People celebrate as they wait for the announcement of preliminary results of today’s referendum on Lenin Square in the Crimean capital of Simferopol March 16, 2014 (Reuters / Thomas Peter)
95.7% of Crimeans in referendum voted to join Russia – preliminary results
March 16, 2014
95 percent of voters in the Crimean referendum have answered ‘yes’ to the autonomous republic joining Russia and less than 4 percent of the vote participants want the region to remain part of Ukraine, according to preliminary results.
With over 75 percent of the votes already counted, preliminary result show that 95.7 percent of voters said ‘yes’ to the reunion of the republic with Russia as a constituent unit of the Russian Federation.
Crimean supporters of Russia demonstrate in front of statue of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Soviet Communist revolution.
The overall voter turnout in the referendum on the status of Crimea is 81.37%, according to the head of the Crimean parliament’s commission on the referendum, Mikhail Malyshev.
The preliminary results of the popular vote were announced during a meeting in the center of Sevastopol, the city that hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Over a half of the Tatars living in the port city took part in the referendum, with the majority of them voting in favor of joining Russia, reports Itar-Tass citing a representative of the Tatar community Lenur Usmanov. About 40% of Crimean Tatars went to polling stations on Sunday, the republic’s prime minister Sergey Aksyonov said.
Crimean voters celebrate overwhelming victory at polls.
In Simferopol, the capital of the republic, at least 15,000 have gathered to celebrate the referendum in central Lenin square and people reportedly keep arriving. Demonstrators, waving Russian and Crimean flags, were watching a live concert while waiting for the announcement of preliminary results of the voting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the citizens of the peninsula have been given an opportunity to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination.
International observers are planning to present their final declaration on the Crimean referendum on March 17, the head of the monitors’ commission, Polish MP Mateush Piskorski told journalists. He added that the voting was held in line with international norms and standards.
Next week, Crimea will officially introduce the ruble as a second official currency along with Ukrainian hryvna, Aksyonov told Interfax. In his words, the dual currency will be in place for about six months.
Overall, the republic’s integration into Russia will take up to a year, the Prime Minister said, adding that it could be done faster. However, they want to maintain relations with “economic entities, including Ukraine,” rather than burn bridges.
Map of Ukraine and the peninsula of Crimea
Moscow is closely monitoring the vote count in Crimea, said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Karasin.“The results of the referendum will be considered once they are drawn up,” he told Itar-Tass.
The decision to hold a referendum was made after the bloody uprising in Kiev which ousted President Vladimir Yanukovich from power. Crimea – which is home to an ethnic Russian majority population – refused to recognize the coup-appointed government as legitimate. Crimeans feared that the new leadership would not represent their interests and respect rights. Crimeans were particularly unhappy over parliament’s decision to revoke the law allowing using minority languages – including Russian – as official along with the Ukrainian tongue. Crimeans staged mass anti-Maidan protests and asked Russia to protect them.
Mass rally in Kharkiv against right-wing junta. Photo: Borotba
THOUSANDS IN EASTERN UKRAINE JOIN CRIMEA TO PROTEST KIEV REGIME
As reported by the Union Borotba (Struggle), a mass protest took place on the March 8 International Women’s Day holiday in Kharkiv city center in the eastern Ukraine. Many of the thousands carried red flags and gathered near the monument to Lenin, “which we managed to protect from the Nazis during recent rallies.”
Borotba describes itself as representing four or five anti-capitalist and anti-racist groups, including former members of the youth organization of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Participants denounced the new Kiev regime as representing a collaboration of the oligarchs and Nazis who, unable to cope with the socioeconomic crisis looming in Ukraine, are trying to dump the costs onto the majority of working people.
Massive anti-fascist rally in Moscow.
The speakers also opposed war within Ukraine, arguing that workers in western Ukraine are not their enemies. They attacked the Kiev right-wing junta for trying to “bang their heads” against the people living in the southeast of the country.
Borotba reported that the Kiev regime had sent political police to Kharkiv who tried to intimidate printers from printing leaflets against the coup “government.” They were printed anyway.
For more information on the protest or on the Borotba program, see a longer article online at workers.org or the English section of borotba.org.
Giles cites COA ruling which opened the door to other reasons for dismissal
Godboldo and supporters jubilant
Attorneys call on Pros. Kym Worthy to end family’s ordeal now; but Worthy says she intends to appeal
By Diane Bukowski
March 15, 2014
Maryanne Godboldo (2nd from l) with attorney Allison Folmar (l), Mubarak Hakim, Penny Godboldo, and other supporters after first dismissal by Giles Aug. 29, 2011.
