost jobs, with many today subsisting on part time work or unemployment benefits. Those still working are confronted by employers demanding and imposing pay cuts and reduced health insurance and retirement benefits.

 In Detroit the attacks on public workers are similar. The former mayor Kilpatrick was very active in giving away public jobs to select private contractors. He worked with Feikens and Mercado and the Business Leadership Group (including Dave Bing) by attempting to give away our Detroit Water Department to a regional authority.

He also pushed for investments by Detroit ’s two pension systems in various projects. Some of these investments were failures. There was a surge of “alternate investments” in 2007. Detroit can use the local investment since big business has largely written us off, but some resulted in investment losses. It is important to understand though, that many types of investments lost value during the recession and the credit crash.

Some real estate investments in particular have lost value. Much of our system’s most successful investments now are stocks due to the business economy improving. We regularly have to make decisions on what can be done about problem investments. We have sued to recover investments or reassert control.

Some of these involve the big New York investment banks that collapsed in 2008, others include companies whose stock prices dropped when deceptive practices were exposed. The stimulus actions of the US government and Federal Reserve did help stop further economic collapse, but at the cost of over empowering the largest banks.

These same banks were the cause of recession and now profit from it. 

Since I have been on the Pension Board I have seen great care being put into investment decisions. There are now several new trustees. Recently Lou Hatty was elected as an Employee Representative and Tom Sheehan was elected as the Retiree Representative. Mayor Bing recently installed James Edwards as his Appointed Representative. 

NAACP Pres. Wendell Anthony, Mayor Dave Bing, and Kid Rock (without his usual Confederate flag)

Recently Mayor Bing has been advocating changes in union contracts and the pension plans. The AFSCME contract for one will not be up for renegotiation for a year. Bing had a proposal to suspend next year’s required payments from the city to the retirement systems. We pointed out to him and city council that this was a violation of the employer’s obligation under the state constitution. That idea is now dead. He had been in support of turning our pension systems over to Michigan Employees Retirement System based in Lansing . Hundreds of city workers and retirees came to a special City Council session and lined up to insist that Bing’s giveaway be stopped. He was defeated. 

Recently Bing asked Detroit ’s two retirement systems to lengthen our smoothing period to ten years. Our Pension Board was using a five year “smoothing” to average its valuation of assets. This means that bad years like 08 and 09 are averaged with three other, hopefully better years. This means that we are taking the short term sting out of the extreme fluctuations in the investment markets. We now have installed a seven year corridor modified smoothing period. This reduces the contribution cost to city for the General Retirement System about 11 million next year, but will increase it in future years.

These accounting changes have no impact on benefits. Keep in mind that Detroit ’s financial problems will only get worse now that Governor Snyder is cutting revenue sharing. What would help is if Washington would direct its spending away from wars and the military and towards our states and cities.

EYEWITNESS: Dedon Kamathi Returns from Libya and Reports (radio interview above).

DeDon Kamathi of All-African People's Revolutionary Party

DeDon Kamathi has just returned from a tour of Libya with former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. He is interviewed by Askia Muhammad of The Final Call, on WPFW-FM Radio in Washington D.C. as posted above.

WAR IN LIBYA HAS BEEN U.S. PROJECT ALL ALONG

Click on http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/183967.html  to hear interview with Don DeBar

Don DeBar of WBAIX Radio

American journalist Don DeBar says the Libyan war has been a “U.S. Project” all along.

DeBar told Press TV’s U.S. Desk that there has been an attempt to position the war on Libya “as being not an American military activity but rather one of NATO. However, the majority of the resources are either directly owned by the United States or were financed by the U.S.”

The anti-War activist said the Libyan “operation is being conducted under the direction of the United States.”

DeBar said “the expenditure in the Libyan war can be spent to stimulate the American economy for job development and things that are desperately needed” in America.

Washington has resorted to cutting education and “all kinds of basic safety net programs” all the while “starting wars just about everywhere,” he added.

DeBar said the U.S. is maintaining military bases in over 100 countries. “Yet they’re expanding the money that is going to the military” in the face of all the bad economic data that is coming in.

RS/SM/HJ

Libya says Nato air raids ‘killed 700 civilians’ by end of May 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13611132 

Funeral in Libya of NATO victim

31 May 2011 Last updated at 19:06 ET

The Libyan government says NATO air raids have killed more than 700 civilians since bombing began in March.

Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said more than 4,000 people had been wounded, but gave no evidence to confirm his figures.

