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

“Everywhere is war” – Bob Marley  

Jeffrey Williams

VOD UPDATE: As news breaks that two police officers in Los Angeles have also been shot (see http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-search-continues-gunmen-lapd-officers-20150316-story.html),  Ferguson police announced charges March 15, brought against Jeffrey Williams in the shootings of two cops there. Report from Reuters, at http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/suspect-charged-in-shooting-of-ferguson-missouri-police-officers/ar-AA9NB5K indicates that some local activists have celebrated his arrest, saying now they can get back to the business of protests.

Peaceful protests have not stopped police executions of nearly 200 people across the U.S. since 2015 began. There have been no charges against the killer cops either at the local or national levels. Those who choose to fight back to defend their communities from these killer cops, by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY, deserve our support, not our condemnation. Additionally, our court system presumably is based on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” For anyone to presume that Williams is NOT innocent at this stage is an absolute travesty. 

 Photos with accompanying articles are available on http://killedbypolice.net/,

Intro by Andre’ Gabriel Esparza – DontComply.com

Journalist Andre Esparza

Just a little over two months into 2015, there have been at least 191 individuals killed by police in the United States since the year began. That’s 191 people divided by 65 Days which equals 2.93. This averages out to three people killed by police each day or 1 life taken every eight hours by Law Enforcement Officers.

Killedbypolice.net has spearheaded the responsibility to track these statistics, which includes dates, full names, and press releases of the killings. Have ‘We the People’ turned into targets . . . 

“In Canada, all of last year they only reported 14 citizens killed by police, around 78 times fewer people killed than here in our country. The United Kingdom only had 1 person killed by a police officer in 2014 with 0 the year before. Germany between 2013-2014 their police didn’t kill anyone. China had 12 of their people killed by police in 2014 and their population is over four times our population. From 2010 through 2014, there were only 4 police shooting deaths in England a country of about 50 million. The country of Iceland since its inception have only had to take one man’s life and that was after hours and hours of deploying other strategies to remove him from his house that he had blocked off from entry.”

http://www.dontcomply.com/so-far-in-2015-police-have-killed-three-people-a-day/#sthash.JBMhTdPS.dpuf%20

On March 12, protesters of all ages march from the Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections to Gov. Scott Walker’s mansion in Madison, WI to decry murder of Tony Robinson, 18 by white cop. Photo: The Cardinal

 By Diane Bukowski

Editorial March 12, 2015

Ferguson cops raid home in manhunt for shooter who wounded two police. To date, no arrests have been made.

DETROIT – Last night, two cops were shot and wounded, not fatally, outside the Ferguson police department, as a rally demanding more than the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson was breaking up.

Jackson resigned in the wake of a USDOJ report slamming the vile racism characterizing the department, amid unmet community demands that the entire department be disbanded.

Read USDOJ report at USDOJ ferguson_findings_3-4-15.

Police in riot gear had already brutally attacked the protest, arresting three, prior to the shootings, according to news reports.

Eric Holder

Al Sharpton

U.S. Atty. General Eric Holder, Rev. Al Sharpton, and numerous so-called “civil rights” leaders condemned the shootings, with Sharpton particularly demanding that police not be targeted.

“Such senseless acts of violence threaten the very reforms that nonviolent protesters in Ferguson and around the country have been working towards for the past several months,” Holder said. “We wish these injured officers a full and speedy recovery. We stand ready to offer any possible aid to an investigation into this incident, including the department’s full range of investigative resources. And we will continue to stand unequivocally against all acts of violence against cops whenever and wherever they occur.”

Imam Luqman Abdullah

VOD ASKS WHAT REFORMS, AS POLICE ACROSS THE U.S. CONTINUE THEIR SLAUGHTER?

What about the FBI’s killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah, leader of a mosque on Detroit’s poor west side, in 2009, sanctioned by Holder? Imam Abdullah, an ally of Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown of the Black Panthers,  was shot 21 times in an ambush.

Both Imams were carrying on the tradition of the 1960’s by peacefully organizing youth and neighborhoods for their very survival. HOLDER HOLDS COPS, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS LEADERS, SACRED?

Now the Ferguson police are conducting a dragnet for the shooters, raiding one home after news media, traitors that they are, claimed it was the source of the gunshots. This dragnet is just a continuation of the one that has taken place since the Ferguson rebellions after Michael Brown’s death. Police have charged protesters shown on video raiding local non-Black-owned stores during the rebellion, and even those who spoke out at rallies, including one who met with President Barack Obama as part of a task force.

Hayward Brown. 2nd from left, with supporters including Atty. Ken Cockrel, Sr.

There is no question this will grow into a manhunt similar to that which engulfed Detroit after Hayward Brown, John Percy Boyd, and Mark Clyde Bethune killed one cop among others who were protecting a drug house.

The city’s notorious S.T.R.E.S.S. killer cop unit (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets), had been busy killing dozens of Black men. Mass rallies across Detroit protested home invasions by the gangster cops.

Eventually Boyd and Bethune were killed by police in New York City and Atlanta. Hundreds attended their funerals. Hayward Brown was acquitted at trial, represented by the people’s attorney Kenneth Cockrel, Sr., but later died under suspicious circumstances when he returned to his hometown.

THIS IS WAR, AND THE PEOPLE DID NOT START IT.

Michael Brown, 18

Grand juries across the U.S. have refused to indict dozens of killer cops across the U.S. for slaughtering predominantly Black, Latin and other poor people over the years. Holder and the U.S. Justice Department refused to file civil rights charges against Darren Wilson for killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Aiyana Jones, 7

Here in Detroit, Wayne County Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway and Prosecutor Kym Worthy dismissed all charges against Detroit cop Joseph Weekley for blasting his MP5 submachine gun into 7-year-old Aiyana Jones’ head in 2010, as she lay sleeping, during a vicious SWAT-style raid of her home. There was supposed to be a federal investigation of that little girl’s killing, but it never happened. Holder holds the lives of cops, but not little girls, sacred?

Protester at march supporting Lovelle Mixon, in photo, and protesting police murder of Oscar Grant, in Oakland, CA, 2009.

What else is to be done? In 2009, protesters in Oakland, CA marched to support Lovelle Mixon, 27, after he was stopped by Oakland cops March 21, 2009 and opened fire on them, killing four. Oscar Grant had been brutally gunned down by a BART transit cop just days before. The video below gives the political background for the protesters’ support.