DETROIT – A jubilant crowd of Detroit mother Maryanne Godboldo’s supporters erupted in applause after 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles once again dismissed all criminal charges against her March 14. Godboldo has received national awards and international acclaim for standing off a Detroit police “SWAT” team who tried to take her daughter Ariana Godboldo-Hakim, then 13, in 2011, to administer the dangerous drug Risperdal to the child.
They acted on what Giles earlier ruled was an “illegal order” written by Mia Wenk, a state Child Protective Services (CPS) worker with no medical training. It was rubber stamped with a judge’s signature, without a judicial hearing, by a probation officer at Wayne County Juvenile Court. [Voice of Detroit first revealed this fact after a court supervisor testified at a hearing before Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge Lynn Pierce.]
This is not a picture from the 1967 rebellion, but shows tanks rolling down Linwood to confront mother Maryanne Godboldo and her 13-year-old daughter in their home in May, 2011.
When Godboldo would not admit police to her home, a “SWAT” team with helicopters, tanks, and assault rifles was called to the scene, and the 11-hour stand-off took place. Godboldo was charged with eight felonies including discharging a firearm in a dwelling.
“I feel wonderful,” Godboldo said outside the courthouse afterwards. “I am a firm believer in Yahweh, and knew he was protecting me. I knew Judge Giles was a just judge and would uphold the law. I have had the support of moms from all over the world, including my own mother, along with that of my wonderful attorneys.”
Maryanne Godboldo weeps in the arms of friends during a vigil outside the Hawthorne hospital where her daughter was detained for six weeks.
She said her daughter, now 16, is “100 percent” better than she was while held captive in the state Hawthorne psychiatric facility for six weeks after the traumatic incident. Wenk gave written permission for doctors there to administer not just Risperdal, but numerous other medications, to the child. Godboldo and Ariana’s father Mubarak Hakim have also contended that Ariana was severely abused there.
“She’s still not completely well,” Godboldo said. “We have had to go back to a counselor. She still suffers nightmares about the abuse, and often stays up all night. It doesn’t help that I keep having to go back to court hearings on the case.”
Attorneys Allison Folmar, Byron Pitts, and Roger Farinha represented Godboldo and Hakim during their three year ordeal, which included an ultimately failed attempt to seize permanent custody of Ariana.
Atty. Byron Pitts with Maryanne Godboldo in her home during an evidence search five months after the incident.
“This is the third time that a judge has dismissed these criminal charges,” Pitts said. “This is a victory for mothers across the country, in stopping the kidnapping of children by the state. I strongly urge the Wayne County Prosecutor to leave this mother alone now. Any force used in the home was reasonable, against the unlawful entry by police without legal authority to kidnap a child. Mothers across Wayne County must unite and contact the Prosecutor’s Office to tell her to stop this.”
“My client was charged for simply being a mom,” Attorney Folmar added. “CPS must stop the senseless removal of our children.”
Both Giles and Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Bill adamantly dismissed the charges against Godboldo in 2011.
Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
Giles conducted a lengthy preliminary exam which spanned two full days, during which he allowed Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Laura Weingarden to present all evidence she deemed necessary. He then ruled on Aug. 29, 2011 that the prosecution’s evidence was “the fruit of a poisonous tree . . . .an order that is grossly inadequate and incorrect. . . .It is ridiculous to go in to remove in this court’s opinion somebody’s children based on THIS order.”
Bill expressly upheld all of Giles’ findings.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy appealed their decisions, and a state Court of Appeals remanded the case to Giles for further consideration beyond “the fruit of a poisonous tree” doctrine.
“I agree with the prosecution that a person cannot use deadly force to resist an unlawful arrest,” Giles said. “However, if you look at the facts, [the defendant] is charged with felonious assault, but not assault with intent to commit murder. I disagree with the prosecution that the fact alone that a firearm was discharged means that deadly force was used. The gun was discharged at the top of the door into the ceiling, which can be characterized only as some type of warning shot.”
36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles
Giles said evidence given the preliminary exam only “inferred” that Godboldo was even the shooter. He said he agreed with defense arguments and briefs that the Court of Appeals opinion actually opened the door for him to dismiss the case on other grounds.
“In its opinion, the Court of Appeals [cited rulings] that a defendant may use reasonable force as necessary, and has a common law right to resist unlawful police conduct. Based on that, I find that the defendant did use reasonable force to prevent an illegal attachment, the removal of her child by the Detroit police with an invalid court order. The court is not going to bind the defendant over and the case is dismissed.”
