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

Osama Bush Bin Laden

By Dr. Publico, May 2, 2011 The American Tribune

Breaking News ^[1]alerts us that Osama bin Laden has been killed.  There’s very little in the way of analysis in the nation’s corporate media, but I guess that’s to be expected.  There’s always more to the story…

I suppose it’s fitting that the CIA reportedly had a direct hand in the military apprehension of Osama; they helped create him in the first place.

 Osama bin Laden ^[3](54) was born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia (bin Laden means “son of Laden”) to one of the world’s wealthiest families.  His father, Mohammed ^[4](1908-’67) was originally from Yemen, built a construction business and came into favor of the Saudi royal family.

 Today, the Saudi Binladen Group ^[5]is a multi-$billion construction and holding empire with operations all over the world.  Among close business connections are Bush and Carlyle, Inc., Cheney and Halliburton, Inc., etc.

In 1979, Osama—a fundamentalist Wahhabi ^[6]—traveled to Afganistan to fight the Soviets.  He opposed all forms of pan-Arabism, socialism and democracy.  He was dedicated to biblical Sharia law ^[7]thru violent jihadism ^[8].

Under the Reagan Doctrine ^[9], the CIA sponsored and supplied arms, training and financial aid to these Mujahideen as “freedom fighters” against Soviet expansion. 

Women in Afghanistan under the U.S. supported Taliban; they were forbidden to read, work outside the home, etc.

 Osama was a central conduit for paying jihadists from around the world to travel to Afghanistan, dealing with the CIA-Pakistani bureaucracy (he had a degree in economics and business administration), and establishing CIA-staffed training camps.

But Osama also had his own agenda, building a separate faction loyal to him and his Wahhabi vision: To wage worldwide jihad after the Soviet defeat.  He was building Al Queda (“the base”) by 1988.  When the Soviets left in 1989, Osama and his force returned to Saudi Arabia.  (An estimated 70-to-80% were Saudis.)

General David Patraeus greets President Barack Obama in Iraq

Pan-Arabist Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990.  The Saudi royal family welcomed US forces as they bordered on both nations.  Osama opposed this sacrilegious violation of Saudi soil and turned to terror ops.  He was banished by the Saudis and fled to the Sudan.

Conducting his terror campaign from there, he was forced to leave in 1996.  With the aid of the Taliban, the Pakistani ISI ^[11], and other allies, he reestablished Mujahideen training bases.  From there, he trained and exported Al Queda cadre creating terror cells throughout the world.

 These forces were built mostly independent.  While Al Queda central would call for strategic operations for various causes, the tactical when-and-where were decided by the individual groups.  Yet, Osama primarily relied on his own inner cadres ^[12]. 

USS Cole

To wit:  Jun ‘96, The Khobar Towers, 19 Americans killed by 4 Saudi jihadists; Aug ’98, Nairobi Embassy, 12 Americans killed by 14 jihadists (13 Saudis); Oct ’00, USS Cole, 17 Americans killed by 2 Saudis; Sep ’01, WTC Towers+, 2,977 total killed by 19 jihadists (15 Saudis); May ’03, Riyadh compound, 9 Americans killed by 9 Saudis; and Dec ‘2004, Mosul mess tent, 18 Americans killed by 1 Saudi.

While the politicians and the corporate media cooperate in downplaying the terror connections of their business and state allies, the reality is otherwise.

9/11

The first response of Bush & Cheney to the 9/11 attack was to shut down all civilian air traffic—all but the Saudi/bin Laden family ^[14]flights out of America, while forbidding the FBI ^[15]to interrogate them, or even check the names on their manifest. 

It’s kind of like the old joke of, “Why didn’t the shark attack the lawyer in the water?”  Professional courtesy.

   Nevertheless, good riddance to Osama bin Laden. 

Iraqi father with dead daughter: collateral damage

Now:  When are we going to stop all the “collateral damage”?

   When are we going to put the corporate genie back in the bottle?