People of color and poor people have an absolute right to defend their lives from killer cops. It is not the people who have begun this war.

It is a war that has been waged from the days of the African Holocaust, the kidnapping, killing, and enslavement of hundreds of thousands that ensued, the lynchings carried out after the Civil War into the modern day, the genocide of Native Americans and Latinos, the “mass incarceration in the days of color-blindness,” as Michelle Alexander termed the fate of 2.5 million people in U.S. prisons.

The U.S. has five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its incarcerated populated, most of them people of color.

Activists in Ferguson and across the U.S. must not presume that those who shot the two cops in Ferguson were “agent provocateurs.” They must not condemn their form of rebellion, calling instead for “peaceful” protests. They must not INFORM on the shooters by giving details to the police who are the enemy, the real terrorists in the U.S. The origins of police in the U.S. are mired in the history of slavecatchers.

“I hate that it happened,” Michael Makin, 19, of Ferguson, told the Guardian.  “It could just make us all look bad. But no matter what happens, we have got to keep the movement going, keep it positive and make changes for the better. We can’t let youth go to waste.”

The Guardian also said, “Rev Starsky Wilson, who is a co-chairman of the Ferguson Commission established by Governor Jay Nixon to work out how to heal the St Louis suburb, delivered a biblical-style attack on the unidentified gunman. ‘We come to curse all of those who would stand in the midst of peaceful protest and cast forth shots that bring violence,’ he said.

Militarized police are taking over U.S. cities.

WHO HAS BROUGHT THE VIOLENCE?

How are the powers in charge going to “heal” people in Ferguson and Detroit since Darren Miller and Joseph Weekley walk scott-free?

Support for the police only divides a movement which began in Ferguson and has continued most recently in Madison, Wisconsin, with young people taking over the state capitol and pouring into the streets every day since.

Some people claim that such actions will only increase the police war on the people, but if that is the case, it is not the fault of the shooters in Ferguson. How much more can the war on the people be increased before people stand up and fight back?

Tony Robinson, 18, killed by Madison, Wisconsin police March 6, 2015.

Update, March 8, 2015: According to a report from the Associated Press, the cop who killed Tony Robinson, 19, is Matt Kenny, who is white. . . .

“Kenny, who had more than 12 years with the Madison department, also shot and killed a suspect in 2007, but was cleared of wrongdoing because it was a ‘suicide by cop-type’ situation,” said the AP. “In that shooting, Kenny responded to a 911 call of a man with a gun and shot him twice after police said he pointed the gun at officers. It turned out to be a pellet gun.”

Madion serial killer kop Matt Kenny.

Predictably, news media has now also detailed a previous arrest and conviction of Robinson for home invasion, completely unrelated to his killing by Kenny. Police had said he was running in and out of traffic, and allegedly he had been involved in an assault and battery. However, a friend said he frequently runs across the street between his apartment and that of his room-mate’s mother.

Robinson was still alive when he arrived at the hospital where police took him, but no one from his family, including his mother Andrea Irwin, was allowed to see him. Irwin said her son was not a violent person, and she could not understand how he could die under such violent circumstances.

By Andrew Hahn and Dana Kampa

MADISON, WI — After an unnamed Madison Police Department officer shot teenager Anthony “Tony” Terrell Robinson in an apartment on the 1100 block of Williamson Street Friday evening, a crowd of nearly 150 gathered at the scene to protest what they said was another example of racial injustice. Robinson was a graduate of Sun Prairie High School.

Tony Robinson’s grieving mother Andrea Irwin.

Family spokesman Michael Johnson said on Facebook that Robinson was a “loving and caring young man” who was about to attend Milwaukee Area Technical College to pursue a business degree.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said a police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old black man Friday evening, according to footage from a press conference published by Channel 3000. The family of the victim identified him as Anthony Robinson.

Koval said MPD received a report that Robinson was responsible for a recently committed battery. The first responding officer arrived at the apartment the man had entered and heard a “disturbance” coming from inside. The officer then forced his way into the building, where Robinson allegedly assaulted him.

“In the context of mutual combat in that sense, the officer did draw his revolver and subsequently shot the subject,” Koval said.

At the time of the press conference, police did not know if Robinson had a weapon, although an initial investigation ruled out the presence of a gun.

Protest at shooting site included Robinson’s aunt (in brown leather jacket) and grandmother at right.

Koval said the officer immediately aided Robinson with CPR, along with help from backup officers. He was taken to a hospital, where he died of the gunshot wounds.

The responding officer was knocked down by a blow to the head, but Koval said at the press conference, the officer would be treated and ultimately released.

State law mandates that an independent investigation be conducted. MPD froze the scene until the state Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation arrived.

Officers at the scene said DOJ investigators had arrived before 11:30 p.m.

“This is completely their oversight,” Koval said. “We will only supplement their needs as they request it.”

Hundreds of people rallied outside building where Tony Robinson was murdered.

He said MPD will not have an instrumental role in the investigation.

“In light of so [many] things that have happened not just across this country, but in our own community, it’s understandable that the reaction at the scene amidst some of our citizens is extremely volatile, emotional and upsetting,” Koval said.

Demonstrators arrived on Williamson Street shortly after the incident, where they remained for several hours, chanting, singing and praying for Robinson’s family.

Shortly before midnight, Robinson’s grandmother, Sharon Irwin, and aunt, Lorien Carter, addressed the crowd.

He [Robinson] wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Irwin said. “He was unarmed. Why would you shoot him five times? What happened to your taser gun?”

Family members said they were not allowed to see Robinson after he was pronounced dead.

Protesters sit in at Madison City Hall to protest Robinson’s killing.

‘WE WERE TOLD HE WAS EVIDENCE,’ NOT ALLOWED TO SEE ROBINSON

“We were told he was evidence,” Carter said. “He wasn’t referred to as ‘his son’ or ‘your son,’ just ‘evidence.'”

Protest organizers relocated the crowd to the City/County Building, where they said police were holding two demonstrators who had been detained from the scene earlier in the evening.

Protester weeps as demonstrations continued over the weekend,

Police locked the doors to the building after half the group had already entered. They staged a sit-in along the halls of the building while the others chanted outside and knocked on the doors to the building.

The two protesters were released before 1:30 a.m., and the combined group of roughly 150 dissipated.

Irwin said she believed her grandson’s death was part of a larger national issue and similar to cases in Ferguson, Mo. and Miami Gardens, Fla.