Giles noted that his ruling is likely to “go upstairs” on appeal. Many in the courtroom cited him for his fortitude, using the terms “balls” and “guts,” since some lower level judges are cowed when higher courts overturn their decisions.
Slogan on T-Shirt supporting Godboldo family.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, through her spokesperson Maria Miller, said, “We appealed Judge Giles’ ruling dismissing the case before and prevailed, as a result, and the case was remanded for the judge to rule today. We disagree with the judge’s dismissal of the case, and we will be appealing the ruling to the Wayne County Circuit Court.”
Attorney Folmar added later, “A parent has the final word on using any anti-psychotic drug on their child,” Folmar said. “In this case, the mom tried it, and it made Ariana horribly ill and aggressive. Risperdal has killed children. In a ‘free’ society we are not medical property. In America, we can go and get a second opinion. Somebody could have died that day.”
Folmar earlier cited the killing of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones by during a “SWAT” team raid on her home May 16, 2010, shot in the head by Officer Joseph Weekley, using an MP-5 submachine gun. A pre-trial hearing for Weekley on charges of “involuntary manslaughter” and “reckless use of a firearm” was once again postponed indefinitely May 14, allegedly due to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway’s continued “scheduling conflicts.”
Expert depiction of Aiyana Jones’ killing by Officer Joseph Weekley, which Atty. Folmar said could easily have been repeated in Godboldo’s home.
Many feel it is likely Weekley and the rest of the police department involved will walk scott free. Aiyana’s uncle-in-law Chauncey Owens has now been convicted on first-degree murder charges, and her father Charles Jones on second-degree murder charges, in the death of Jerean Blake two days before the raid. Mainstream media has eported falsely that the original raid on the Jones home sought both Owens and Jones. However, police had only a warrant seeking Owens. Jones was not charged until 17 months later.
Jones’ sentencing has been postponed. His jury contradictorily found him not guilty of gun charges in the case, while the prosecution had charged him with murder, solely alleging that he gave a gun to Owens during the Blake killing. Both cases are being appealed.
Chokwe Lumumba Lives! Home Going – – A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of
1} From Victimization To Empowerment… www.trafford.com/07-0913 eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience!
{Photo Book}
YouTube: I have over 499 Video’s, 388 Subscribers, over 239,000 hits, now averaging 10,000 monthly on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod
On Tuesday February 25th, 2014 Mayor Chokwe Lumumba unexpectedly passed away. The Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference (May 2-4, 2014 at Jackson State University) was intended to be one of the primary initiatives and vehicles of the Lumumba administration to build a more equitable and democratic economy in Jackson, MS. The organizers intend to fulfill this mission. The conference will still take place.
On February 26, 2014 (after Mayor Lumumba’s death) they were successful in having the Jackson City Council pass a resolution endorsing the conference.
Help make Jackson, Mississippi, a center of economic democracy where strong cooperatives along with other forms of worker owned enterprises and financial institutions will create jobs with dignity, stability, living wages, and quality benefits.
Video above published on Feb 26, 2014
Several civil rights leaders and close associates remember Chokwe Lumumba who died suddenly on Tuesday. Guests: Akinyele Umoja, associate professor and chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia State University. Benjamin Jealous, former president and CEO of NAACP. Bill Chandler, a close ally to Mayor Lumumba, and a member of his transition team, Kwame Kenyatta, former Detroit city councilman who moved to Jackson last year to serve as Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s contract compliance officer.
HOW AND WHY DID CHOKWE LUMUMBA DIE?
Tue, 03/04/2014 – 22:55 — Glen Ford
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
Chokwe Lumumba ran for mayor of Jackson, Mississippi in order to set in motion a process of “social transformation from the ground up.” He died eight months into his term, but the state refused to do an autopsy. Lots of folks suspect he was assassinated for challenging the ruling order – which is logical, since “Mississippi has murdered thousands of Black people for far less reason than that.”
“It is imperative that impartial science tell us the exact and incontestable cause of this man’s demise.”
Chokwe Lumumba in Detroit several years ago with long-time activist Cornell Squires.
When a Black radical dies in Mississippi, one should never accept at face value the state’s word on the cause of death. When that revolutionary Black man dies soon after becoming mayor of the state’s capital and largest city, history and reason compel us to put assassination first on our list of possibilities. And, if that Black man has brought with him to Jackson, Mississippi, a band of fellow revolutionaries from around the state and the nation, united under the banner of Malcolm X, for the purpose of totally upending the old order of race and class, not just in the Deep South, but across the planet, then it is imperative that impartial science tell us the exact and incontestable cause of this man’s demise.