Article printed from American Tribune: http://americantribune.org

URL to article: http://americantribune.org/?p=9761

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AFSCME and other unions and community groups rally in Lansing April 13 against takeovers; coalition is now planning legal action against PA 4

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – Detroit’s two pension systems filed a motion for “declaratory and injunctive” relief against Public Act 4, better known as the Dictator Act, on April 18 in federal district court.  The motion says there are sufficient grounds to believe that the city of Detroit will soon be subject to action under PA4.

A coalition of unions and community organizations, which initiated the historic “We are the People” rally in Lansing April 13,  also expects to file suit against the Act, according to its representatives.

Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson on capitol steps April 13

“We are about education, litigation and agitation,” said Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, who co-chaired a special meeting of the coalition April 20, with AFSCME International Representative Herbert Sanders. Watson compared their contemplated lawsuit to Brown v. the Board of Education, which was supported by the massive civil rights movement prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision to desegregate public schools.

Sanders said the coalition’s attorneys have been meeting “for a couple of months” to devise appropriate strategies for the court action.

The pension systems’ lawsuit, filed by three attorneys from Clark Hill, PLLC, asks the federal court to declare PA 4 unconstitutional and bar its implementation. It says the Act “impermissibly” overrides the City Charter and collective bargaining agreements, and disenfranchises citizens and members of the city’s General and Police and Fire Retirement systems. It also says it violates Internal Revenue Service provisions. (Click on Pension lawsuit v Act 4 Michiganemergencyofficerchallenge to read entire lawsuit.)

Detroit police, firefighters and other city workers demonstrate May 6, 2010 against $6 B pension heist

It specifically asks the court to declare one section of PA 4 that relates to pension funds and retirement systems unconstitutional.

It says, “Section19(1)(m) of the Act – the gravamen of this action – provides that an emergency manager may, under certain circumstances: (a) remove any serving trustee of a local pension board for any reason or no reason at all; (b) arguably replace the serving trustees and assume and exercise the authority and fiduciary responsibilities of a local pension board as sole trustee of the pension fund for any reason or no reason at all; and (c) arguably require the municipal government to participate in, and transfer the assets of the local retirement system to, some other retirement system for any reason or no reason at all. MCL § 141.1519(1)(m).”

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (r) appoints former Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon as State Treasurer

Defendants in the suit are Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon, who has been training individuals to possibly take over as Emergency Managers in more than 45 Michigan municipalities and school districts.

The suit raises claims that Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder have been meeting secretly to target the retirement systems.

Bing presents proposed budget to City Council last month

In this year’s budget address, says the suit, “. . . the Mayor used the Act and the potential appointment of an emergency manager for the City of Detroit as justification to demand significant concessions from Plaintiffs, and indicated that Governor Snyder and his administration knew of and supported the Mayor’s proposals and plan.”

Bing has submitted a proposed budget for this year which defaults on the city’s obligations to pay into the systems, and cuts retiree pay-outs and benefits unilaterally.

Benton Harbor rally against EM Joe Harris, Snyder et al. April 27

Benton Harbor’s EM, Joe Harris, also told Fox 2 News April 25 that Snyder and Bing were meeting secretly “to work out some type of agreement where there is a Memorandum of Understanding where the mayor will get support by the state to help him accomplish his goals.”  (http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=6939)

Bing earlier campaigned for the pension systems, worth $6 billion, to be turned over to the Lansing-based Michigan Employees Retirement System while Jennifer Granholm was still Governor.

Gary Brown on WJR with Frank Beckmann

The suit also says the City Council is considering the approval of a “consent agreement” with Dillon that could also abrogate provisions of union contracts, the charter, and affect the pension systems.

It notes, “On April 18, 2011, Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown appeared on WJR radio and indicated his support for a consent agreement between the City of Detroit and the State Treasurer, intimating that discussions or negotiations of such an agreement by the City of Detroit and the Governor and/or State Treasurer already have occurred.”

Former School Board Pres. Carla Scott also signed a "Consent Agreement" before state/Bobb takeover

The Detroit Board of Education reached a “consent agreement” with the state in 2008, but that did not stave off Granholm’s appointment of Robert Bobb as emergency financial manager. Detroit School Board member Marie Thornton was the sole no vote on the consent agreement.