“This can’t go on anymore,” Irwin said. “It’s going on across the United States and it’s ridiculous. You don’t have a license to kill. You have a license to protect, and that’s not what I’m seeing.”

Above all, family members asked for nonviolent demonstrations, like the one Friday night, to continue.

“Protest peacefully, please,” Carter asked. “Stand up, but stand up peacefully.”

VOD editor: This morning again, we wake up to hear of another Black youth whose life has been ended by a killer kop, after two men of color in LA were shot down like dogs by the LAPD March 1 and March 5. This is nothing but an ongoing massacre across the U.S. now, by the country’s own home-grown terrorists, its police forces.

Killer cop Joseph Weekley, all charges dismissed.

Peaceful protests do not matter, as killer cops are set free, from Joseph Weekley in Detroit, who deliberately shot Aiyana Jones, 7, in the head with an MP5 submachine gun on May 16 2010, to Darrell Wilson from Ferguson, MO, who deliberately killed 18-year-old Michael Brown Aug. 9, 2014.

The mainstream media lies, criminalizing the victims without fail, aiding and abetting the killers. It lied all through the years since Aiyana’s murder, claiming the shooting, part of a horrific SWAT-style raid on her home, was an “accident.” VOD was the only newspaper to report that the Medical Examiner testified that a contact gunshot wound would not leave stippling, as was the case with Aiyana, and that Weekley did not even have the safety on his gun engaged according to an inside source.

“He came to kill!” Aiyana’s grandmother Mertilla Jones cried out at the time. Yes, Weekley did, and yes, cops all over the U.S. are coming to kill members of Black, Latino and poor communities deliberately every single day.

Mike Brown, 18, shot to death by Darren WIlson in Ferguson, MO.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a report this week condemning the racist practices of the Ferguson Police Department, but never brought charges against Wilson.  Outgoing U.S Atty. General Eric Holder said the USDOJ may have to go so far as to dismantle the department.

YES! That must be done across the country and if the federal government does not do it, the people must!  Killer cop forces must be driven out of our communities, and those responsible for these murders jailed for life. The slaughter of our youth, people of color and poor people across the U.S. will never end until these ISIS-style occupation forces leave!

Revolutionary leader Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

– See Frederick Douglass’ entire speech at:

http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress#sthash.4X2eLOf7.dpuf

Detroit retirees protest Orr, Rhodes, Rosen in freezing temperatures outside Crain’s luncheon Feb. 26, 2015. Poster of Aiyana Jones, 7 when killed by Detroit police in 2010, was prominently displayed. It’s not one thing–it’s everything.

Financial Review Commission report on current general fund debt: $3,008,162,089, up from 2013 total LTD of  $1,003,937,000 

“DON’T HONOR THIEVES” retirees shout outside luncheon for bankruptcy perpetrators Orr, Rhodes, Rosen 

Appeals of bankruptcy proceed in U.S. District Court

Next meeting of DAREA Wed. March 4 @ 5:30 pm, St. Matthew/Joseph Church at Woodward and Holbrook — Guest speaker Tom Barrow

DAREA VP Cecily McClellan at right.

By Diane Bukowski 

March 1, 2015 

DETROIT – As 32,000 members of Detroit’s city retirement systems lose huge chunks of their pension checks and annuity savings funds (ASF) accounts this week, on top of health care elimination, wage cuts, and lay-offs already in place, Wall Street is celebrating its $2 billion coup in the Detroit bankruptcy.

The Detroit Financial Review Commission (DFRC) published figures Feb. 16 that show the city’s total general fund long-term debt (LTD) from 2015-44 is now $3,008,162,089. According to the city’s last available Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of 2013, the general fund LTD then was $1,003,937,000. 

Click on City bond debt under bankruptcy for copy of chart; click on DFRC report for full copy of Financial Review Commission report.

Detroit Financial Review Commission:
Detroit “Mayor” Mike Duggan, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones, State Treasurer Kevin Clinton, State Budget Director John Roberts,
Darrell Burks former senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Stacy Fox, former deputy EM under Kevyn Orr, Dupont Senior VP, Roxbury Real Estate, Lorron James ,VP of James Group Int’l, military contractor with Lockheed Martin; Bill Martin, founder of First Martin Corp., a real estate, construction, and development firm; Tony Saunders, former director at Conway McKenzie law firm, prime player in Detroit bankruptcy.
Every decision on every dollar in Detroit goes through these nine men and women.

Detroit workers, retirees and residents are liable for the debt, to be paid BEFORE any spending on city services. Under terms of the bankruptcy plan, the DFRC is the final decision-maker on city finances. 

“The City pledges to pay the principal of and interest on the Bonds as a first budget obligation from its general funds and in case of insufficiency thereof, from the proceeds of an annual levy of ad valorem taxes on all taxable property of the City, subject to applicable constitutional, statutory and charter tax rate limitations,” says the bankruptcy exit plan.

The DFRC report says the city’s state revenue-sharing payments, already slashed by $7.32 billion over the last 10 years, will also back up portions of the debt.

Some of the furred and beweled supporters of bankruptcy pretend non-chalance as they are called “thieves.”

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s celebrated the inclusion of state aid liens, giving four of the bond deals investment-grade ratings in the A range.

“Factors that strengthen the new credit and offset some of the weaker characteristics cited include the statutory lien on state aid, a first lien on debt millage from the city’s UTGO pledge, and the direct flow of state aid needed for debt payments from the state treasurer to the trustee as well as the direct flow of debt millage directly to the escrow trustee,” the Bond Buyer reported Dec. 22, 2014.

In other words, the state pays the debts directly to Wall Street without local government intervention.

Protester at entrance to MCC Sound Board.

“Thieves!” and “Al Capones!” a furious group of retirees shouted at well-heeled patrons arriving at a Feb. 27 Crain’s Detroit “Newsmakers” luncheon. The event honored former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, and bankruptcy mediator U.S. District Court Chief Judge Gerald Rosen.

“The banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” and  “Don’t honor thieves!” retirees chanted as the predominantly white attendees, including former EM Kevyn Orr and Jones Day attorney Heather Lennox, exited expensive cars, limousines and buses outside the entrance to the Motor City Casino’s Sound Board in downtown Detroit.

One group of retirees confronted Orr about the huge cuts they have taken to their pensions and health care. Orr responded, “You’re lucky I didn’t take it all.”