People’s Attorney Leonard Eston of Detroit attended law school with Chokwe Lumumba and subscribed to his militant vision for the Black nation. Eston worked with Cornell Squires in We the People for the People before his untimely death on Sept. 15, 2013 at Detroit Receiving Hospital. He had been recuperating from a heart attack at Henry Ford Hospital and mysteriously took a turn for the worse. From Mississippi GODDAM to Detroit GODDAM.
Yet, the Mississippi state coroner has refused to perform an autopsy on the body of Chokwe Lumumba, who was elected by a landslide in June and died last Tuesday after checking into a hospital. The coroner says only that the mayor succumbed of “natural causes.” But, the state of Mississippi and its minions have zero credibility when it comes to Black life and death. Common sense tells us that the state is full of people who would love nothing better than to kill its most prominent radical, who was inviting other radicals of all races from around the country to a conference in May, to discuss the nuts and bolts of social transformation from the ground up. The “Jackson Rising” conference – which is still scheduled – is an invitation to a second Reconstruction through participatory democracy and new, cooperative economics. The event is meant to present a clear and present challenge to the rule of money and the hierarchy of race. Mississippi has murdered thousands of Black people for far less reason than that.
“The state of Mississippi and its minions have zero credibility when it comes to Black life and death.”
Prof. Akinyele Umoja
Mayor Lumumba’s family and close friends sought an independent autopsy, and the National Council of Black Lawyers, of which Mayor Lumumba had been a member since his days in law school, in Detroit, put out the call for funds. Akinyele Umoja, a close friend and longtime comrade in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which Lumumba helped found in 1993, and who is also chairman of African American Studies at Georgia State University, says that even if Mississippi agreed to do an autopsy, there’s no reason to believe their findings. “We don’t want to trust them to do it, anyway,” said Professor Umoja.
Kenny Stokes, a Black supervisor for the county surrounding Jackson, thinks the mayor was murdered, pure and simple. “I’m not going to sugar coat it,” said the elected official. “I believe that someone killed him…and a lot of other people feel he was killed.”
No matter what the independent autopsy concludes, Mississippi is guilty, has always been guilty, and will remain guilty, until it is transformed by the kind of people’s power that Chokwe Lumumba envisioned.
The mayor’s funeral is this Saturday. His 30 year-old son, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, is likely to announce he’ll run to fill his father’s seat in a special election on April 8th, so that Jackson can keep on rising.
Video above, by Leona McElvene: Mass organizer Monica Patrick addresses crowd composed primarily of city retirees, who stand to lose up to 70% of their pensions, annuities and benefits
Moratorium NOW! calls for protest April 1st at bankrupty court
Forms to file with court to oppose vicious “Plan of Adjustment” provided
FIST proposes “Youth March for Jobs” April 4
Atty. Alice Jennings: May 1 should be no school, no work, no shopping day
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Videos by Leona McElvene
Slides by Cheryl Labash
March 4, 2014
DETROIT — A standing-room-only audience at Central United Methodist Church participated in an Emergency Town Hall meeting March 2 in response to the “Plan of Adjustment” in the Detroit federal bankruptcy case. The document is designed to institutionalize corporate rule over the people of this majority African-American city.
Participants in town hall meeting cheer speakers.
The event was planned by a coalition of organizations fighting the emergency management and bankruptcy of the city, including the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, National Action Network Detroit Chapter, Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute, and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization.
The crowd was made up of many retired city workers. Under the state-imposed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s plan, retirees will be subjected to cuts that are tantamount to 70 percent of their overall income and benefits package.
Video above by Leona McElvene: People’s attorney Vanessa Fluker speaks
The plan does not mention the role of the banks in destroying the city. There were tens of thousands of foreclosures in the city beginning in 2007 as a direct result of the predatory lending of the banks and the failure of state and local government to impose a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds and settlement monies from fines paid by banks have been funneled to the state of Michigan, but very little has reached Detroit and other distressed cities to support the stabilization and reconstruction of working-class communities.
Standing room only crowd.
Several speakers stressed that developments in the coming weeks will be critical. Workers, retirees and the community must come out in force to stop the banks’ and the bondholders’ plans to impose their austerity program on the people of Detroit.
