May 1, 2014 march against Detroit bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment.

It’s ‘Grand Larceny”

Retirees stand to lose 35-50%, not 4.5%

Must sign off on all constitutionally-allowed appeals

Mike Mulholland at informational picket at Huber facility in 2012. Not only does the Detroit bankruptcy plan affect retirees, it will end up seizing control of the Water Department. Hundreds have already been laid off and more are expected. The more city employees laid off, the greater the damage to city pension funds. Meanwhile, thousands of Detroit residents are having their water shut off without notice under EM Kevyn Orr and an essentially regionalized Water Board.

 By Michael Mulholland

June 7, 2014

As a retiree from the City of Detroit, and acting president of AFSCME Local 207, I oppose the so-called Grand Bargain. Every dollar stolen from us will not be given to the people of Detroit, but merely help the greedy banks cut their losses. The banks manufactured the 2008 finance crisis and got bailed out while foreclosing on 100,000 families in Detroit alone. They should be jailed for racist predatory lending. Yet they expect us to bail them out with our modest pensions. This deal should be called Grand Larceny.

This deal is not guaranteed. If the DIA or corporate foundations don’t make good on their pledges, if pension funding levela drop below 80% or if investment returns drop below 6.75%, our pensions will be cut again, without a vote. 

This is more than a 4.5% cut. It is more like 35-50%. Almost half of the General Fund retirees who planned for our retirement through the annuity savings plan will see a total pension cut of up 20%. That’s my situation. We are not even allowed to pay back what Kevyn Orr calls “excess interest” in a lump sum. The 20% cut will continue for my entire life. Since I opted for a reduced pension so that my wife could have financial security after I die, the 20% cut will continue for her entire life, long after the “debt” is repaid. The state’s $194 million contribution is a small portion of the revenue sharing they owe Detroit. Annuity savings participants are being extorted for at least $240 million, or more if we live too long.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent time in prison for leading massive civil rights movement, then was assassinated.

Elimination of cost of living allowances will cost us and our beneficiaries 2.25% per year. Medical insurance cuts add up to an additional 30% loss, especially for those who are not old enough for Medicare. I am on Medicare, yet my monthly drug costs increased 400%.

Pioneers of the union and the civil rights movements faced threats and repercussions. But they took the risk, and changed history. As always, the experts say that this is “the best we can get,”  that the cuts are merciful, and that resistance is futile. The same arguments will be used to impose the “Detroit blueprint” on pensions throughout the nation. We are told that if we vote NO then even more punitive cuts will be imposed on us. But it has been our experience that whenever injustice is tolerated for the illusion of security, more demands soon follow.

If we vote yes, we lose the right to sue. We should keep fighting and continue our legal appeals. However, as the US Supreme Court’s recent racist ruling against affirmative action shows, we cannot simply rely on the courts for justice. AFSCME Local 207’s Executive Board urges everyone to vote NO and to help build a mass movement of resistance. That is the only way we can secure our pensions and a brighter future for the people of Detroit and workers everywhere.

May Day marchers blockade E. Jefferson Ave. at beginning of march.

DISMANTLING OF DEMOCRACY: THE STORY OF REV. EDWARD PINKNEY, BENTON HARBOR AND MICHIGAN 

Targeted for years-long battle against Whirlpool’s destruction of BH

One of first to come forward against Mich. Gov. Snyder’s EM laws

From the People’s Tribune

June 9, 2014

Rev. Edward Pinkney speaks against Whirlpool takeover of Benton Harbor May 26, 2012.

BENTON HARBOR — You probably noticed in the June, 2014, edition of the People’s Tribune the articles about the attack on leaders and the movement in Benton Harbor, Michigan. A trial date for Rev. Edward Pinkney, charged with trumped up vote fraud charges related to an effort to recall a Whirlpool-allied mayor, James Hightower, is July 21, 2014.

In light of this date and the dangerous political climate in Benton Harbor and Michigan as a whole, breaking the media blackout and broadening the outrage against the attack on this leader are urgent. Truth be told, the charges leveled against Reverend Edward Pinkney are but the latest saga in a ruthless pursuit of naked corporate rule that is gripping the state of Michigan.

Rev. Pinkney (r) speaks at first mass rally against Emergency Manager Law Public Act 4, later repealed and replaced with PA 436. Rally of thousands was held at New Triumph Baptist Church in Detroit.

In 2011, current Governor Rick Snyder signed into law legislation that codified the fascist offensive already in motion. The law, a.k.a., Emergency Manager law, dispatches unelected ‘managers’ to designated cities and school districts and issues ‘edicts’ that fast track the sale of precious public assets to bondholders, banks or other corporate interests, privatizes public services, dismantles collective bargaining agreements, and more. They are empowered to even dissolve municipalities and school districts, all the while replacing local elected officials altogether.

Benton Harbor, home of corporate giant Whirlpool, is a poster child of the Rust Belt’s post-industrial destruction of the manufacturing life we once knew. Benton Harbor is 90% African American and 42.6% of the population lives in poverty.

Benton Harbor’s beautiful beach on Lake Michigan, located at Jean Klock Park, now surrounded by luxury condos and a world-class golf course.

With its rich Lake Michigan beachfront property park, (which has now been stolen from the people,) Benton Harbor was one of the first to experience the wrath of Emergency Managers. Now more than 17 municipalities and school districts, including Detroit, have been pulled into the mire of dictatorship. Reverend Pinkney has become the face of resistance – resistance to the notion that the working class has no rights that the corporation is bound to respect. Any and all efforts must be made to overturn the charges against Pinkney as a step toward overturning the spread of this model to the rest of Michigan and the nation.

Rev. Pinkney reads award to actor Danny Glover at fund-raising dinner last October.

In closing, we would like to give you a brief update of the case. The State is determined to get Rev. Pinkney. Because they don’t have solid evidence, they say that in the State of Michigan circumstantial evidence is enough to convict. The prosecutor also mentioned that he wanted to use the habitual offender law which could mean, if convicted, that Pinkney could be put away for 15-20 years.

A further disadvantage is that it takes 30 days to get the transcript. The State’s plan is to limit the amount of time that the lawyers have to prepare for the trial.

People in Michigan and throughout the country are not letting this fascist assault on our leaders and communities go unanswered. People are rallying to Pinkney’s defense. In addition, the Benton Harbor community is considering launching another recall drive to get the Whirlpool-allied mayor James Hightower out of office.

People from across the state supported Rev. Pinkney at his preliminary exam May 31, 2014. His wife Dorothy Pinkney is 4th from left.

Such activity will be very important. What we need to do now is to get Pinkney and other speakers, especially from Michigan who are in the battle against the Emergency Managers, on radio and television, promoted on social media, and out speaking in communities throughout the country. Breaking the media blackout is urgent.

Letters of support sent to banco9342@sbcglobal.net will be posted on the BANCO (Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations) website. Fundraising for the defense is also critical. The defense is trying to raise an immediate $5000 for the transcript and for an appeal of the Judge’s decision to take this sham case to trial. Money is needed in the next 10 days. Send donations to Banco, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, 49022 or make donations at bhbanco.org.

Please feel free to share this post. We ask that you credit the source: peoplestribune.org

For more information on how you can get involved, or to order papers to get out in your community, contact the People’s Tribune at 800-691-6888, email info@peoplestribune.org or visit the website at peoplestribune.org.

Pinkney Framed Again

 Statement by Rev. Edward Pinkney on BANCO website

 June 8, 2014

My case is one where there is no evidence whatsoever that proves the acts constituting a crime were in fact committed by me.

–There is no physical evidence that I was the person who changed any petitions.

–There is no expert testimony that I was the one who changed any petitions.

–There are no statements to the police or anyone else that I committed acts constituting a crime.

–There are no confessions or witnesses to show that I committed a crime, or if there was a crime.

In short, the alleged crime consisted of the alteration of documents, and there is no evidence that I committed those acts or that I was the only person in a position to commit the acts.

Based on the evidence presented at the preliminary examination, it appears the prosecution will not be able to present sufficient evidence at trial unless they do what the Berrien County Court normally does: fabricate evidence.

Judge Sterling Schrock and Prosecutor Mike Sepic have been working together. They are a tag team. Corruption rolls on in Berrien County.

Related articles:

http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/2014/06/fighting-the-corporate-dictatorship-in-michigan-2/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/06/03/rev-pinkney-in-the-mouth-of-the-beast-in-benton-harbor/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/05/27/dismiss-all-charges-against-rev-pinkney-court-fri-may-30-save-benton-harbor-boycott-whirlpool/

Download copy of flier above at Vote No flier.