Protesters added a chant of “Newsmakers make up the news!” referring to what they said was biased coverage in favor of the bankruptcy by most of the mainstream media. During the luncheon, Orr and Rhodes congratulated the media for their coverage. The fact that the two spoke together with Rosen shed more doubt on the judges’ impartiality in the bankruptcy case.

Retirees confront luncheon attendees, who paid $70 a head, charging robbery.

VOD has already exposed Rhodes for chairing a one-sided forum Oct. 10, 2012 on Chapter 9 bankruptcy and Emergency Managers, which featured a chief witness for the “city” at the bankruptcy trial, Charles Moore of Conway Mackenzie. Also speaking were a co-author of Public Act 4, the predecessor to PA 436, EM trainers, and other pro-EM and Chapter 9 advocates.

“That constitutes not only an ethical violation, but Rhodes’ confirmation of the bankruptcy despite his knowledge of criminal fraud as exposed in the city’s lawsuit against the $1.5 billion ‘Certificates of Participation’ loan makes him liable for criminal charges as well,” retiree Cornell Squires of We the People for the People said.

“It is important that we are here today to show the world that we are still fighting, that the so-called ‘Grand Bargain’ was nothing but a ‘grand theft,’” Cecily McClellan, vice-president of the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), told the crowd.

Jones Day atty. Heather Lennox arrives; she has been assigned to handle bankruptcy appeals.

“Many people don’t know we are appealing the bankruptcy plan in District Court because of its illegal injuries to retirees and residents. At the very least, we want the ‘claw-back’ of our annuity savings funds overturned, and at the most, we want the bankruptcy plan rescinded. It represents disparate treatment to African-Americans in the nations’ largest-Black majority city, which has been portrayed as a ‘failed’ city in world-wide publicity.  The ASF recoupment is aimed at employees who hired on after Coleman A. Young became Detroit’s first Black mayor. Judge Rhodes showed the institutional racism involved when he cited ‘the unique racial composition’ of Detroit to justify the bankruptcy.”

The mainstream media has completely ignored ongoing appeals in front of U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman, filed by DAREA, the Ochadleus Group/Quinn, Jamie Fields, and others. The city summarily moved to dismiss the appeals without filing responses to them on Feb. 21, as did the so-called Detroit Retired City Employees Association (DRCEA), headed by Shirley Lightsey.

The DRCEA even requested $50 legal donations from its members to cover their expenses in the case against city retirees. But Friedman has not set a date for a hearing on the dismissal motions. Instead, he has told the city to provide “responsive briefs” after the appellants provide their responses to the motions to dismiss. Copies of the pertinent motions are attached below.

“We’re in this to win,” DAREA President Bill Davis told retirees earlier, “even if we have to take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“Rebirth of Detroit:” Dan Gilbert affiliates moved tenants out of bldg. next door and long-time Black and disabled residents from Griswold Apartments across street in Capitol Park.

The media generally claims retirees are losing only 4.5 percent of their pensions, ignoring huge six-figure sums being ripped from many annuity savings accounts, as well as new monthly payments of as much as $1200 for retiree health care.

It has celebrated the bankruptcy as “the rebirth of Detroit,” refusing to acknowledge that it may be nothing but a house of cards if Detroit is not able to repay the $3 billion debt Wall Street has foisted on it.

“We think that it is more than ‘feasible’ that the city finds itself facing fiscal difficulties over the next five years,” Municipal Market Advisors (MMA), an independent advisory firm, reported in October, 2014. “In effect, Detroit may wind up, on its first day out of bankruptcy, as one of the most likely candidates for Chapter 9 in the state of Michigan.”

Detroit retiree protests on Grand River before moving to MCC Sound Board entrance.

MMA cited the bankruptcy plan’s giveaway of many of the city’s major revenue-producing assets, which include most of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the Joe Louis Arena and other riverfront and downtown land and revenues.

The state of Michigan imposes a legal debt limit on its municipalities, which is 10 percent of the total assessed value of all the entities’ real and personal property.

According to Detroit’s 2013 CAFR, the city’s total debt limit was $1,558,064,000, with total net debt applicable to the limit at $1,039,011,000.The $3 billion total LTD already exceeds the limit, while figures from the DFRC report show the city’s annual debt payments rising year by year, with no substantial increase in revenue.

Bosom buddies: Michigan Gov. Rick-tator Snyder, Detroit “Mayor” Mike Duggan

Detroit “Mayor” Mike Duggan reported in his State of the City Address that income from property taxes is expected to decline at least through 2017. Wayne County’s chargebacks to the city for foreclosed property it bought from Detroit, but cannot sell at auctions, are a huge factor, amounting to $82 million last year. Duggan also cited declining property values and likely increased foreclosure activity. He did NOT cite the huge tax breaks being accorded to wealthy developers like Dan Gilbert and Mike Illitch.

Other “inherent risks” in the projected budget, Duggan said, include increased unemployment, rising interest rates, rising inflation, lowered consumer confidence, declines in state sales tax revenues apportioned to the cities, and “implementation risks due to deferred-delayed results from restructuring efforts.”

BELOW: VIDEO OF KEVYN ORR AND JUDGE STEVEN RHODES AT CRAIN’S LUNCHEON. SPEAKERS, ATTENDEES HAD MANY GOOD LAUGHS AS DETROIT RETIREES SUFFERED WORST ATTACKS IN U.S.

DETROIT ACTIVE & RETIRED EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATION NEXT MEETING WED. MARCH 4 @ 5:30 P.M. ST. MATTHEWS/ST. JOSEPH CHURCH WOODWARD AND HOLBROOK

Former mayoral candidate Tom Barrow

Guest Speaker: Mr. Tom Barrow

PETITION: Sign the petition to halt changes to pensions and other benefits, to  U.S. Justice Department, at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/selective-enforcement?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=9645222.

FUNDRAISING: To donate to DAREA’s LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, click on  http://www.gofundme.com/pensiondefensefund. Or checks can be made payable to the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), at P.O. Box 3724, Highland Park, Michigan 48203.

“Hands off my Pension” T-shirts shown in photos above are available for $10 each. The fundraising committee will continue to sponsor events to cover what is anticipated will be substantial legal fees.

WEEKLY MEETINGS:  To receive notices of meetings, updates on the appeal and events information please provide your email address and phone numbers via email at Detroit2700plus@gmail.com or call DAREA at 313-649-7018.

Read DAREA’s position statement at DAREA Call/.

Retirees pack DAREA meeting Jan. 21, 2015.