NATO has denied killing large numbers of civilians, saying its air strikes are to protect Libyans from Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

Four powerful explosions were felt in the centre of Tripoli on Tuesday night, Libyan state media reported.

Planes were heard flying over the capital, but it was not possible to determine the targets of the raids.

Speaking at a news conference in Tripoli, Mr Ibrahim accused Nato of killing and injuring hundreds of Libyan citizens.

“Since March 19, and up to May 26, there have been 718 martyrs among civilians and 4,067 wounded – 433 of them seriously,” Mr Ibrahim said.

He said the figures did not include military casualties.

Foreign reporters in Tripoli have not been shown evidence of mass civilian casualties.

Asked why not, Mr Ibrahim said casualties had not been concentrated near the capital but scattered across the country.

He also denied that South African President Jacob Zuma, who met Col Gaddafi in Tripoli on Monday, had discussed an “exit strategy” with the Libyan leader.

“If Gaddafi goes, the security valve will disappear. His departure would be the worst case scenario for Libya,” he told reporters.

Moussa Ibrahim denied that Col Gaddafi had discussed a strategy for his departure

A statement released by Mr Zuma’s office after he returned to Pretoria said Mr Gaddafi would not leave Libya, despite growing international pressure.

“Col Gaddafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue,” the statement read.

“He emphasised that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties.”

After initially backing NATO’s involvement, Mr Zuma and the African Union have called for a halt to air strikes, arguing that Nato has overstepped its UN mandate to protect civilians.

Both Libyan rebels and Nato have refused to accept a ceasefire until Col Gaddafi agrees to step down.

On Tuesday, Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Gaddafi’s regime was “finished”, during a visit to the rebel capital Benghazi, in eastern Libya.

“He [Gaddafi] must leave office, he must leave the country,” Mr Frattini told a joint news conference with Ali al-Essawi, the rebels’ foreign affairs chief.

“His aides have left, he has no international support, the G8 leaders reject him, he must go.”

NATO’s “ALTERNATE UNIVERSE” IN LIBYA

The Pentagon and its NATO partners are engaged in one of the most obvious and intensive propaganda ploys in their military operations against Libya since the days leading up to the “Coalition of the Willing” attack on Iraq.

Wayne Madsen

By Wayne MADSEN

(USA) 08.JUN.2011

http://www.mathaba.net/news/libya

Suggestions that the government of Muammar Qaddafi is on its last legs and that life in Tripoli has drawn to a standstill as a result of the NATO bombing campaign are not based on reality, as any unbiased observer who has recently been in Tripoli, has witnessed…

In addition to NATO’s “information war” against Libya, the corporate media press corps gathered in Tripoli, including notorious Pentagon war correspondents for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, have furthered the Pentagon’s and NATO’s propaganda claims by making false reports from the ground in Tripoli.

Publisher of these images from Libyan state TV said Libyan govt. "claimed" they were the bodies of Col. Qaddafi's son and three grandchildren; world media now admits they were killed by NATO bombs

In one report from Tripoli, The Post’s Simon Denyer suggests that the Libyan government was faking some casualties as being the result of NATO air strikes on civilian targets rather than merely from non-combat-related causes. That same meme was echoed by John Burns, who is running up the New York Times’s hotel tab in Tripoli reporting on the same “made-in-the-Pentagon” propaganda line. Having been to El Khadra Hospital in Tripoli, I can attest to the fact that several individuals were injured directly by NATO airstrikes, including many with shrapnel wounds to the legs, arms, and torsos.

Another image of bodies of Qaddafi's family from Libyan State TV

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel was being swooned by President Barack Obama in Washington to commit German military forces to the NATO campaign against Libya, the Deutche Presse-Agentur, the German Press Agency, falsely reported from Tripoli that life in the sprawling city of some 1.3 million peoplehad ground to a halt, that schools were closed, and that stores were shuttered, as Qaddafi’s forces were increasingly coming under pressure, with some units defecting.

My own account from Tripoli is that as of June 6, students of all ages were still in school, stores were open — although some larger food markets had limited hours of operation due to NATO sanctions on goods coming into Libya by air and ship — and that life in Tripoli continued as normal. The NATO sanctions have resulted in massive lines of cars, trucks, and taxis queued up to fill up when petrol stations receive gasoline from land routes from Tunisia or from locally-refined oil.