VOD BREAKING NEWS: THE JUNE 5TH “INFORMATIONAL” MEETING ON THE PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT, CALLED BY THE DETROIT GENERAL RETIREMENT SYSTEM (DGRS) AT WENDELL ANTHONY’S FELLOWSHIP CHAPEL, CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF PRESENTATIONS BY MICHAEL VAN OVERBEKE, ATTY. FOR THE DGRS, AND A BENEFITS SPECIALIST, WITH ONLY TEN MINUTES ALLOWED FOR RETIREES’ QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS. ONE RETIREE, OUTRAGED, WAS ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY REMOVED FROM THE MEETING FOR SHOUTING ‘VOTE NO.’

THE NEXT DGRS MEETING IS SET FOR THURS. JUNE 12, 2014 FROM 6 PM TO 8 PM AT RENAISSANCE UNITY CHURCH, 11200 E. ELEVEN MILE RD, WARREN, MI. WITH THE SAME FORMAT EXPECTED. RISE UP RETIREES! DO NOT LET YOUR ELECTED TRUSTEES SELL YOU OUT!!! DO NOT BE SILENCED AT THE NEXT MEETING!

LIVE STREAMING www.renaissanceunity.org/livestreaming.

Claude Montgomery of Denton’s, paid by City of Detroit to represent Official Retirees Committee appointed by U.S. Trustee through Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes

DGRS votes to give $5.5 million to phony VEBA health care bank trust

DGRS not included on VEBA board

By Cecily McClellan

May 29, 2014

DETROIT  — Please be informed, that several retirees and citizens attended the Pension Board Benefits Committee Meeting yesterday, May 28, 2014. Attorney Claude Montgomery of the Denton Law Firm presented a very vague presentation (2-3 pages) of a Volunteer Employee Benefits Agreement (VEBA) to the Board and requested 5.5 million dollars for the VEBA.

This request was made last week also, without the professionalism or respect of any written materials. However, the board did not vote or endorse last week.

Tom Sheehan, DGRS chair

The board voted 3-2 to give the US Bankruptcy Court-appointed board (see attached order and membership below) $5.5 million (yeas Thomas Sheehan, Lou Hatty, Lori Cetlinskii-nays June Nickelberry and Tasha Cowan). The board benefits committee approved a motion requesting membership on the VEBA board, which was not tie barred to the $5.5 million. During the discussion trustee Hatty was concerned whether 5.5 million dollars was sufficient, particularly as it relates to prescription costs.

(VOD note: The 4th Plan of Adjustment specifies clearly that only the Official Committee of Retirees (OCR), which Denton represents, and the Detroit Retired City Employees Association–DRCEA, led by Shirley Lightsey, will sit on the DGRS VEBA board.

Lou Hatty

 For the Police and Fire Retirement System, only the Official Committee of Retirees and the Detroit Police and Firefighters Association, led by Don Taylor, will sit on that board. This opportunity to make money off the VEBA’s, which are nothing but bank trusts which DO NOT GUARANTEE payment of ANY health benefits (as specified in the 4th Plan of Adjustment,) is clearly behind the DRCEA and DPFFA endorsements of the 4th Plan of Adjustment.

These associations DO NOT represent the majority of city retirees, despite their lies to the contrary. Their leadership is NOT ELECTED by city workers and retirees.  There will BE NO MEMBERSHIP FOR DGRS on the VEBA board. If the 4th Plan of Adjustment goes through, the retirement systems, the unions and all parties who have lawsuits pending in the Sixth Circuit Court, the U.S. District Court, and the state courts, will have to WITHDRAW city retirees’ last hope of legal appeal.)

Pension board trustees need to be knowledgeable of the 4th Plan of Adjustment specifically related to “other post employment benefits” OPEB and VEBA. It appears that they are endorsing privatization of our health care benefits and relinquishing oversight to an unknown and unproven authority. VEBA’s have only been used in the private sector and generally have expensive administration costs. This creates a new entity at our expense.

The GRS and PFRS already have a historical knowledge base or access to expertise in providing benefits and could purchase a group health care plan via request for proposal. This court appointed retirees committee board has already endorsed the 4th Amendment to the Bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment and are used as an authority replacing our elected Pension Board.

U.S. Bankrupty Judge steven Rhodes (3rd from left) approved the appointment of the Official Retirees Committee, which is now selling out retirees. Here Rhodes is shown as chair of a “Municipal Distress Forum” held Oct. 10, 2012, with pro-EM and pro-Chapter 9 participants, Frederick Headen (state treasury) Edward Plawecki, EM trainers Douglas Bernstein and Judy ONeill, who helped co-author Public Act 4, and most glaringly, Charles Moore of Conway McKenzie, a chief witness for Kevyn Orr/Jones Day during the bankruptcy trial.

Remember, this is the bankruptcy court-appointed retiree board (click on Court Appointed Retiree Committee letter) that voted (3 to 5-one member abstained) to eliminate health care benefits for retirees under 65 years of age and allocated a measly $125 dollars stipend for health care. Retirees by design were forced to apply for the President’s Affordable Health Care Act plan, which is affordable up to about 130% of the Federal Poverty Level (see attachment) or $1245 monthly for an individual. Most retirees pensions are about $1583 monthly and now are paying between $300-600 monthly for health care benefits, not including prescriptions.

NOTE: THE DETROIT BANKUPTCY PLAN USES 105% OF FEDERAL POVERTY LEVEL TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL AID FOR RETIREES. EVEN CHURCHES GIVING OUT FREE FOOD USE 200% OF THE GUIDELINE!

(Click on 2014 Federal Poverty Levels to view chart above in larger PDF file.)

Remember, litigation is still pending and objections have been filed against the legality of dumping a health care benefit contractually promised. (VOD–Chapter 9, while not protecting public pensions except against an unfair and unequitable plan, DOES protect retiree health care benefits.)

Please note that the Denton Law Firm represents the court appointed retiree committee, sounds like the fox may be in the hen house. The Denton Law firm is being paid for by the city via Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes and the U.S. Trustee’s approval. The US court appointed committee has also been indemnified (held Harmless) against law suits for the decision they make and the members they represent. Pension Board Trustees must be held accountable for the decision that they make with our money. CALL THE TRUSTEES!

VOD has located likely home phone numbers on People Smart for Trustees who voted for the $5.5 million, since the DGRS general number at 224-3362 has been swamped, and those answering it cannot respond to questions about the board members’ votes. 

• Thomas R. Sheehan, DGRS Chair 248-677-3320 (Royal Oak) 313-822-5783  
• Lou Hatty 313-882-6017
• Lori Cetlinski 313-642-0124 734-301-3053, 734-642-0124, 313-521-3703 (who according to People Smart lives in Grosse Ile)

Mayoral candidate Tom Barrow and supporters after hearing on his appeal of 2009 mayoral election results.

STATEMENT ON THE GRAND BARGAIN–VOTE NO!

By Mayoral Candidate Tom Barrow

June 4, 2014–Facebook

A number of Detroit pensioners have asked me whether they should vote “Yes” or “No” on the so-called “Grand Bargain”. While I explained that I am not a city retiree, I also explained that my mother was and therefore I agreed to say what I believe would have been in my mom’s best interest.

Mattie Barrow

I begin by stating that I have read the voluminous 3″ thick document (no average senior citizen will likely ever read nor understand its complex legalese). I have also read the proposed ballot received to cast a vote. Having said that, I am convinced the “Grand Bargain” is not a bargain for retirees. It is a proposal which shifts the focus to the most vulnerable as if somehow they are responsible for the city’s phony malaise.

The first glaring abnormality of the “Bargain” is that it requires retirees to waive essential constitutional rights to sue the State or City. This means that if current pending lawsuits surrounding the EM law are struck down, retirees will have consented to cut their own income and all of their generationally promised benefits. Why, because the pension is a state constitutional obligation. This alone should cause any retiree to question how grand the “Bargain” truly is.

Senior city retirees protest bankruptcy plan at court April 1, 2014.

In my view, the truth is the “bargain” is a subliminal deal to get state funding necessary to transfer the DIA and its art assets into others hands allowing it to spin off from the control of the City of Detroit and thus its people. The “bargain” also provides for a extreme reductions in benefits to those barely living and already sacrificing food for medicine. In short, it is a license to imprison and impoverish yourself.