Related documents:

Detroit Four year financial plan Duggan

Motion to dismiss DAREA appeal

DRCEA motion to dismiss

City response brief 30 days after service of DAREA reply to motion to dismiss

Brf opposing Mot Dismiss – Mootness Quinn

Index of Exhibits Quinn

State Notice Re Conditions Precedent to State Contribution

Related from VOD:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/21/rhodes-says-detroits-unique-racial-composition-led-to-bankruptcy-ignores-cops-fraud/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/18/a-tale-of-two-elections-in-michigan-its-all-black-and-white/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/03/retirees-carry-on-the-battle-for-detroit-appealing-bankruptcy-to-higher-court/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/23/detroit-workers-retirees-filing-briefs-in-8-appeals-of-citys-bankruptcy-plan/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/12/detroit-retirees-announce-federal-appeal-of-bankruptcy-call-for-massive-support/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/07/appeal-of-detroit-bankruptcy-accepted-in-u-s-district-court-press-conf-thurs-jan-8-10-am/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/12/14/leaving-bankruptcy-detroit-takes-on-1-28-billion-of-new-debt/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/20/judge-denies-all-but-pa-436-lawsuit-equal-protection-claim-after-detroit-bankruptcy-over/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/15/detroit-bankruptcy-plan-genocide-in-usas-largest-black-majority-city-rich-get-95-9-poor-get-13-5/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/28/bankruptcy-did-little-to-stabilize-detroit-municipal-market-advisors/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/21/why-the-poor-are-paying-for-detroits-bankruptcy/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/17/detroit-bankruptcy-creditor-fgic-to-get-joe-louis-arena-billions-based-on-fraudulent-poc-deal/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/10/16/detroit-retirees-officials-blast-bankruptcy-plan-em-at-last-minute-hearing/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/09/10/detroit-bankruptcy-great-lakes-water-authority-to-steal-largest-asset-of-largest-u-s-black-city-4/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/09/06/racist-bankruptcy-plan-hearing-sanctions-theft-of-detroit/

Related from other sources:

http://www.bondbuyer.com/news/regionalnews/standard-and-poors-gives-detroit-one-investment-grade-rating-1068987-1.html

http://www.publicsectorinc.org/2014/02/detroit-pension-borrowings-what-a-tangled-web/

http://www.demos.org/blog/3/10/14/detroit%E2%80%99s-bankruptcy-laboratory-study-corruption-municipal-finance

“Anyone can paint what they want under their First Amendment rights.”

What about those who commit actual mass destruction, including Dan Gilbert, U-M fraternities?

By Diane Bukowski

February 25, 2015

This mural was found on the side of the Youthville building at Woodward and Grand Blvd. in central Detroit in January.

Detroit – Taylor Daramy and Marcelus Gray, the two teens charged with painting a mural of a child angel holding a gun on a cop with his hands raised on Detroit’s Youthville headquarters, are both due back in court Tues. March 3, according to the latest information available.

The 19-year-olds face charges of “malicious destruction of a building” under MCL 750.830. For destruction costing $1,000 to $20,000, a felony penalty of up to five years in prison is possible; for destruction costing $100 to $1,000, a one-year high misdemeanor penalty can be assessed.

Judge Michael Wagner, recently appointed to the 36^th District Court bench by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, held separate preliminary exam hearings Feb. 17 in the cases. Wagner’s chambers are located not in 36^th District Court, but in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, Rm. 201.

Gray’s attorney Ryan Hill waived the exam and Wagner bound him over to Wayne County Circuit Court. Gray’s arraignment on the information there is set for March 3 at 9 a.m. in front of Judge David Groner. Daramy’s attorney Arni Chambers said his client will not waive her exam, but asked for more discovery information from the prosecution. Her preliminary exam was rescheduled to March 3 at 9:15 a.m. in front of Wagner.

Marcelus Gray, 19, Taylor Daramy, 19

“Anyone can paint what they want under their First Amendment rights,” Chambers told VOD after the proceeding. “The only issue might have been where it was painted.”

About a half-dozen Detroit youths came to court to support the teens.

The teens’ families and friends also accompanied them to the hearing, but deferred all questions to their attorneys. A storm of negative media coverage of the painting last month even included an attempted visit to Daramy’s home by Fox 2 News, according to Chambers. Most of the media portrayed the mural as a statement that youth should shoot police, treating it as an offense nearly tantamount to the rampant killings of youth by police across the U.S.

Ron Scott

Ron Scott, president of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Inc. also attended the hearing. He was quoted extensively in the media condemning the mural and the artists.

He told VOD, “I did not want prosecution, but mediation,” and claimed he would testify as a witness for Daramy and Gray. He said he has tried to call Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy several times about dropping the charges, but has not been able to reach her.

He denied taking photos of the mural, which were attributed to him or to the DCAPB in numerous newspaper and online captions. He said he has ties with various groups in Youthville and would ask them to intervene. So far, his attempts have been fruitless.

Maria Miller, Chief of Communications for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office, said next week’s hearings are still scheduled as planned.

“Dan Gilbert’s people installed video cameras on 1515 Broadway and the Detroit Beer Company downtown, drilling holes in the bricks without the permission of the owners,” Mike Shane, of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition said. “THAT’s destruction of property, but nobody’s charging Gilbert.”

Dan Gilbert is watching you!

Camera at 1515 Broadway

Steve Neavling of the Motor City Muckraker wrote earlier, “Chris Jaszczak heard the high-pitched sound of a drill grinding into the brick wall of his coffee shop and black box theater in downtown Detroit. After peeking into the alley behind his building at 1515 Broadway, Jaszczak was shocked when he saw someone installing a surveillance camera on his brick wall. . . .Turns out, employees for Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services were ordered to place surveillance cameras on the rear of 1515 Broadway and the Detroit Beer Company without gaining permission from the owners, who are angry about the discovery.”

Demolition of Detroit home.

Gilbert’s cameras are all over the downtown Detroit area, including inside the Detroit News and Free Press buildings, newly-rented from him after he bought their old offices, according to a report from the on-line newspaper MFI-Miami.

Gilbert additionally heads the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, which is busy tearing down hundreds of homes across the city using federal “Hardest-Hit” funds meant to keep families in their homes.

MFI-Miami, which investigates mortgage fraud, reports that it did a sample survey of mortgages supplied by Gilbert’s Quicken Loans.