Several proposals were put forward by the organizers. On April 1 there will be a hearing in bankruptcy court for objectors to the Orr plan. Forms were distributed for retirees and residents to formally oppose the program of austerity. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition called for a mass demonstration in front of the courthouse that day.
Fred Westbrook, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local representing the city’s bus drivers, called for a demonstration in Washington. “Detroit is a test case,” said Westbrook. “If they can carry this out here, it will spread across the country.”
A proposal to organize a “Youth March for Jobs” on April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was advanced by youth of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together. FIST organizer Tom Michalak said, “Under this system there is no hope for youth. We have to begin to organize and fight for jobs and education.”
Attorney Alice Jennings proposed that May Day be utilized to call for a “no work, no school and no shopping day.” Jennings noted that such actions would draw the attention of people around the country.
RETIREE ANALYZES DEEP CUTS IN POA, SAYS RETIREES MUST VOTE NO
By Diane Bukowski
Detroit city retiree Cheryl Labash explains cuts that POA and attached 400 page addendum will mean to retirees.
Detroit city retiree Cheryl Labash, who analyzed the entire 400-page addendum to the Plan of Adjustment, explained with a slide show why retirees and their organizations should NOT VOTE for the plan.
EM Kevyn Orr and the state-appointed Jones Day law firm are proposing a balloting process whereby each one of the retirees would cast their vote, despite the confusing legalese in the POA. She said a “yes” vote also means a vote to withdraw lawsuits against the bankruptcy currently pending at the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court, which have been filed by the retirement systems and numerous associations, as well as city workers’ unions.
A lawsuit challenging the validity of Public Act 436, under which Orr was appointed, is also ongoing in U.S. District Court in front of Judge George Caram Steeh, although Detroit has been redacted from it in keeping with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes unprecedented bar of lawsuits against not only the debtor, the City of Detroit, but also Governor Rick Snyder and other state officials involved in the Detroit bankruptcy filing.
Cuts for GRS workers will actually exceed 34 percent, up to 70 percent including COLA and benefit cuts.
“Orr proposes to put no city dollars into the General Retirement System pension fund until the year 2023,” Labash explained. “None of his proposals are guaranteed [dependent on whether state approves paltry $800 million in funding]. There will no longer be annual two percent COLA adjustments.” She said Orr wants first of all to cut monthly pension checks for General Retirement System workers by 34 percent, with a phony promise that he will reduce the cut if retirees vote “Yes.”
She explained that Orr wants to go all the way back to 1999 to raid workers’ annuity savings plans, the part they themselves contributed aside from the pension the city paid into. Without presenting proof of his claims, Orr says that the retirement systems used faulty “rates of return” which inflated the value of the accounts, and the city wants that undetermined amount of money back. During the period from 1999 to the crash of 2008, the stock markets were “zooming,” Labash said, meaning that investments made from the annuity accounts also increased accordingly.
Orr attacks Annuity Savings Plans
Orr cites no legal basis for his claim that the city has the right to take that money back from retirees. Labash noted that the question also remains open what the city will do to retirees who withdrew and reinvested their annuities on retirement, as the majority of city workers have done.
“Will they take that money out of their pension amounts?” Labash asked.
Sample check stub for retiree who left annuities in her account–will she take 34 percent cut in pension portion as well as undetermined amount from annuity portion?
Similarly, Orr continues to claim in the POA that the retirement funds are $3.7 billion underfunded, according to “the city’s actuary” Milliman, Inc. However, both Orr and Charles Moore of Conway McKenzie testified during the bankruptcy trial that there is no written documentation of that claim. The retirement systems’ actuaries have said the rate of underfunding approximates only $800,000, in the only written report issued.
Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes (3rd from left) at forum Oct. 10, 2012, in five of six speakers endorsed PA 4, emergency manager law, and using Ch. 9 bankruptcy. They were (l to r) Frederick Headen of Treasurer’s office, Edward Plawecki (neutral), Douglas Bernstein and Judy O’Neill, who trained EM’s, with O’Neill co-authoring PA4, and Charles Moore of Conway McKenzie, a chief witness for Orr during bankrtupcy trial.
The boom which led to increased rates of return to both the city’s pension and annuity funds was in fact created by the illegal practices of the banks, not the retirement systems. Global banks were involved during that period in an orgy of illegal predatory mortgage and municipal bond lending which collapsed in on itself in 2008, devastating Detroit’s neighborhoods with mass foreclosures and evictions, and its city services and jobs. Retirement systems across the country also sustained losses on their investments.