Chris White of The Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS said at the time that “[Board President Carla]Scott continues to push an agenda that includes a state takeover of the school district. This is a spiritual battle we’re in against outside interests. The education of our children and those yet to be born is something we can’t negotiate on.”

PA 4 “arbitrarily” sets an 80 percent funding level as a trigger for a pension system takeover, according to the suit. Detroit’s two systems have consistently been funded at or close to 100 percent over the past decades.

Former Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow with Standard and Poor's rep Stephen Murphy at Council in 2005

A portion of PA 4 directly targets Detroit, says the suit, since it says the “net value of pension bonds or evidence of indebtedness” shall not be used in determining funding levels.

In 2005, the City of Detroit, under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, issued $1.44 billion in “pension obligation certificates,” or bonds, which it later used in part to meet its employer contribution requirements to the pension system.

The retirement systems hotly contested the risky borrowing at the time. The City Council narrowly voted to approve it after Wall Street executives from Standard and Poors and Fitch came to the table. They said they would lower the city’s bond ratings unless it either agreed to borrow the money or laid off thousands of workers. (Go to Pension bond stories MC   to read stories by this reporter and former Michigan Citizen reporter Bankole Thompson on the deal.)

Agnes Hitchcock of Call 'em Out in Feb. 2010

In a comment that accurately portended the future, Agnes Hitchcock of the Call ‘em Out Coalition said, “The state took over the schools to control a $1.5 billion construction bond proposal. Now it looks like we’re telling them that the city is a good thing to take over as well.”

Later that year, despite the Council’s vote to approve the bonds and Kilpatrick’s lay-offs of 1400 city workers, S & P downgraded the city’s bond ratings to BBB-, one step above junk level, anyway.

In 2008, the City narrowly avoided defaulting on the bonds and subsequent state receivership by agreeing to have proceeds from casino taxes go directly to a bank trustee so he could chop off the portion owed on the bonds before handing over the rest to the city. (Read VOD article “How the Banks Destroyed Detroit: at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=6196 .)

According to the U.S. federal courts website, a judge has not yet been assigned to hear the lawsuit. Actions so far have involved service of the lawsuit by the plaintiffs on the defendants, and the appointment of an attorney to represent the defendants.

The labor/community coalition against PA 4 meets every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at AFSCME Council 25, 600 W. Lafayette at Third. The meetings are open to the concerned public.

Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=6582 “Young mother describes occupation of Catherine Ferguson Academy,” to read about this historic takeover by young women.

DPS teacher Christal Bonner (center) joins parents and students at Finney High Apr. 28 to protest school closings, lay-offs

 Huffington Post

By Simone Landon

simone.landon@huffingtonpost.com

When districtwide layoff notices hit every one of Detroit Public Schools’ 5,466 unionized employees late last week, an American Federation of Teachers spokeswoman called the move the largest “one fell swoop” firing of teachers in union memory.

More broadly troubling to teachers and education-reform observers, however, was DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb’s concurrent announcement that he plans to unilaterally modify the Detroit Federation of Teachers’ collective bargaining agreement, the first test of a sweeping new state law.

Ricktator Snyder

“I fully intend to use the authority that was granted under Public Act 4,” Bobb said in his Thursday statement. DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said Bobb has not yet “come to any conclusion about any specific changes to the contract,” but made the announcement because it would be “prudent” to inform teachers of possible changes to their contract.

Charter school CEO Doug Ross, Skillman CEO Carol Goss, and ally Rob Bobb

Bobb’s legal right to abrogate the district’s contract with the union may be the nation’s most extreme example of an administrator’s power over teachers. But education experts say Public Act 4 has come to represent more than the contract between Detroit and its teachers — it’s an example of the increasingly polarized state of education reform nationwide.

Attacks on public workers’ collective bargaining rights have made headlines across the country, but perhaps nowhere has the issue been so hotly contested as when it comes to the rights of public school teachers. With school districts throughout the United States millions of dollars in debt, fights over teacher seniority are taking place alongside pushes to shift public money toward charter schools. Mayoral control, meanwhile, has pulled authority away from school boards in some districts, and lawmakers are seeking to mandate changes from statehouses and the judiciary.