“Of the 75 homes sampled that had Quicken Loans named as the original mortgagee sampled,” the paper wrote, “70.6% of these homes went into foreclosure within the first 24-36 months of being sold on the secondary housing market by Quicken Loans to either Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or to a private mortgage backed securities trust on Wall Street.”

TreeTops resort hallway after frat boys trashed it in January,

So Gilbert’s been getting paid the value of his foreclosed mortgages by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then using federal funds to tear foreclosed homes down, homes worth massively more than the amounts cited in the charges against Gray and Daramy.

Also in contrast, hundreds of college fraternity members from the University of Michigan literally dismantled parts of the TreeTops and Boyne Highlands Ski Resorts in Michigan in late January after a week-end of “partying too hard” in late January. Michigan State Police politely “escorted” students from TreeTops, but no arrests have been reported.

Barry Owens, a general manager at Treetops, earlier told news media he estimated the damage there at $50,000, but photos taken by news crews show hallways and rooms that look like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with floors and ceiling tiles ripped out.

Owens told VOD that as far as he knows, no criminal charges have been brought against the perpetrators, but that the Michigan State Police are still investigating the matter.

Killed by police who have never been fired, convicted or jailed.

Meanwhile, the Detroit Youth Foundation, the organization that owns Youthville, site of the “malicious destruction” in the current case, dissolved itself August 1, 2014 according to state records. It ran a deficit of $1,175,000 in its last 990 filing with the IRS, from 2011.

Some local media called the building a “school.” In fact, it houses not only the Plymouth Education Center charter school, but also a branch of Don Bosco, the Detroit Parent Network (cited by public school advocates as a replacement for Local Community School Organization leaders at individual schools), the Motor City Dance Factory, and N C Management.

It also rents out space according to its 990 filing. Most of the officers listed in its 2013 annual report do not reside in Detroit, or have given only office addresses in Detroit. As a non-profit, Youthville pays no taxes to Detroit. A woman who answered the phone for Youthville/Don Bosco said their organization was not the complainant against Daramy and Gray, and referred VOD to building maintenance for that information, where the individual in charge was out sick for the day.

Related stories: 

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/10/drop-charges-against-teens-who-painted-angel-cop-charge-killer-cops-with-murder/

http://mfi-miami.com/2015/02/did-dapper-dan-gilbert-quicken-loans-contribute-to-detroits-blight/

http://mfi-miami.com/2015/02/dapper-dan-gilberts-voyeurism-fetish-in-detroit/

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/27905772/university-of-michigan-fraternity-members-accused-of-vandalizing-ski-resorts

Detroit houses delinquent on property taxes have sunlight turned off.

By Ian MacIntyre

January 22, 2015

Published in U.S.

VOD editor: I know many Detroiters took this satirical article as serious business, and it’s no wonder considering the vicious suffering we have been subjected to at the hands of our fascist Gov. Rick Snyder, EM Kevyn Orr, Bankruptcy Czar Steven Rhodes, and “Mayor” Mike Duggan. But please be aware this is not for real and take some time out to laugh–it’s good for the soul, as we go on about our struggles. Our day will come! VOD would also recommend this Canadian newspaper, The Beaverton, at http://www.thebeaverton.com

DETROIT – In response to non-payment of property taxes, the City of Detroit has undertaken a massive city-wide effort to block sunlight from the homes of its poorest residents.

“They came at 5am to install the sun blocker over my house,” said Marcus Jones. “It was still dark out, so I didn’t notice it until hours later.” Jones then directed reporters to the property boundary of his darkened home, demonstrating how his neighbour still had bright noon hour sunlight.

Bat resembles Bankruptcy Judge Rhodes

Jones lamented, “How am I supposed to get rid of all these bats?”

The massive sun blocking devices are just the latest in the city of Detroit’s plans to recoup millions in lost tax revenue. In some cases entire neighbourhoods have had their light blocked out, while in other cases individual homes have been plunged into darkness.

The sunlight turnoff initiative is the brainchild of Detroit’s emergency manager trustee, Kevyn Orr. “There is no law that guarantees the right to free sunlight. Trust me, we checked,” explained the unilaterally appointed Orr.

Asked whether the cost of blocking the sunlight was greater than the lost revenue, Orr replied, “Certainly, but we’re counting on the costs to be offset by sales of scurvy medication.”

Fighting wolves resemble Republicans and Democrats.

Some have noted that many delinquent payees – notably Detroit’s high-end golf club, Joe Louis arena, and many commercial users – continue to enjoy both free sunlight, and its offshoot benefits like heat and photosynthesis. However, before receiving an explanation for the preferential treatment, these residents have generally been frightened off by the increase in nocturnal wolf activity.

Many residents are beginning to feel the lack of heat. Local labourer Scott Jenkins explained, “It wasn’t so bad at first, when I still had my job at the sun blocker motor plant. But then (Republican Governor) Snyder shipped the whole plant down to Mexico!”

Still, longtime resident Patty Hudson remains defiant regarding the health problems associated with sun blocking: “They tell us lack of sun can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression. Well, I been living in Detroit for 40 years – I already got all of those. They’re gonna have to do better than that to get rid of me.”

At press time Detroit was bracing for a surge in vampire activity, of both the corporate and nosferatu varieties.

From http://www.thebeaverton.com/us/item/1715-detroit-begins-turning-off-sunlight-for-low-income-residents

Crain’s Communications celebrates massive cuts to city retirees effective March 1 by honoring Detroit EM Kevyn Orr and Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes as “Newsmakers of the Year” at Motor City Casino Sound Board. (Perhaps Rhodes, shown at right, will bring his rock band “The Indubitable Equivalents”.) Call DAREA for more info at 313-649-7018.

Bucharest Grill owner Jerry Ballenger heatedly testifies against Illitch re-development plans for new Red Wings stadium, at City Council Sept. 5, 2013.

Jones Day (a/k/a Detroit) has filed 291 pp. motion to dismiss DAREA appeal of city bankruptcy.

The Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA) and GODetroit are sponsoring the fundraiser above, at a downtown restaurant owned by Jerry Bellanger, a vocal opponent of Mike Illitch’s 60 percent publicly-funded re-development plans for a new Red Wings stadium.

This fund-raiser, and other contributions to DAREA for legal expenses, are currently vital because the City of Detroit (a/k/a Jones Day) has just filed a 291-pp. Motion to Dismiss DAREA’s appeal of the phony, fraudulent Detroit bankruptcy, being heard in U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman’s court. This bankruptcy affects not only retirees, but also represents the theft of the city’s most prime assets, including the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, which used to be avenues for good, well-paying union jobs with benefits for Detroit’s youth.