“Orr never talks about the racist disinvestment in the city of Detroit, or the way the city has been red-lined,” Labash said. “The auto companies gutted the city’s employment during the ’70’s and ’80’s, closing every single auto plant except Jefferson Assembly and Poletown, which are running with a vastly decreased workforce. He doesn’t talk about the mortgage foreclosure crisis or the crash of 2008, the huge economic meltdown created by the banks.”
Banks responsible for crisis, not retirees and workers.
She concluded, “Why should WE have to pay for a crisis we didn’t create? Instead, Detroit’s debt to the banks must be canceled, there must be a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, tax breaks for GM, Chrysler and [developers] must be canceled! Bring back the hundreds of millions that Detroit sends to the Pentagon!”
At the March 17 meeting of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, a workshop will be held to assist you in filling out your objections. The meeting starts at 7 pm and takes place at 5920 Second Ave., Detroit.
Calling on all City of Detroit retirees, current City workers, residents and other concerned people for a mass protest outside the Federal Courthouse in Detroit (231 W. Lafayette St.). Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has a “Plan of Adjustment” that will loot the pension funds to pay off the bankers. 90% of the bank debt owed by City of Detroit will be paid 100%. Only a small percentage of lenders will take a hit. Meanwhile Orr wants to give $85 Million to Bank of America and UBS as a reward for illegal bond swaps—but they stole over $300 Million from us through these swaps over the past 6 years.
Retirees with Ed McNeil of AFSCME Co. 25 at left.
Fight back or starve! That is the choice for over 20,000 retirees. Health care has been eliminated for those under 65. Now they want to take 34% of the little retirees get after decades of loyal service. The plan of adjustment assures that no banker will miss a meal, but for retirees it’s a death sentence.
There is plenty of money. Gov. Snyder is withholding hundreds of millions of revenue sharing owed Detroit. Orr could sue BofA, UBS and other big banks to recover the $300 Million they stole in the pension swaps deal and over $500 Million in ill-gotten gains via the Water Department bond swap. The banks who destroyed our cities with racist predatory loans have been fined $50 Billion by the federal government (Chase Bank paid $13 Billion alone!). Detroit should get some of that huge sum as restitution for destroying our neighborhoods.
Youth gives presentation in solidarity with his elders and residents of Detroit.
The City will pay ZERO into the pension fund for the next 10 years, depending entirely on charitable contributions which are not guaranteed. Cost of living increases are to be eliminated. Orr wants to make retirees pay back 34% of what they’ve already collected since June 2013 and take back some annuity money from retirees going back to 1999!
Only a MASS MOVEMENT will stop this terrorist conspiracy. Civil and worker rights were affirmed by the courts only after the mass struggle forced them. Lawyers in the courts need the support of thousands in the streets to drive home the point – this is UNACCEPTABLE.
Some of Michigan’s 371 juvenile lifers involved in current litigation: (l to r, top through bottom row), Cortez Davis, Raymond Carp, and Dakotah Eliason, awaiting Michigan Supreme Court hearing of their cases March 6, 2014 ; plaintiffs in USDC case Hill v. Snyder: Henry Hill, Keith Maxey, Dontez Tillman, Jemal Tipton, Henry Hill, Nicole Dupure, Giovanni Casper, Jean Cintron, Matthew Bentley, Bosie Smith, Kevin Boyd, Damion Todd, and Jennifer Pruitt; Edward Sanders and David Walton, in prison since 1975 at the age of 17; (photos show some lifers at current age, others at age they went to prison).
Former Gov. William Milliken, 109 others filed amicus brief on behalf of defendants
At issue: whether USSC ruling in Miller v. Alabama is retroactive
The fate of 363 children sentenced to die in Michigan’s prisons at stake
March 6, 2014
Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, each14 at the times of their crimes in Arkansas and Alabama.
DETROIT – The Michigan Supreme Court is hearing the cases of three men sentenced as juveniles to die in prison today. A key issue in each case is whether the landmark 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning juvenile life without parole sentences as “cruel and unusual punishment” will be held by the state to be retroactive. That case was Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Arkansas.
The expected rulings in the cases of Cortez Davis, 16 when he was incarcerated, Raymond Carp, 15, and Dakotah Eliason, 14, will affect the future of Michigan’s 363 juvenile lifers, many of whom have languished behind bars for decades. Michigan has the second highest number per capita of children sentenced to die in prison of any state. The U.S. is the only country in the world that allows such sentences.
Edward Sanders, a devout Muslim, during early years of incarceration.