THE SENIORITY FIGHT

DPS teachers took part in massive labor rally against PA 4 in Lansing, MI April 13

Detroit’s layoffs are not unprecedented, but they could signal a new trend toward mass layoffs for large school districts unsure of their finances but required by state laws to notify teachers of potential dismissals. 2011 is the first year to see entire districts fired.

In 2010, tiny Central Falls, R.I., made headlines when Rhode Island’s education commissioner, Deborah Gist, announced that the entire teaching staff of the town’s high school would be laid off and asked to reapply for their jobs under new evaluation models.

But schoolwide layoffs have spread across districts, and dozens of pink slips have multiplied into thousands. Two months before Bobb’s announcement in Detroit, Providence, R.I. public schools officials said they would send a termination letter to each of the city’s 1,926 teachers. Providence Mayor Angel Taveras also slated four elementary schools for closure.

Providence RI teachers protest firings

In addition to the across-the-board firings, the Providence announcement was noteworthy for its distinction between laying off and fully terminating the district’s teaching staff. Layoffs offer some rights to teachers, meaning a financial obligation that the mayor said the city and its $110 million budget deficit — including $28 million short from schools — couldn’t afford. Continue reading →

FROM HTTP://PEOPLEBEFOREBANKS.ORG

Gail McNeil was featured on Fox News2 after she testified in favor of the moratorium on foreclosures. A former auto worker, who took a buyout from Ford, McNeil, says the news report, is “one of tens of thousands of homeowners in Wayne County alone caught up in the foreclosure crisis.

“She says she did everything she could to save her house.”

“‘Relentlessly, I think I’ve explored every avenue possibly given,’ said McNeil.

“Before leaving town, McNeil shared her story with members of the Wayne County Commission, who are considering the Homeowner Protection and Neighborhood Preservation Act. The initiative, introduced by Commissioner Martha Scott, calls for a one year moratorium on sheriff’s foreclosure sales and an investigation into the financial practices of banks… the hope is this will eventually end up on the ballot.

“Meanwhile, McNeil says she hopes to return to Detroit someday, and she hopes this effort will help other people in the future.”

–Local Fox 2 News, April 7, 2011

Wayne County Considering Sheriff’s Foreclosure Sale Moratorium: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Commissioner Martha Scott introduced bill

Vanessa Fluker with supporters April 29

FLUKER HEARING POSTPONED UNTIL MAY 13

Jerry Goldberg (l), attorney for Vanessa Fluker (center), Bev Lumley (r) and small portion of supporters who packed Chief Judge Virgil Smith’s courtroom April 29 to support Fluker, who has been santioned by Judge Robert Colombo; the hearing was postponed to May 13 after Smith said he had been on vacation and didn’t have time to read briefs. Goldberg, Fluker, and others are with Moratorium NOW! coalition and helped bring resolution on sheriff’s foreclosures to Wayne County Commission. Go to VOD story to read about Fluker’s case at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=6035.

HEARING IN CASE OF 14-YEAR-OLD CHILD FALSELY CONVICTED OF MURDERS ANOTHER MAN HAS CONFESSED TO.

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 9 A.M. TO 12 NOON

FRANK MURPHY HALL, St. Antoine at Gratiot (courtroom to be announced)

Click on  FREE DAVONTAE SANFORD Voice of Detroit to read and/or print out the shocking story of this young man, who has been held in prison by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy for four years, despite the fact that another man confessed to the crime, a hit killing of four people that happened when Davontae was 14.

Davontae's mother Taminko with his brothers, sisters and supporters outside Frank Murphy Hall June 29, 2010

Most reent post  on Davontae’s Facebook page (see link below), from Taminko Sanford, Davontae’s mother (as Mother’s Day approaches);

 

Taminko Gods’Still Blessing Sanford

i miss u so much,when i seen u wednesday tears came to my eye,u have became away from home,seen so much,heard so many lies fortold on u,missin holidays together,missin hearing ur voice,but reguardless of what,my heart holds a place for u that no one can feel,ma ma luvs u man,am prayin for u.

Davontae’s Facebook page at  http://www.facebook.com/event.php eid=135209816510145#!/free.davontae.sanford.