It is no secret that I have long stated that this entire bankruptcy was phony, contrived and intended to transfer wealth and a nearly last piece which involves pensioners who have relied on the promise. It wants seniors to consent to cut their own throat and is, in my view, absurd. For these and a bevy of other unspoken reasons, I would have urged my own mother to vote “NO” as the “Bargain” is no bargain for you as the City of Detroit’s consent to transfer its own wealth should not be on your back. In my view, Conservatives are going to do what ever they want to do…he just would like to have your consent to point to it later! – – PLEASE SHARE –

Related article:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/05/20/racist-detroit-bankruptcy-plan-11-5-billion-for-banks-0-for-retirees-vote-no-or-lose-appeal-rights/ 

VOD related article also available in PDF at RACIST DETROIT BANKRUPTCY PLAN VOD,

To read the entire POA4 and its Disclosure Statement, click on

4^th amended Plan of Adjustment http://www.mieb.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/detroit/docket4392.pdf

4^th amended Disclosure Statement http://www.mieb.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/detroit/docket4391.pdf.

(P.S. thanks to Jamon Jordan for asking what the heck DGRS is. I should have spelled it out right at the beginning of the story, which I have done above–it is the Detroit General Retirement System, one of the city’s two pension systems. The other is the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System (DPFRS).

Rev. Pinkney’s supporters outside Berrien County Courthouse May 31, 2014. His wife Dorothy Pinkney is fourth from left.

Supporters turn out for preliminary exam on 5 felony counts May 31 

“Can’t pin it on Pinkney”—Herald Palladium 

MSP documents examiner can’t say who altered recall petitions

By Diane Bukowski 

June 1, 2014 

BENTON HARBOR –Supporters of Rev. Edward Pinkney packed the courtroom for his day-long pre-trial exam on five felony charges of election law forgery May 31. The charges, each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison, relate to a recall campaign against current Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

“Rev. Pinkney is in the mouth of the beast,” Pinkney told VOD. “What they don’t understand is that I’m a beast killer. The exam today proved they have not a single drop of evidence to even take this to trial. But always remember—Berrien County needs no evidence.”

Even the normally conservative Benton Harbor newspaper the Herald-Palladium said in headline coverage of the exam, “Expert witness can’t pin it on Pinkney.”

Hightower is an ally of Whirlpool, a $19 billion global corporation which Pinkney and the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations (BANCO), have targeted for years, saying it destroyed the city’s job base by closing its plants, grabbed its land, and now pays no city taxes. The recall petition cited Hightower’s failure to approve a city income tax which would have forced Whirlpool to pay taxes to Benton Harbor.

Judge Sterling Schrock

The recall election, which was to have been held May 6 after Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler certified 402 petition signatures, was indefinitely postponed by Fifth District Judge John Dewane, citing the charges against Pinkney.

Fifth District Judge Sterling R. Shrock, who has contributed campaign funds to Pres. Barack Obama and other Democratic causes, is presiding over the criminal case. He said he will announce his decision on whether Pinkney should be bound over on Thurs. June 5, after he reviews the exhibits and examines the meaning of “probable cause.”

“EXPERT WITNESS CAN’T PIN IT ON PINKNEY”

In key testimony, Sgt. James Goff of the Michigan State Police Forensics Lab in Lansing said he found evidence that dates on several petitions for the recall had been altered, using various methods. He referenced several petitions admitted into evidence. They had been enlarged, with the second side missing, then photographed with blocks indicating his findings covering parts of the petitions.

MSP Sgt. James Goff

“I can’t say who altered them or when,” Goff told Pinkney’s attorney Tat Parish on cross-exam. “Different ink formulations were used is all I can say.”

Goff said he used infrared luminescence examination to identify different ink formulations, and “impression” techniques to find dates on the petitions had been altered. Impression techniques involve looking at the petitions directly beneath the ones in question to find impressions of the original written dates.

How Goff accomplished that is unclear, since he had only 10 of 62 petitions submitted according Berrien County Sheriff’s records, which do not indicate the 10 petitions were in sequential order.

Goff said he has been a “Forensics Document Examiner” for four years, but is not certified as such by any organization, national or otherwise, although organizations such as the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners exist to do so.

He works for the MSP’s “Questioned Documents” unit in Lansing, where he is its only employee. He said he trained for three years under other Forensics Document Examiners, but did not say if they were certified. Parish objected to qualifying him as an expert but was overruled.

Goff identified a photographic image of one petition, shown on a screen, which he claimed had 12 dates changed, from Nov. 8 to Nov. 18 and Nov. 28. The date, Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic said, was crucial because under state election law, only petitions with signatures dated on Nov. 9 or afterward, 60 days prior to their submission, could be counted.

Parish pointed out, however, that county offices were closed on Jan. 6 and 7 due to a snowstorm, apparently inferring that there was no reason to change the Nov. 8 date since the turn-in period should have been extended due to “an act of God.”

ORIGINAL PETITIONS NOT IN EVIDENCE; WERE THEY ‘DISAPPEARED?’

Carolyn Toliver

None of the petitions admitted into evidence over Parish’s objections were the originals. Instead Sepic used Xeroxed and photographic images. Berrien County Elections Commissioner Carolyn Toliver said she thought the Sheriff’s Department had the originals, while Sepic said Goff had them (although he only received 10 of 62 petitions.) Sgt. Zizkovsky testified he took possession of the originals from Toliver, but they never surfaced at the exam.

“If the issue is to prove alterations, of course the original document is at the heart of the case,” Parish told Judge Schrock. “To allow introduction of copies is improper.”

Schrock, however, said, “Under evidence rules, copies are as admissible as the originals.” Schrock denied virtually every objection made by Parish during the exam.

Berrien County sheriffs.

Berrien County Sheriff Sgt. David Zizkovsky, who said he had served with the military in Iraq, said in his report that he turned 10 original petitions over to the lab, out of 62 submitted.

But only five COPIES of the ten, the ones circulated by Pinkney, were admitted at the exam. Summarizing Goff’s findings in his report, Zizkovsky said Goff noted evidence of date changes on the five other petitions, not circulated by Pinkney, as well.

In the same report, he also said he himself asked the lab to change the dates on five petitions from 1/13/14 to 1/3/14.

Parish pounded away at both Goff and Zizkovsky about the length of time that expired from Jan. 8 until the petitions were turned in to the crime lab. Goff said he got them on Feb. 26, allowing plenty of time for others with access to the petitions to alter them.

According to the Michigan State Police ICHAT website, which records state criminal cases, charges against Pinkney were brought Jan. 8, 2014, the day the petitions were submitted, prior to their submission to the crime lab Feb. 26, and prior to mass interrogations in Benton Harbor homes by Berrien County Sheriffs. Zizkovsky admitted the Sheriff’s Department had begun investigating Pinkney prior to obtaining the petitions.

Former Benton Harbor City Commissioner Dennis Knowles

The charges, which include five misdemeanor counts of “Election Law/ False Cert Circulatory” not considered that day, followed lengthy, detailed and often multiple interrogations by the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department of petition signers and circulators in their homes, on a scale not seen since the “red scare” days of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, according to Sheriff’s Department records.

“Their purpose is to distort and debase elections because Whirlpool wants Benton Harbor,” Dennis Knowles, a former Benton Harbor City Commissioner who attended the exam, told VOD. “They want to tar and feather Rev. Pinkney for the rest of his life so there will be no more recalls and so the people will be too terrified even to vote.”

SHERIFFS, ELECTIONS OFFICIAL ALSO COMBED, ALTERED PETITIONS 

Benton Harbor Commissioner Marcus Muhammad, who is running for mayor against Hightower (l) talks with James Cornelius, who initiated recall campaign against Hightower. Final Call photo

Of 62 petitions with 728 signatures, 54 petitions, including 34 circulated by Pinkney, were NOT examined by the lab. Zizkovsky said in his report that sheriff’s deputies, not trained in forensic document examination, selected the 10 petitions based on their own observations of what they determined to be irregular.

Toliver testified first, then remained in the courtroom for the rest of the day-long hearing. Toliver said the petitions in evidence were actually copies of copies kept in the Clerk’s office safe.

She said Rev. Pinkney attempted to turn the 62 petitions in on Jan. 8, but that she would not accept them because James Cornelius, not Pinkney, was the sponsor of the campaign. Cornelius, who faces one misdemeanor count in the case, then turned them in himself.

According to the Sheriff’s Report, however, Toliver told Pinkney she would not accept them was because he did not live in Benton Harbor, but Benton Harbor Township.

Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler first certified petitions, then withdrew certification.

Toliver said she combed through all the petitions before turning them over to County Clerk Sharon Tyler for the Elections Commission to “begin the verification process.” She said she herself eliminated certain signature lines with names, addresses and dates prior to turning them in, because she felt they were questionable, then took a red pen and crossed out all the blank signature lines.

“I scrutinize the individual’s handwriting, and check the dates for similar handwriting, and then I disqualify that line [if they don’t compare],” Toliver, who has no forensic training, said.

Despite her efforts, the Elections Commission certified 402 signatures, verifying the signers were registered voters, enough for the 393 needed, and Tyler scheduled the recall election.

TOLIVER’S CONNECTIONS

Toliver testified that she phoned Mayor Hightower about the submission of the petitions at 9:30 a.m. that day, and kept in contact with him throughout the examination process to update him. She said she blacked out Hightower’s cell phone and address on her work sheet, originally submitted as an exhibit but then withdrawn by Sepic.

Al Pscholka and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder after signing of Public Act 4, the first “emergency manager” law.

Knowles told VOD that he himself had been subjected to a recall campaign in Benton Harbor that failed. He said he never received any calls from Toliver about the campaign in his case, only a written notice that it had begun.

Toliver previously worked for State Rep. Al Pscholka, who started out as a staffer for Benton Harbor Congressman Fred Upton, one of the heirs to the Whirlpool fortune. Pscholka introduced the first “Emergency Manager” law, Public Act 4, into the state legislature in 2011. It was repealed by a majority of state voters in 2012, but immediately replaced by Public Act 436, which legislators made referendum-proof by the inclusion of a financial allotment in the bill.

Benton Harbor was the first city taken over under Public Act 4, a move vigorously opposed by Pinkney, BANCO and numerous other groups across the state.

CIRCULATORS CALLED BY PROSECUTION 

Detroiter Wanda Hill and Benton Harbor resident George Moon at first rally against PA 4 in 2011, on Benton Harbor city hall steps. PA 4 was indeed repealed, only to be replaced by PA 436.

Sepic called several of the other petition circulators to the stand, many of whom expressed solidarity with Pinkney outside the courtroom and have been active previously in campaigns against the emergency manager law.

“I don’t believe in [Mayor Hightower’s] philosophy,” George Moon told Sepic when asked why he joined the petition campaign. He said he gave his petitions as well as those of two other circulators to Pinkney.

Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower at reception in Whirlpool HQ.

Asked if he changed dates on any of the petitions, Moon said, “No, that’s illegal.” On cross exam by Parish, Moon identified dates on the petitions that had been changed by the signers themselves to correct their own errors.

Mary Lynn Donald said she circulated petitions because “I am familiar with BANCO. I have circulated petitions before. You have to explain to each signer what the petition is about and read it to them each and every time.”

She said she gave her petitions to Pinkney, and also identified dates changed by the signers, including one changed from 2/2/14 t0 1/2/14 due to a mistake.

$85 million Whirlpool headquarters in Benton Harbor on prime riverfront property.

Bridget Gilmore said she got her petitions from George Moon and returned them to him without changing any dates. She said Moon showed her errors on dates she placed at the bottom by her signature, and she corrected them, placing her initials by each correction. She said some signers changed their own dates after realizing they also had made mistakes.

“It was cold back then,” Gilmore said. “Sometimes your pen would freeze up on you and you had to change to another pen.”

Witness says pen froze up.

Elza Williams said she heard from a friend about the recall campaign and went to Rev. Pinkney to get petitions, then returned them to him at his house. She said she made a mistake on one petition that she signed at the bottom with the date 1/13/14, over which she placed the date 1/3/14. She obviously could not have signed the petition on 1/13/14 since Cornelius turned all the petitions in 1/8/14.

On Parish’s objection that his attorney should be present, petition sponsor James Cornelius did not testify. For once, Schrock admitted Parish had a “valid issue.”

CLOSING ARGUMENTS: ‘THIS CALLS FOR DISMISSAL OF THE CHARGES’

During closing arguments, Sepic said the copies of petitions admitted into evidence were “altered, forged,” according to Goff’s testimony, prompting the recall election.

“The probable cause that Edward Pinkney did this is circumstantial,” Sepic said. “Technically James Cornelius submitted the petitions, but Pinkney aided and abetted this unwitting unindicted co-conspirator. . . Evidence of his possession of the petitions within the time frame is also circumstantial.”

Parish said, “The Judge has a weighty responsibility to weed out cases where there is no evidence. . . .There is no probable cause to believe that any alterations were done by Rev. Pinkney. There is no confession, no testimony by a handwriting expert, no witness who saw him do it or heard him say he did it, and no evidence at all that Rev. Pinkney had exclusive access to the petitions. . . .In order to bind over, there has to be some evidence, not speculation and guesswork that he did it.”

He continued, “This is perhaps the one case I’ve seen in several decades where it is very clear that the court ought to find no probable cause, no evidence that he committed the act. This calls for dismissal of the charges.”

SHROCK TO RULE JUNE 5 ON BIND-OVER, CITING ‘PROBABLE CAUSE’

Judge Schrock said he was reviewing the definition of probable cause as indicated by the Michigan Supreme Court in a 2003 case, People v. Yost, and would rule on Thurs. June 5 whether Pinkney should be bound over.

Donna Yost appeared before Bay County Circuit Judge William J. Caprathe in a bond hearing, asking that she be released from prison while she awaits her new trial now that her conviction for the murder of her daughter, Monique, has been overturned. Yost begs to be released so she can attend the wedding of one of her daughters.
Date taken: Monday 4-21-2008 Cathy Layman/Bay City Times

In People v. Yost, the MSC held that a magistrate had erred in refusing to bind over Donna Alice Yost for the murder of her seven-year-old daughter, who died from an overdose of Imapramine, a drug which was prescribed for her. Yost contended that her daughter had committed suicide.

“There were proofs in this case that would cause a cautious individual to have probable cause to believe that the prosecution had circumstantially established that defendant had committed murder,” the MSC said in part of its ruling.

“This is not to say that at trial a fact-finder could not be convinced that the child self-administered the pills, but that the prosecution has no duty at the preliminary examination to negate that theory to get defendant bound over for trial.   It is enough that a reasonable person could believe that a crime by poisoning was shown and that defendant had motive and opportunity, as well as arguably incriminating actions and explanations.” (See ruling at People V Yost.)

Yost’s subsequent conviction was later overturned by the Court of Appeals.

“The decision was unanimous, with appellate justices E. Thomas Fitzgerald, Jane E. Markey and Michael R. Smolenski ruling that Bay County Judge William J. Caprathe ‘abused his discretion’ and violated Yost’s rights by allowing certain evidence and barring other evidence from trial,” reported the Bay City Times. (Click on Donna Yosts murder conviction overturned for full article, and on Donna Yost Appeals Court decision for full decision.)

However, the Michigan Supreme Court later refused to hear the case and kept Yost in prison.

Whether the MSC decision constitutes an unchallenged definition of “probable cause” is certainly at issue. Schrock’s citation of this case does not bode well.

Whether “probable cause” should be found in Rev. Edward Pinkney’s case, not involving a murder charge but instead the legitimate use of Michigan’s election laws, is another question.

Was there “probable cause” for the Sheriff’s Department to attack Rev. Pinkney’s home with a massive SWAT team April 25 in their efforts to arrest him? Was there “probable cause” for dozens of Benton Harbor citizens to be subjected to mass interrogation techniques for months through April, reminiscent of Hitler’s Gestapo?

Was there “probable cause” to place Rev. Pinkney under house arrest after he had already posted bond, then forbid him from using his computer to communicate with the outside world?

Is there “probable cause” instead to indict Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and proponents of PA 4 and 436 for violations of the state and U.S. Constitutions through the imposition of emergency “dictators” on Michigan’s predominantly African-American municipalities and school districts?

Is there “probable cause” to indict Whirlpool for stealing the livelihoods of Benton Harbor citizens, and then their land, while refusing to pay any taxes whatsoever to the city that made them the world’s largest appliance corporation?

That is up to the people of Michigan and the U.S. to decide, and they must decide soon, for Benton Harbor and Detroit in bankruptcy under EM’s are coming to THEIR cities next.