“I am thankful to Allah to be back down state,” Edward Sanders, incarcerated for 39 years since 1975 at the age of 17 for an incident in which he was not the shooter, told this reporter in a JPay email. “I am rooming with a guy who has done more than 44 years as a JLWOP [juvenile life without parole]. He has been in prison longer than the guy up north that had about 42 years.”
Sanders, who had been brutally attacked by another prisoner at a facility in the upper peninsula, was finally granted his transfer request after a long campaign including numerous articles in the Voice of Detroit.
Sanders said earlier that the state parole board had once again denied him an opportunity for a parole hearing, after 39 years. He has obtained his college degree, taught law courses to other prisoners, and acted as an accomplished jail-house lawyer, among other achievements, but the state parole board is notorious for ignoring actual accomplishments of rehabilitation. Instead, according to recent comments by a former head of the parole board, they focus solely on the initial crime. They are not currently obligated even to see a prisoner in person for a review, but can just hand back a “no-interest” response.
Former Rep. Governor William Milliken at 90th birthday party.
Former Michigan Governor William Milliken and 109 retired judges, attorneys, prosecutors, state bar officials and law professors have signed an amicus brief stating that the defendants should now be eligible for parole under terms of the USSC Miller/Jackson ruling. Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette and various appeal courts have claimed that the decision is not retroactive.
Cortez Davis of Detroit, now 36, has been incarcerated for twenty years. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vera Massey Jones declared at his sentencing, “[I]n this instance when this young man was not the person who pulled the trigger, he was an aider and abettor in an armed robbery, he was convicted of first-degree murder by the jury . . . the only other option of then sentencing him as an adult and imposing a life sentence, mandatory life sentence, is cruel and unusual punishment, when everyone agrees that he is capable of rehabilitation.”
Wayne Co. Circuit Court Judge Vera Massey-Jones
Judge Massey-Jones sentenced Davis to a determinate term of 10 to 40 years, but an appeals court overturned her decision, forcing her to re-sentence him to life without parole. After the Miller/Jackson ruling, his case was remanded to her for re-sentencing. But Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, an ardent foe of second chances for juvenile lifers, appealed and blocked the re-sentencing.
Massey-Jones is due to retire next year.
“I stayed here because I wanted to see justice done to my people,” Judge Jones said regarding her lengthy tenure. “I followed my father around Recorder’s Court when I was a little kid . . . .I had a great deal of respect for him and for the other people who happened to be African-American lawyers, and really fought for people’s rights. And so, to me, doing the right thing was more important than anything else. And doing the right thing back then was not to sentence Mr. Davis to natural life in prison.”
Raymond Carp, of St. Clair Shores, now 23, has been incarcerated since 2006 for aiding and abetting his then 22-year-old brother in the robbery-murder of an elderly woman neighbor. Carp was 15. His brother Brandon Gorecki stabbed and killed the woman. Carp’s prison record shows he has a scar on his arm from a suicide attempt.
An appeals court ruled that Miller/Jackson was not retroactive in his key case. That decision has so far blocked all other juvenile lifer cases from proceeding for resentencing.
Judge Michael Talbot, member of the right-wing Federalist Society.
The court was led by right-wing Judge Michael Talbot, who sentenced another juvenile lifer, Damion Todd, to “life without parole at hard labor” in the 1980’s, even though there is no such sentencing statute on the books in Michigan law. Talbot was exposed as a member of the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society in a 1999 report called “Hijacking Justice.” (Click on The Federalist Society Special Report for more info.)
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed Talbot to take control of 36th District Court, the only court left where judges and juries are comprised solely of Detroit residents and Black Detroiters can at least hope for a modicum of justice.
In Jan. 2013, U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara countered the Carp appeals court decision, ruling in Hill v. Snyder that the USSC decision was indeed retroactive.
U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara
“Indeed, if ever there was a legal rule that should – as a matter of law and morality – be given retroactive effect, it is the rule announced in Miller,” said Judge O’Meara.“To hold otherwise would allow the state to impose unconstitutional punishment on some persons but not others, an intolerable miscarriage of justice.”