More to come on the city’s motion to dismiss and DAREA’s planned response in the Voice of Detroit shortly. Please support DAREA AND GODetroit!

DAREA PETITION:

Sign the petition to halt changes to pensions and other benefits, to  U.S. Justice Department, at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/selective-enforcement?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=9645222.

FUNDRAISING:

To donate to DAREA’s LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, click on  http://www.gofundme.com/pensiondefensefund. Or checks can be made payable to the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), at P.O. Box 3724, Highland Park, Michigan 48203.

WEEKLY MEETINGS:

General membership meetings Mondays, 11 AM, at Nandi’s Knowledge Café, 12511 Woodward, Highland Park, 48203, alternate with Wednesday meetings at 5:30 PM, at St. Joseph’s and St. Matthew’s Church, Woodward and Holbrook. To receive notices of meetings, updates on the appeal and events information please provide your email address and phone numbers via email at Detroit2700plus@gmail.com or call DAREA at 313-649-7018.

Read DAREA’s position statement at DAREA Call.

RELATED:

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150208/NEWS/302089991/2014-newsmaker-of-the-year-luncheon

https://www.facebook.com/go.detroit.3?fref=ts

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/03/retirees-carry-on-the-battle-for-detroit-appealing-bankruptcy-to-higher-court/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/23/detroit-workers-retirees-filing-briefs-in-8-appeals-of-citys-bankruptcy-plan/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/01/12/detroit-retirees-announce-federal-appeal-of-bankruptcy-call-for-massive-support/

Great white massa: “City in denial regarding its need for help.”

 “Concept of civil unrest or civil disobedience not really on my mind,   Rhodes says, despite running off the bench when pastor Bill Wylie-Kellerman stood up in audience, declaring, “Jones Day is not the City of Detroit.”

By Diane Bukowski

Feb. 21, 201

Judge Rhodes enjoys roller skating with granddaughter and friend in resort hometown of Cape May, NJ. The county there is only five percent Black.

DETROIT – As 32,000 active and retired City of Detroit workers wait for the ax to fall on their pensions, wages and health benefits March 1, plummeting many of them below the poverty level, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes is busy congratulating himself on the bankruptcy’s alleged success as he retires.

Now that he thinks he’s out of the line of fire, he played the infamous “race card” in an interview with the Free Press.

“Part of the decline of the city itself can be attributed to our unique racial circumstances,” he told the Free Press in an online video, attached to a brief article that left out most of what he said to the camera, as well as whatever else he discussed in a “broad-ranging 90-minute interview.”

“The city was desperate, and desperate people and desperate entities do desperate things,” Rhodes continued, psychoanalyzing Detroit’s Black population with regard to the notorious $1.5 Billion Pension Obligation Certificates deal of 2005-06 (known as “COPS”). He claimed the city should have declared bankruptcy then.

Part of massive Detroit rebellion against racist police in 1967.

“We see that in bankruptcy all the time,” Rhodes continued. “As I have said, the city was in denial regarding its need for help, regarding its insolvency, and could not psychologically contemplate public embarrassment or humiliation associated with filing bankruptcy. So they entered into this creative and quite likely illegal deal.”

He also told the Freep, “The concept of civil unrest or civil disobedience was not really on my mind,” despite Detroiters’ anger against the imposition of an Emergency Manager and of the bankruptcy.” However, when Pastor Bill Wylie-Kellerman rose during a hearing to tell Jones Day attorneys, “You are not the City of Detroit,” Rhodes ignominiously ran off the bench to hide.

(L to right) Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow, Fitch Ratings’ Joe O’Keefe, Standard and Poor’s Stephen Murphy, and Detroit Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams press City Council to approve the $1.5 billion COPS loan, on Jan. 31, 2005, Photo: Diane Bukowski

In a second interview with WDET Radio, Rhodes said the POC deal, “. . . was structured to be an intentional evasion of the legal debt limits that municipalities by state law are required to stay within. It was too innovative, it was too creative and um that by itself should of been a red flag at the time.”

Rhodes here admits for the first time in public that he knew of the illegalities and likely fraud involved in the POC scam. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr as well as bond insurer FGIC both filed lawsuits against the case. Wallace Turbeville, a senior analyst at DEMOS and former Wall Street banker, pointed out the fraud involved in a paper published in Nov. 2012, but Rhodes refused to have him testify during the bankruptcy case.

The late Mayor of Jackson MS. and Detroit native Chokwe Lumumba, with Cornell Squires at federal court appeals hearing.

“As an officer of the court, a judge with integrity would first stop the proceedings, and investigate the legality of the debt,” Cornell Squires, a paralegal with We the People for the People, said. “Instead, they rushed the process, to make taxpayers and retirees responsible for billions of dollars that we shouldn’t have to pay back. This involves the doctrine of unclean hands. Rhodes doesn’t have any integrity whatsoever. His approval of the bankruptcy makes him a a stone racist, because the majority population of Detroit are people of color. No one’s above the law. He should be ashamed of himself.  He did the damage knowing he’s going to leave and enjoy retirement, unlike city workers. This is differential treatment—worse than the South. As an officer of the court, he should have seen to it that criminal charges were brought. Detroit is a crime scene, with the banks destroying the city and our people. Kwame went to jail for 28 years. Why can’t they go to jail? How much time do you get for stealing a whole city?”

Rhodes set a trial date in June 2015 to hear the Orr lawsuit, but with the help of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Gerald Rosen, he pressed the trial to an early conclusion in December, 2014.

The late, world-renowned union organizer General Baker campaigns against VEBA plan for UAW. Detroit’s agreement includes two VEBA’s, neither of which guarantee health care.

The deal took place under the administration of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. His CFO Sean Werdlow negotiated the terms with global Swiss-based bank UBS AG, and Siebert, Brandford and Shank (SBS), a partner backed by the Bank of America. Werdlow was appointed to an executive position with SBS in Dec. 2004 and is now its COO. Also at the table to press the deal were Wall Street ratings agencies Standand and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

But Rhodes implies in his comments that the deal was only Kilpatrick’s fault,  who he termed the only city mayor to be federally charged. It wasn’t the fault of the greedy white one percent who control the wealth of Detroit and the U.S.

Resort town of Cape May, N.J. and home base for Judge Rhodes.