Previous articles:

http://www.wndu.com/news/headlines/Actor-Danny-Glover-stops-in-Benton-Harbor-for-Justice-Fund-Dinner–226625521.html

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/08/16/rev-pinkney-fights-latest-attempt-to-topple-him-from-bh-naacp-post/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/05/28/whirlpool-and-em-move-to-take-control-of-benton-harbor-parks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/05/31/benton-harbor-body-of-timothy-bulldog-allen-found-in-lake-last-seen-in-police-custody/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/05/31/benton-harbor-a-poem/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/05/31/benton-harbor-a-poem/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/05/22/occupy-the-pga-in-benton-harbor-may-23-27-2012-ems-must-go/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/04/16/pastor-fights-state-naacp-takeover-of-benton-harbor-chapter-says-whirlpool-engineered-grab/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/02/13/occupy-the-pga-in-benton-harbor-may-23-27-2012-maddow-show-features-bh-em-putting-citys-public-radio-station-on-e-bay/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/07/01/benton-harbor-emergency-manager-wants-you-off-the-lawn-and-the-beach/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/06/25/hundreds-rally-in-benton-harbor-on-8th-anniversary-of-uprising-against-police-murder-of-terrance-%e2%80%9ct-shirt%e2%80%9d-shurn/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/05/12/benton-harbor-blossom-time-%e2%80%98recall-rick%e2%80%99/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/05/03/get-up-benton-harbor-and-michigan-stand-up-for-your-rights/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/04/22/benton-harbor-takeover-sparks-furious-reaction-em-is-joe-harris-former-detroit-auditor-general/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2010/09/12/benton-harbor-protests-whirlpool-golf-course-opening/

Some of dozens of activists who turned out May 31 to start Call em Out campaign against water shut-offs, takeover of Detroit. Call em Out steward Agnes Hitchcock is at center in black and yellow Call em Out T-shirt.

• Call ’em Out reunion breathes new life into battle for Detroit
• Community fight against water shut-offs first action: fliering at Grand River/Greenfield water payment office Mon. June 2, 2014 10 A.M.

To print out flier, click on Water fightback plan.

By Diane Bukowski

June 1, 2014

Agnes Hitchcock announces leafleting campaign at Detroit water customer offices.

DETROIT —  New hope emerged for the people of Detroit May 31 with the resurrection of the activist organization Call ’em Out. Renowned leader, Call ’em Out steward Agnes Hitchcock, enraged by vicious mass water shut-offs and the creation of a literal concentration camp at Mound Road prison, sponsored an “activists’ re-union.”

It brought out dozens of the city’s most militant warriors to a picnic/rally at “Blackinaw Island” outside her home in the North End.

VOD broke the story of the shut-offs and conditions at Mound Road, which Charity Hicks revealed after her arrest while protesting the shut-offs of her neighbors’ water on the east side.

(See http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/05/28/mass-water-shut-offs-mass-incarceration-at-mound-road-prison-for-protesters/. That article has had the most massive response of any since VOD began publication, going nation-wide.)

Omar and Cecily “Ebony” McClellan at event.

During the event, long-time warriors from Call ’em Out joined with members of the Concerned Detroit Citizens, Active Employees, and Retirees,  Hood Research, We the People for the People, representatives of sectors of the Moors, and many long-time grass roots city leaders.Hitchcock announced that Call ’em Out and its allies would be distributing fliers directly to the grass roots people of Detroit describing action they can take right at home to keep their water, an essential human right, flowing in the face of mass no-knock, no-notice shut-offs by Homrich Wrecking.

Activists relax before rally starts.

The company has a $6 million “Shut Off-Turn On” contract with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department which aims to shut off all Detroiters behind on their bills for two months or more.

Militant pastor Jerome Poole denounces city’s “snakes in the pulpit” ministers.

The first distribution is set for Mon. June 2 at 10 a.m. at the Grand River/Greenfield office customer service office of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

Intense political discussion took place throughout the picnic, and many speakers came forward to lay plans for revolt. against the takeover of Detroit and the war on its people.

Along with Hitchcock, they included Tyrone Travis, who called for massive door-to-door campaigns in the neighborhoods to make direct contact with the city’s grass roots, many of whom are unaware of what is really happening to their city.

Attendees worked and played.

Tyrone Travis speaks.

Luminaries such as Ron March, Cecily “Ebony” McClellan, Carl Williams, and numerous others spoke of the assault on Detroit by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, EM Kevyn Orr, the Jones Day law firm, and others involved in the phony bankruptcy proceedings, who are basically puppets for the banks and corporations.

• To contact Call ’em Out regarding future plans for leafleting at the water department’s customer service offices, call 313-874-2792.
• Concerned Detroiters, Active Employees, and Retireea can be reached at 313-444-0061. It meets every Monday at 11 a.m. at N’namdi’s at 12150 Woodward, Highland Park, MI.
• The Stop the Theft of Our Pensions Committee is at http://moratorium-mi.org/ or call 313-680-5508. It meets every Monday at 7 p.m. at 5920 Second Avenue north of Wayne State University.

Crowd listens to Agnes Hitchcock.

Marchers protest thousands of water shut-offs May 23 outside Water Board Building in downtown Detroit

Contractor Homrich shutting water off to thousands of Detroiters without notice or mercy

Charity Hicks, who protested assault by Homrich employee thrown into Mound Road prison to endure “conditions THAT are meant to shame you, demoralize you, criminalize you and break you down”

MS. HICKS WILL BE SPEAKING AT AN ACTIVISTS’ RE-UNION POT-LUCK PICNIC SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1-7 PM OUTSIDE THE HOME OF CALL ‘EM OUT FOUNDER AGNES HITCHCOCK, ON E. PHILADELPHIA BETWEEN JOHN R AND BRUSH; CALL 874-2792 FOR MORE INFO

By Diane Bukowski 

May 28, 2014 

Charity Mahouna Hicks/Facebook photo

DETROIT —  The State of Michigan’s fascist iron glove is pounding on Detroiters, using mass water shut-offs without notice, and mass concentration camp imprisonment at the Mound Road state facility. There, hundreds are locked into filthy holding rooms without sanitation, proper food, water and medical care, guarded by Michigan Department of Corrections personnel.

That is the horrendous story Charity Hicks told VOD, after her arrest during mass water shut-offs in her east-side neighborhood near Osborn High School. On May 23, members of the People’s Water Board, Moratorium NOW! and others protested the shut-offs outside the Detroit Water Board building as part of a series of weekly “Freedom Fridays.”

“There was a contractor on the block shutting off the whole block,” Hicks said. “They were no-knock, no-notice shut-offs of homes including those where pregnant women and children live. After they shut mine off, I went two houses over to ask the man if he could wait until the family could gather some water together for their immediate needs. They were coming early in the morning, between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and people had no time to brush their teeth or wash up. He told me he doesn’t have to give notice to the homes, and that he was just doing his job.”

Hicks said she told him that was the same explanation given by Nazis at the concentration camps, and by Detroit police when they are busting people’s heads.

Hicks said he wore some sort of water department decal without the name of Detroit, over his company badge. She said people she knows living in the Warrendale neighborhood had earlier complained about the shut-off workers not being official City of Detroit employees.

The Detroit Water Board approved a $5.6 million, 730 day contract with Homrich Wrecking April 24, Contract No. DWS-894, “Water Shut-Off/Turn-On Project,” according to the Board’s minutes.

“The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is initiating this project to reduce DWSD’s delinquent water accounts,” DWSD Director Sue McCormick said in a letter to the Board. “As part of the overall plan to increase DWSD’s revenue collection, the Department will increase its efforts of water shut-offs for customers with a 60-day or more past-due balance. . . This project will target approximately 70,000 residential accounts throughout the City of Detroit over a period of two (2) years.” (Click on

Marchers demand “Defend Charity Hicks”

Hicks said the contractor got mad when she asked to see the termination orders for herself and her neighbors.

“He told me they are on the computer and he couldn’t produce them,” Hicks said. “They are shutting people off with no procedures and no due process, despite the critical importance of the water infrastructure. The guy went to his car to look up the orders I thought, and I followed him so he could show me on the computer. I was leaning up slightly into the car to see, and all of a sudden he peeled off, hitting me and causing me to fall down and hurt my hip and gash my foot, which began bleeding. He didn’t say get back, and I just got discombobulated and fell down.”

Marcher demands hit big businesses who haven’t paid their water bills first.

Hicks said a one-gallon red plastic gas container fell off the back of his truck when he hit a bump in the road. She then called 911 to report that she had been assaulted.

“The police came, looked at my foot, and then told me they were going to charge me with felonious larceny for stealing city equipment. They said if they were going to believe anybody, it would be the city. All of a sudden, I became the perpetrator.”