Cars line up for scarce gas in Tripoli Photo by Wayne Madsen

The NATO sanctions and their effect of the lives of Libyans living in the central government-controlled western region is a form of “collective punishment” designed to weaken the resolve of the western Libyans to support their embattled government. However, the sanctions are having the opposite effect, with even those who may have favored the replacement of the Qaddafi government, now rallying around their government leaders as NATO prepares to usher in a neo-colonial administration. With Italy a member of the NATO coalition, Libyans recall Italian atrocities committed against Libya during Rome’s colonial occupation and Libyans will support Qaddafi against the Italians, French, and British, who, along with the Americans and Canadians, seek to impose a puppet regime in Tripoli.

Western Libyans in contact with their relatives in Benghazi, the eastern city under control of the Interim National Transition Council made up of figures of exiled opposition groups, long-supported by the CIA, Britain’s MI-6, and the French Direction General de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), recent defectors from Qaddafi’s government, and extremist Wahhabi Salafist elements encourages and supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, report how life has changed under the rebels. Women in cities like Derna, which is under the control of Salafist veterans of the “Al Qaeda” operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, including some released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are afraid to leave their homes because the Salafists have imposed extremist Islamic codes on women appearing in public without the veil. Under Qaddafi, there were no restrictions on what women or men could wear in public. However, men cannot have beards in their Libyan passport photographs. The possession of Libyan passports bearing photographs of bearded Salafist leaders in the rebel movement indicate they have been issued fake passports by the rebel authorities in Benghazi.

Ali Tarhouni, self-appointed Libyan "finance minister" for "rebels"

Civil servants, including teachers, in the rebel-held east have not been paid after rebel leaders looted the Central Bank of Libya in Benghazi of 900 million Libyan dinars and $500.5 million in U.S. cash. Although the central government in Tripoli would like to help Libyan citizens in the east, there is no way for payments to be transmitted to the idled civil servants, as well as pensioners and those families who received $500 per month under Libya’s oil revenue sharing program. The Libyan rebel “finance minister” Ali Tarhouni is believed to be a longtime CIA asset and it was he who planned the theft of the cash from the safe vault of the Central Bank in Benghazi, carried out with the assistance of a CIA-supplied safecracker from the United Arab Emirates.

A number of Libyan ministers who defected from the government to the rebels were known to be opposed to Qaddafi’s policy of sharing revenue with the Libyan people and were more interested in fattening their own bank accounts and investment portfolios. It is not coincidental, therefore, that one of the first targets of the NATO warplanes was the office in Tripoli responsible for conducting an investigation of fraud of senior government officials. Many of the officials under investigation for fraud and corruption, including senior Qaddafi ministers, are now top officials of the Interim National Transition Council, recognized by France, Italy, Britain, and other NATO countries as the “legitimate” government of Libya. Western nations are already cutting deals with rebel leaders for new oil concessions that will place the interests of Big Oil over those of the Libyan masses. Continue reading →

Banner flown on first anniversary of Aiyana Stanley-Jones' murder by police, May 16, over her former home and prosecutor and police offices, sponsored by JAJC

From the Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee

Cornell Squires and Roland Lawrence of Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee are interviewed by major media in Detroit May 16, 2011

Detroit, 12:00 am, June 12, 2011 – The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) in association with Fluid Shapes is producing a public service announcement on how police brutality has and is increasingly affecting Black young men. Central to this campaign will be the police killing of 7-year old Aiyana Jones. The 15, 30, 45, and 90 second spots will feature committed and serious advocates who work hard to stop the shooting, maiming, and killing of Black youth by the police.

JAJC has invited Lupe Fiasco, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Chris Brown, Sean Penn, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga and a few other celebrities which should make for an integrated mix of our varied communities. If you want to be a part of this effort or know someone who should, please email us at: justice4aiyana@hotmail.com.

The public service announcement videos will share how the police killed Aiyana Jones, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and the numerous others in our community who had no chance to fend for themselves against the powerful and mighty U.S. police agencies that have ties all the way to the Pentagon.

JAJC Chief, Roland Lawrence aka Fige Bornu says, “Righteousness begins with each and every one of us; and no matter how one spins the police killing of mostly young Black men, the fact is that the center will not hold. One day in time, this assault against this particular demographic group, which is young Black youth, will and must be addressed, remedied, and stopped at its core.”

Contact: justice4aiyana@hotmail.com

Click on http://sfbayview.com/2011/justice-for-aiyana-jones-now/ to read story originally published in VOD on JAJC aerial protest commemmorating first anniversary of cop murder of Aiyana Jones. The story has also run in The Final Call.