Other articles reported that if the POC deal was canceled, health care for retirees could have been restored. By the time of the bankruptcy, the POC debt had skyrocketed to $2.8 Billion, with interest, penalties and fees. Instead of cancellation, however, the Eighth Amended Plan of Adjustment provides healthy settlements for UBS AG, SBS, and Bank of America. In the shadows, it handed over control of key municipal properties and billions in revenues including the Joe Louis Arena, the Detroit Windsor Tunnel, and the Grand Circus Park garage, to bond insurers FGIC and Syncora.

Throughout the trial, Rhodes falsely portrayed himself as part of Detroit, throwing crumbs to let retirees and others testify pro se. However, an internet address search for Rhodes shows that his only addresses have been 1610 Arborview Blvd, Ann Arbor, MI 48103; 1503 Linwood Ave, Ann Arbor MI 48103; and 1005 Pittsburg Ave, Cape May, N.J.

If former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick got 28 years in prison for allegedly stealing about $400,000, how much time should Rhodes, Rosen, Orr, Jones Day and other law firms, and Wall Street bankers get for stealing the entire city of Detroit?

 “Obama is a flame-thrower, a fire-spitter, a pyromaniac on a mission to incinerate humanity’s capacity to resist – a vision shared by the jihadist death cults.”

As U.S. imperialism loses its capacity to compete outside the military sphere, its foreign policy options shrink, accordingly.

“Since the U.S. is superior to the rest of the world ONLY in military terms, Washington finds its ultimate advantage in turning the whole world into a battlefield.” Permanent War follows the same logic as a death cult. In fact, one created the other – literally.

By BAR Executive Editor GLEN FORD

February 18, 2014

President Obama is a master of military supply and demand. His operatives and allies supply jihadists with enough weapons, financing and, in the case of Libya, a Euro-American air force, to plunge vast tracts of Africa and Asia into bloody chaos, thus creating a demand for intervention by the planet’s only “indispensable” nation: the United States. It’s a diabolical formula for fomenting hell on earth, driven by a simple logic: Since the U.S. is superior to the rest of the world ONLY in military terms, Washington finds its ultimate advantage in turning the whole world into a battlefield. U.S. imperialism in terminal decay sees no salvation except through global war.

Of necessity, Obama is a flame-thrower, a fire-spitter, a pyromaniac on a mission to incinerate humanity’s capacity to resist – a vision shared by the jihadist death cults America has incubated for the past four decades.

Libya before U.S.-NATO war; after in 2012.

ISIS, the Islamic State, begat by Al Qaida, which was begat by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the U.S. in Afghanistan, now declares sovereignty over portions of Libya, having occupied much of Syria and Iraq and planted the black flag in southern Yemen and the suburbs of Paris, where its token presence is enough to drive millions of Europeans into a decrepit Crusader palsy. A subcontinent of thieves who have plundered the planet for half a millennia vow to send the dark Others back to “their own countries” – as if Europe had not stolen these African and Asian homelands long ago. In the end, however, what Europe will send is more weapons to the jihadists, mimicking Uncle Sam.

“Boko Haram has proven quite useful to the consolidation of U.S. military dominance in West Africa.”

Boko Haram fighters.

This week, as happens every year, France, Britain, Italy and other piratical European states join the U.S. Africa Command’s military Flintlock exercise, designed to deepen African militaries’ dependence on western weaponry, training and finance.

Chad, a client state of both Washington and Paris, is the nominal host of the exercise – as if any of the African participants could actually say No to an imperial proposal. The Flintlock maneuvers have converged with a regional military offensive against Boko Haram, the northern Nigerian jihadists that have gained so much ground since the U.S. and NATO turned Libya over to the tender mercies of Arab jihadists, in 2011.

Five allies of the U.S. in the Flintlock campaign against Boko Haram.

Libyan weapons flooded south across the Sahara desert, bringing instability to the vast Sahel region – which is like honey to the Pentagon bee.

The U.S. military has announced that it will “share communications equipment and intelligence” with the five nations preparing to battle Boko Haram around oil-rich Lake Chad – imperial double-speak for putting the Americans in charge of the command-and-control mechanisms of the armies of Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Benin. Boko Haram has proven quite useful to the consolidation of U.S. military dominance in West Africa.

Meanwhile, the jihadist rampage has come full circle in Libya, where both ISIS and Al Qaida have multiple strongholds. Jihadist “ultras” are most deeply entrenched in Derna, a port city east of Benghazi that accounted for the most jihadists killed or captured in Iraq during the American occupation. When U.S. and NATO finally destroyed Muammar Gaddafi’s forces after seven months of bombing, hundreds of jihadists were sent to Syria, hoping to repeat the process against President Bashar al-Assad. Many have since returned to Libya, bringing the black flag of the Islamic State with them.

Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a supporter of one of three rump “governments” in Libya, bombed ISIS targets in Derna after the decapitation of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian migrant workers.

The atrocity, combined with a declaration of allegiance to ISIS by some Islamic rebels on Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, prompted el-Sisi to call for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS to put Libya on its bombing list – an invitation from the world’s most populous Arab nation for the U.S. to extend the scope of its military operations to Egypt’s western border.

Jihad is truly a blessing for U.S. imperial objectives – but there is nothing coincidental about it. The U.S. installed jihadists in power in Libya, leading directly to the destabilization of vast lands to the South, which in turn facilitated the U.S. Africa Command’s mission to militarily dominate the continent. The U.S.-led jihadist proxy war against secular Syria was the incubator for ISIS, providing the U.S. with a new portal into Iraq, an excuse to operate openly in Syria, and now a possible chance to re-enter Libya cloaked as a savior from the jihadist hordes that the U.S. armed, financed and empowered only four years ago.

ISIS has been such a boon to U.S. war-fomenting strategy, Obama has been emboldened to demand that Congress give him three years of virtually unlimited, renewable powers to reboot the War on Terror. Like George Bush before him, Obama refuses to put geographic limits on the scope of his crusade against ISIS and its “associates.” The world is his live-fire chessboard, he can call the pieces by whatever name he wants, and make up the rules along the way. Every move is calculated to lead to greater militarization of relations among nations and peoples, because the military is America’s strongest suit – in fact, its only suit.

The truth is, the rulers of the United States are as much a death cult as the Islamic State, although U.S. imperialism is infinitely more dangerous. Let us do our best to send them both to their respective Paradises.

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

Related:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/09/the-covert-origins-of-isis-united-states-cia-in-libya-syria-iraq-afghanistan/