Hicks said she had hurriedly dressed and was virtually naked, with no shoes, no socks, no underwear, no keys or other belongings. She said the two officers, who were white, arrested her in front of her home, did not read her her rights, then made racist remarks to her as they drove her to the Mound Road facility.

“They were completely racist, disrespectful and arrogant,” Hicks said. “They told me I seemed to be pretty articulate, asked how many degrees I had, and said it was clear that I wasn’t a typical Detroiter. They said they were ‘good ‘ol boys’ and kept playing country music on the radio.”

Mound Road prison

Hicks discovered when she got to Mound Road that everyone arrested in the city, whether for misdemeanors or felonies, is being taken there and booked by the Michigan Department of Corrections, which guards them and takes their fingerprints and photos, then keeps them in state custody. She said she was told she would be there for four days, although state law says arrested individuals must be arraigned within 72 hours.

She said she was disrobed and strip-searched.

Women in prison; general photo.

“They threw me in a cell with hundreds of women,” Hicks recounted. “There was one urinal and no water to drink or wash with, and there was human waste including menstrual blood all over the floor. I asked for socks or shoes because of the wound in my foot, but got none. No water, no beds, no nothing. We had to use the urinal with no regard to our health and safety, where we could get HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. Even the Border Patrol brought a woman in because they are stopping people there who have warrants.”

Protesters at Water Board Building.

She said women were separated into two holding areas, one for those brought in for alleged misdemeanors, and another for those with alleged felonies.

Hicks said City of Detroit police officers are in the back processing prisoners so they can be video-arraigned later in the 36^th District Court, with arraignments for felonies going on seven days a week and for misdemeanors from Monday through Friday. She said staff from the Prosecutor’s office comes through there at all hours of the day and night to interview the prisoners.

She said the prosecutors frequently add six or seven more charges to the one the prisoner was brought in for, a tactic that office has long used to get people to plea bargain rather than face a jury composed primarily of non-Detroiters.

Attorney Alice Jennings speaks at rally v. bankruptcy April 1.

“The conditions are meant to shame you, demoralize you, criminalize you and break you down,” Hicks said. She said attorney Alice Jennings intervened to get her released after two days, and that no charges were even brought after her traumatic experience.

Jennings told VOD that she and Attorney John Royal went to the prison to get Hicks released due to her medical condition. She said she tried to visit with Hicks at one of the individual visting sections with glass walls, but the phones were not working in the sections. She asked the guards why she couldn’t meet with Hicks in a separate room, since they had brought her out in handcuffs anyway, but they refused.

“We basically had to communicate with each other through lip reading,” Jennings said. “This is an egregious violation of a prisoner’s right to consult with counsel.”

Lila Cabbil of the People’s Water Board.

During the May 23 protest, Russ Bellant said Homrich had come through his east-side neighborhood as well, shut off at least nine people on his block alone without notice, then went to other blocks in the area of Seven Mile and Sherwood as well.

“We plan to launch a major international media campaign,” Lila Cabbil of the People’s Water Board told VOD during the protest. “Shutting water off affects children the worst. [Emergency Manager] Kevyn Orr is in violation of the Water Affordability Ordinance, which requires that late fees are supposed to be put into a fund to help those who can’t pay their bills.”

Protesters noted that the State’s Child Protective Services removes children from families where the water and other utilities are off. They said that numerous large entities including the VA hospital, the Palmer Park golf course, Ford Field, and others have not paid their water bills but do not face shut-offs.

“Illitch owes $80,000, Ford Field owes $55,000, and the golf course and hospital each owe at least $200,000. If they paid THEIR bills there would be no need to shut off poor folks,” Cabbell said.

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman went into the customer service area of the Water Board building and began speaking to the numerous people there, telling them that thousands of people in the city are being shut off and are in danger of losing their children. He said guards threw him out despite his protests that it was a public building.

“They told me this is a place of business,” Wylie-Kellerman said.

Monica Patrick said, “These policies are totally inhumane and most egregious, aimed at literally killing off the people.”

She said she has been consulting with people from North Carolina who are visiting Detroit. They have been sponsoring the hugely successful Moral Mondays protests there against that state government’s policies, which closely resemble those passed by Michigan’s legislature and enacted by Gov. Rick Snyder.

For more information, go to http://moratorium-mi.org/, http://peopleswaterboard.blogspot.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/peopleswaterboard.

Water cut-offs in Detroit a violation of human rights

|May 27, 2014

Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. More information on Maude Barlow can be found at: www.canadians.org/Maude

Maude Barlow speaks at People’s Water Board meeting in Detroit.

I recently visited Detroit, Michigan and am shocked and deeply disturbed at what I witnessed. I went as part of a Great Lakes project where a number of communities and ‎organizations around the basin are calling for citizens to come together to protect the Great Lakes as a Lived Commons, a Public Trust and a Protected Bioregion. We are also deeply worried about the threat of extreme energy such as diluted bitumen from the tar sands of Alberta and fracked oil and fracking wastewater from North Dakota being transported by pipeline and rail near the lakes and on barges on the lakes and are calling for a ban of these dangerous toxins around and on the Great Lakes.

But the people of Detroit face another sinister enemy. Every day, thousands of them, in a city that is situated right by a body of water carrying one fifth of the world’s water supply, are having their ‎water ruthlessly cut off by men working for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Most of the residents are African American and two thirds of the cut offs involve children, which means that in some cases, child welfare authorities are moving in to remove children from their homes as it is a requirement that there be working utilities in all homes housing children.

People are given no warning and no time to fill buckets, sinks and tubs. Sick people are left without running water and running toilets. People recovering from surgery cannot wash and change bandages. Children cannot bathe and parents cannot cook. Is this a small number of victims? No. The water department has decreed that it will turn the water off to all 120,000 residences that owe ‎it money by the end of the summer although it has made no such threat to the many corporations and institutions that are in arrears on their bills as well. How did it come to this? Continue reading →

Corbis: Shen Zhengyi, ImagineChina/Liu Han, center, former chairman of mining conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong Group, is held by police officers during a trial at the Xianning Intermediate Peoples Court in Xianning city, central Chinas Hubei province, 31 March 2014

By Agence France-Presse

April 23, 2014

A Chinese court on Friday convicted a mining billionaire said to have links with former security tsar Zhou Yongkang of murder and sentenced him to death.

Liu Han led private company Hanlong, which once launched a billion-dollar bid for an Australian firm. He and his brother Liu Wei were found guilty of “organising and leading a mafia-style group”, murder and other crimes, the Xianning Intermediate People’s Court said.

They and three accomplices were sentenced to death.

The Liu brothers’ gang, based in the southwestern province of Sichuan, killed eight people and wounded many others over nearly 20 years, the court said in a posting on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

“Liu Han and Liu Wei had extremely malicious intentions, their acts were exceptionally atrocious, their social influences were extremely vile and their crimes and the consequences were extremely serious,” it said. “They should be severely punished according to the law.”

Another 31 accused were given penalties ranging from suspended death sentences — normally commuted to life imprisonment — to three years in jail, state media said.

Sichuan is one of the power bases of Zhou Yongkang, who once enjoyed vast power as China’s security chief but is now at the centre of rumours about a corruption investigation. He has not been seen in public for months.

The influential business magazine Caixin has reported that Liu Han once had dealings with a businessman believed to be Zhou’s son. State media have also hinted that the gang had connections to central government officials.

The verdicts suggest officials are building a case against Zhou Yongkang, said Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University in Beijing.

Han Long mining site

“These cases are being used to collect evidence against Zhou, I think this verdict is preparation for Zhou’s trial,” he said.

Senior party leaders “don’t want to punish Zhou Yongkang as a political case, but as a corruption case. Although it could be hard to find evidence against him,” he added.

Scores of people with connections to Zhou have reportedly been detained in recent months.

“It’s not certain whether he will face trial, that depends on how strong his remaining political ties are,” Zhang said.

– ‘Huge amount of money’ –

The court said Friday that the gang were “sheltered by staff members of state organs”.

The Beijing News previously quoted a friend of Liu Han as saying that he spent “huge amount of money” to get to know a “leader” in 2001 and from then “rapidly expanded his business to other provinces and foreign countries”.

Politburo Standing Committee of China

Zhou was the party boss of Sichuan from 1999 to 2002 before he was promoted to China’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, whose members have generally been regarded as untouchable even after retirement.

If the investigation into him is confirmed, it would mark the first time in decades that such a high-ranking figure has been targeted in a formal inquiry, a move that would send shockwaves through China’s political elite.

Liu Han’s Hanlong group is a diversified firm with interests ranging from tourism to minerals, and has assets of more than 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion).

It launched a takeover bid of more than $1.0 billion for listed Australian iron ore company Sundance Resources in 2011. But the deal collapsed last year after the Chinese firm failed to follow through. Chinese media reports said at the time that Liu Han had been detained.

China’s Communist Party authorities have been waging a much-publicised anti-graft campaign in the year since President Xi Jinping came to power.

But critics contend that no systemic reforms have been introduced, and that moves targeting Zhou are intended to sideline a political figure rather than battle corruption.

© 2014 AFP

Dorothy Pinkney, Rev. Edward Pinkney’s wife, addresses rally on Benton Harbor City Hall steps May 24, 2014.

Dozens from across the U.S. turn out for May 24 Benton Harbor rally

Pinkney pre-trial set for Fri. May 30, 8: 30 a.m. in St. Joseph, MI on false election recall charges

By Diane Bukowski

May 24, 2014

Detroiters Alma Cozart, Cornell Squires, Cindy Darrah, Marcina Cole, and Kim Green visit with Rev. Pinkney at his home after rally.

BENTON HARBOR, MI – Supporters of renowned activist Rev. Edward Pinkney turned out from California to Indiana to Detroit to New York City for a rally and march denouncing Whirlpool’s corporate takeover of this poor, majority-Black city and ongoing state control on May 24.

They also called for five felony and six misdemeanor charges brought against Pinkney to be dropped, related to a recall campaign against Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower, a Whirlpool ally. Pinkney faces a preliminary exam on these charges before Judge Sterling R. Shrock, Fri. May 30 at 8:30 a.m. in the Berrien County Courthouse, located at 811 Port Street, St. Joseph, MI 49085.

The charges, which his supporters and court files indicate are patently groundless and violate Pinkney’s First and 14th Amendment rights, are to be heard in one of the most racist court systems in the country. Each felony count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. 

Marchers circulate through Benton Harbor’s gentrified downtown.

“This is the death of democracy,” Pinkney’s wife Dorothy Pinkney said during the rally on the Benton Harbor City Hall steps. “Whirlpool, which has its headquarters here, believes it owns our resources and cloaks itself behind numerous private entities with public funding, such as the Cornerstone Alliance. The Harbor Shores development is the next stage of the dispossession of our impoverished post-industrial city, where Whirlpool closed its plants in the 1980’s after getting huge tax incentives to stay. This is neocolonialism, stealing our natural resources and making the Black population disposable.” 

Dorothy Pinkney’s daughters and grandson traveled from Columbus, Ohio for the event.

By electronic hook-up, Pinkney himself addressed the rally. 

“We must get rid of this corrupt system and prove I am innocent of all charges,” Pinkney said. “The Mayor hooked up these charges; we must tear James Hightower down and show what we are capable of doing. LET’S FIGHT BACK! LET’S FIGHT BACK!

The Harbor Shores Development, sponsored largely by Whirlpool, includes the Jack Nicklaus Golf Course, where a national PGA tournament was taking place May 24, a luxury housing development, and other development of land adjacent to the beautiful Lake Michigan beach that is part of the public Jean Klock Park.

The Black Autonomy Network (BANCO), the Green Party, and numerous other organizations are calling for a boycott of Whirlpool products, marketed under the brand names of Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Brastemp, Consul, Bauknechtand others.

The petition to recall Mayor Hightower was initiated after he refused to authorize a city income tax that would have garnered substantial income from Whirlpool, which pays no city taxes despite the fact that it raked in $19 billion in sales in 2013.

Pinkney supporters march down Main St. in Benton Harbor May 24.

According to a Court Complaint, Juan Mata of the Sheriff’s Department brought felony charges against Pinkney of “election law forgery” and misdemeanor charges of “Election Law False Cert Circulatory,” prior to a massive inter-agency SWAT raid on Pinkney’s home April 25. Pinkney and his wife had left to celebrate her birthday, but Pinkney with his lawyer Tat Parish turned himself in the following day.

Ralph Poynter of NYC speaks at rally.

Judge Shrock placed Pinkney under house arrest after his arraignment, even though he posted a $30,000 10 percent bond. He forbade Pinkney from using his computer and forced him to wear a tether to track his movements within his house.

“They have never put anyone under house arrest for anything to do with ballots before,” Ralph Poynter of New York City pointed out during the rally. “We cannot allow them to silence Rev. Pinkney. This must not stand. The National Lawyers Guild, unions, socialist and democratic organizations, if they are for freedom, must join the fight.”

In a letter asking for a criminal complaint against Mayor Hightower and one Ron Johnson, dated May 6, 2015, Pinkney told the U.S. Justice Department that the Sheriffs went to the homes of petition signers and circulators to intimidate and interrogate them at length and in great detail on a massive level. Such activity against petition signers has not seen since the McCarthy era of the 1940’s and ’50’s.

Ralliers came from all over Michigan, including Traverse City and Detroit.

“This complaint against the two above-named parties is based upon action to obstruct justice and the Democratic process by 1) thwarting, circumventing and blocking the previously scheduled May 6, 2014 Benton Harbor voting mayoral recall election; 2) conspiring, manufactur[ing], and present[ing] false information in order to impede . . . the recall process and 3) to have directly or indirectly utilized the auspices and/or Office of the Mayor of Benton Harbor, Michigan and the Berrien County Sheriff Department to harass, intimidate and or otherwise impede Benton Harbor voters . . .” Pinkney said in his complaint.

Four voters submitted identically-worded affidavits asking for their signatures to be removed but several later recanted. Bethany Johnson and Ronita Johnson signed affidavits as below (their addresses and signatures, which were below addresses, have been cut out).

Non-expert Sheriff’s Department deputies, who claimed they found date changes and duplicate signatures on the petitions, selected only 10 of 62 petitions submitted to Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler to send to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab’s Questioned Documents Unit. Tyler earlier certified the majority of the petitions and ordered the recall vote.

Protesters at city hall.

Only five of the 10 petitions were circulated by Pinkney, although he circulated a total of 34 petitions; the others were not questioned.

The Sheriff’s case report shows absolutely no proof of Pinkney’s involvement in any alterations of dates (allegedly proved by the use of “different ink formulations,”) or clearly accidental duplicate signings by several voters.

Pinkney never had sole possession of the petitions. His co-defendant, James Cornelius, who has been charged with one misdemeanor count, turned them in to the Clerk’s office because the office would not accept them from Pinkney, since he lives in Benton Harbor Township. Pinkney said another woman was in charge of the petition gathering process.

In fact, the only admission of alteration of dates on the petitions came from the Sheriff’s Department itself, which caused the Michigan State Police Crime Lab to alter dates on five of the petitions. See Page 13 below.

A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) showed that most crime labs rely on outdated, unscientific assumptions and methodology, and called for all crime labs to be separated from law enforcement.

“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.” 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.

PGA goers at shuttle stop watch coffin “Death of Democracy” pass by during march.

Hightower earlier threatened former Berrien County Commissioner Dennis Knowles about the recall campaign. He told him during a phone conversation that he “got a call from Lansing from two people” regarding a resolution passed by the Commission, which has been upset about the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department’s massive intimidation and interrogation of petition signers at their homes, reminiscent of the McCarthy era.  

“I’m going to commit every resource and everything that I have to ensure that my name goes on the ballot, your name won’t be on the ballot, and I guarantee that you will not be in office, you will not be holding any office,” Hightower told Knowles. “If that’s how you’re going to come at me, than I don’t have any choice. . . .You ain’t going to like it. I’m pulling out all the stops. You know I’m not pulling no punches.”

James Hightower’s car between two Detroit cars going to visit Rev. Pinkney at his home.

Hightower may have been spying on the demonstration, since his car was driving directly in front of protesters from the Detroit delegation on the way to visit Pinkney at his home. It turned off into the Mayor’s palatial digs, however.

Other speakers at the rally decried the ongoing assault on Benton Harbor, the first city in Michigan to fall victim to Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law, before its repeal in Nov. 2o13, and on its chief advocate, Rev. Pinkney.

Benton Harbor no longer has an EM, but is still under state control under provisions of Public Act 436, the illegitimate successor to PA 4, passed in the dead of night by less than a two-thirds quorum of the Michigan legislature.

Rev. Charles Taylor of South Bend, Ind.

Rev. Charles Taylor, of People United for Better Government in South Bend, Indiana said they planned to rally the following day in their community against rampant police brutality.

“God is getting ready to send a whirlwind to Whirlpool,” Taylor said. “This is the day they can repent of their sins before it happens. Instead of Rev. Pinkney, they should have had a lot of people in prison in Florida for hanging chads. There is voter fraud everywhere, from the top beginning with Gov. Snyder all the way to the bottom.”

Renowned Detroit activist Monica Patrick, who helps host Pinkney’s 5 p.m. Sunday internet radio show since his house arrest, cried out, “Somebody needs to go to jail, and if not, somebody needs to go to hell.”

Monica Patrick of Detroit speaks.

“This is not Rev. Pinkney’s first go-round,” Patrick told the crowd. “In 2007 after he waged a courageous fight for the youth, because he quoted scripture to a judge, they jailed him. Rev. Pinkney already told us long ago they’re going to steal your homes, your children, your land, and that is what’s happening now in Detroit.”

Pinkney was also falsely charged with several counts of election fraud on that occasion, for which he spent time in the Michigan Department of Corrections before his sentence was reduced to probation. A massive campaign on his behalf was conducted across the country.

Cornell Squires of We the People for the People said, “The civil rights movement means nothing to our current politicians, courts and judges. People across the U.S. are going to see the wickedness, and stand on justice and truth. There is strength in numbers. It doesn’t take but a few people to start a movement, people that aren’t scared. All great leaders suffer. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, we may be incarcerated, beaten up, and lied on, but America is not going to escape judgment.”

U.S. Rep. John Conyers at forum on Detroit bankruptcy last year.

The charges against Pinkney are being pursued on the heels of two recent U.S. District and Michigan Supreme Court decisions which held that elections laws must be interpreted in the manner that is in the best interest of the public and its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.Regarding challenges to U.S. Rep. John Conyers’ placement on the ballot because several petition circulators were alleged not to be registered voters in the district, U.S. District Court Judge Hon. Matthew F. Leitman ordered him placed on the ballot May 23.

Leitman held the Registration Statute to be unconstitutional based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings and also on the Michigan legislature’s own amendment of state law allowing out-of-state residents to circulate petitions.

He said that the challenges by Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett and Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson amounted “to a severe burden on Mr. Conyers’ First Amendment rights and . . .  also  compels the conclusion that application of the Registration Statute severely burdened the First Amendment rights of the Plaintiffs who gathered the signatures that were disqualified.”

Leitman further said, “As to irreparable injury, “it is well-settled that loss of First Amendment freedoms, even for minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” and “Amici argue that Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the equitable doctrine of unclean hands. There is insufficient evidence in the record that any Plaintiff knowingly and intentionally engaged in improper conduct that would warrant application of this doctrine.”

Rev. Pinkney speaks at first rally against Public Act 4 in Detroit in Jan. 2011. His wife Dorothy is at his right.

In an Aug. 3, 2012 decision, the Michigan Supreme Court held that petitions containing the signatures of over 240,000 Michigan voters calling for a referendum vote on Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager act of 2011, were acceptable despite clearly picayune contentions by opponents relating to the type font and size on the petitions. The MSC ordered the PA 4 referendum on the ballot. Over 53 percent of Michigan voters, a total of 79 out of 83 counties, voted to repeal Public Act 4.

One of the key contentions by Public Act 4 opponents was that it violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by barring voters in predominantly Black Michigan cities from voting for municipal and school district officials who would have the power to carry out their duties without the interference of a state-appointed Emergency Manager. Benton Harbor was the first Michigan city to fall victim to PA 4.

Berrien County Judges: Front row, l to r: Hon. Gary J. Bruce, Hon. Thomas E. Nelson, Hon. John E. Dewane (civil judge on recall election), Hon. Scott Schofield;
Second row, l to r: Hon. Angela M. Pasula, Hon. Dennis M. Wiley,
Hon. John M. Donahue, Hon. Arthur J. Cotter, Hon. Sterling R. Schrock (Pinkney’s criminal judge)Hon. Charles T. LaSata, Hon. Mabel J. Mayfield. Berrien County is renowned for its racist court system, which incarcerates more African-Americans proportionately than any other county in Michigan.

Contact Rev. Pinkney at 269-925-0001; BANCO website is at www.bhbanco.org. Call in to his internet radio talk show, which is being hosted by others for the time being, on Sundays at 5 p.m. at 347-994-3644.

Recent related stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/05/10/rev-edward-pinkney-marcus-muhammad-battle-whirlpool-for-benton-harbor-pinkney-court-hearing-may-30/ 

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/04/26/free-rev-edward-pinkney-recall-whirlpool-stooge-benton-harbor-mayor-james-hightower/

ON THE DEATH OF COMRADE GENERAL G BAKER

September 6, 1941—May 18, 2014

From the People’s Tribune Editorial Board

As the People’s Tribune was going to press, we received word that, after a prolonged illness, Comrade General Baker had died. As an internationally known and respected revolutionary, much has been and will be written about his life and contributions. In future editions of the People’s Tribune we will add our understanding of the significance of his life as one of the era’s most effective revolutionaries. Through the centuries of struggle for the freedom of the working people, we have said farewell to numberless fighters.

General Gordon Baker

What they fought for, what they believed in, far outlasts the memory of what they did. The vision of a new world of peace and freedom crowned the legends of struggle led by General Baker. The ruling class knows how to deal with the spontaneous uprisings of the people, no matter how heroic they may be. What they fear most, what they can never defeat, is a mass in motion, guided by vision. Comrade Gen’s life is summed up as the effort to organize the scattered demands of the exploited into a vision, to organize the fighters around that vision. In his final days, General Baker said to the family and comrades gathered around him, “Carry on!” We say farewell to Comrade Gen with the pledge of revolutionaries over the centuries, “This fight will go on until we win!”

This article will appear in the June, 2014 edition of the People’s Tribune. We encourage reproduction of this article so long as you credit the source. Copyright © 2014 People’s Tribune. All rights reserved. Visit us on the web at http://www.peoplestribune.org/

CELEBRATION OF GENERAL BAKER’S LIFE:

SATURDAY MAY 24, 2014   4 P.M.

UAW LOCAL 600

10550 Dix Ave, Dearborn, MI 48120

Pastor Edwin Rowe of Central United Methodist Church presiding

General Baker (center) with his wife Marian Baker at right, during the Sept. 29, 2011 Michigan Welfare Rights Organization protest against state cut-off of thousands of families and children. Photo: Diane Bukowski

GENERAL GORDON BAKER — A HISTORY

General Baker

www.speakersforanewamerica.com

April 6, 2011

General Baker [was} an internationally known labor leader and autoworker who championed the cause of the unemployed and unorganized [over his entire lifetime]. General Baker was the first American who refused the Vietnam draft. His case was a landmark in draft resistance, symbolizing the beginning of the anti-war movement.

He is also legendary for his role in leading black autoworkers in the 1960s Detroit wildcat strikes against automakers and discriminatory union leaders. Baker was a founder of D.R.U.M., and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

The book, “Detroit: I Do Mind Dying” (about the worker revolts of that era) calls him the soul of the movement. This book is widely recognized as one of the most important books on the black liberation movement and labor struggles in the United States.

More recently, “The American Dream,” a documentary about labor history, featured him and his family, as well as other historical figures. General Baker also ran for statewide political office in Michigan; led in the statewide effort to support Detroit’s homeless tent city; was part of the North American delegation to the 7th Pan African Congress in Uganda, and has addressed other international gatherings in Europe.

As an autoworker for over 30 years, Baker witnessed robots replace workers on the assembly line, forcing many into the homeless shelters and food lines. His effort [was] always to build unity among different sectors of workers regardless of ethnicity or gender around their common, class interests.  General Baker remained one of the few leaders from the 1960’s who continued the struggle for a whole new cooperative world. Baker worked as a furnace operator at Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, and is past president of the Coke Oven Blast Furnace Unit of the United Auto Workers. He is also a founder and chair of the Steering Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America.

Baker was a convenor of the 1993 conference in Detroit commemorating MalcolmX and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; He was a featured speaker at MIT (1994) and the University of Illinois(Chicago) (1995) at conferences concerning the impact of electronic technology on industry and the community. He has also been featured at: Cleveland State University; University of Massachusetts; State Universityof New York at Binghamton; and the Carnegie Mellon Institute; Howard University Conference on the Columbus Quincentennial.