Judge O’Meara extended the reach of his ruling to include all Michigan juvenile lifers, but the case has dragged out as attorneys for juvenile lifers and the state spar over ways to effectuate it. In November, 2013, Judge O’Meara mandated that the state put procedures in place by Jan. 2014, but the state has appealed his ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
On March 5 Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed Public Act 22 of 2014, which bars retroactivity for juvenile lifers unless either the state or federal supreme courts affirm it, emphasizing the importance of rulings in today’s cases.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder
It reads in part, “If the state supreme court or the United States supreme court finds that the decision of the United States supreme court in Miller v Alabama . . . applies retroactively to all defendants who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes, and that decision is final for appellate purposes, the determination of whether a sentence of imprisonment for a violation . . . .shall be imprisonment for life without parole eligibility or a term of years . . . .shall be made by the sentencing judge or his or her successor as provided in this section. For purposes of this subsection, a decision of the state supreme court is final when either the United States supreme court denies a petition for certiorari challenging the decision or the time for filing that petition passes without a petition being filed.”
DAKOTAH ELIASON
Dakotah Eliason of Niles, Michigan, 14 at the time he shot and killed his grandfather in 2010, said he had been contemplating homicide or suicide out of “sadness” or “pent-up anger.” A friend had recently committed suicide, a cousin died in a car accident, and his pet dog, which which an expert testified constituted his closest relationship, had died. His mother had recently relinquished her parental rights after his father lost his job, assigning him and his sister to their grandparents’ residence.
Dakotah Eliason at time of sentencing.
Eliason was an honor roll student with no previous behavioral issues. He said he sat with a gun in his bedroom at his grandfather’s house for several hours deciding whether to kill himself or someone else so that he could be executed.
James Henry, the director of the Southwest Michigan Children’s Trauma Assessment Center, testified later that an interview with Eliason 17 months after the shooting revealed he was still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the events prior to the shooting, and had “dissociated from reality.”
An appeals court decision by two of three judges on the panel, citing Miller and Carp, remanded his case for re-sentencing limited as follows:
“Therefore, the only discretion afforded to the trial court in light of our first-degree murder statutes and Miller is whether to impose a penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Carp, 298 Mich App at 527.”
Appeals Court Judge Elizabeth Gleicher
However, the third judge on the panel, Elizabeth Gleicher, said in a partial dissent,
“I concur with the result reached by the majority regarding defendant Dakotah Eliason’s challenges to his first-degree-murder conviction. I write separately to respectfully express my belief that the Michigan Constitution forbids the trial court from resentencing Dakotah to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole.”
Michigan’s Constitution goes even further than the U.S. Constitution, banning cruel OR unusual punishment as opposed to cruel AND unusual punishment.
“Furthermore,” Gleicher said, “because Michigan’s parole guidelines do not take into account Dakotah’s youth at the time he committed the crime, I believe that both the United States and Michigan Constitutions mandate that the trial court consider sentencing Dakotah to a term of years that affords him a realistic opportunity for release.”
VIDEO ABOVE: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and a MacArthur Fellow, argued the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Arkansas before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of two prisoners who were 14 when they were sentenced to life without parole. On June 25, 2012, the high court ruled that sentencing children under the age of 18 to death is prison is “cruel and unusual punishement” and therefore unconstitutional. Stevenson’s own grandfather was killed by a group of youths, but he has devoted his own life to fighting for fair sentencing, particularly for juveniles. In this video, he discusses earlier Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Florida, which he also argued, that resulted in a ruling that life without parole for juveniles in non-homicide cases is unconstitutional.
Hinds County, Miss. supervisor Kenny Stokes believes that late Jackson mayor Chokwe Lumumba was assassinated and he wants an autopsy performed to rule out foul play, reports the Clarion-Ledger.
[Meanwhile, his son Chokwe Antwar Lumumba gave the following statement to the Jackson Free Press in response:
“We know that our father was loved and appreciated by many and a number of people both in Jackson and around the world have inquired into the manner of his death. At this time, there has been no information provided to the family other than that provided at the time of his death by the doctors. The family will explore all possible causes of his death.”]
Mayor Chokwe Lumumba celebrates election victory June 5, 2013 with his daughter Rukia at his right and son Chokwe Antar at right. There is a move on to have his son replace him as mayor.
Lumumba, a legendary human rights activist and attorney who was elected mayor of Jackson last June, died of alleged natural causes on February 25.
Speculation has been rampant that he was killed because of his platform of self-determination for the Black community and his refusal to tap-dance around issues of white supremacy and systemic racism in the Deep South.
Hinds County coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart insists that Lumumba, who previously battled cancer, died of natural causes, but valid suspicions can’t be soothed with words. Lumumba’s supporters want proof.
Read what Stokes had to say below:
Hinds County Commissioner Kenneth Stokes
“We gonna ask a question: Who killed the mayor? We’d feel a lot better if there was an autopsy,” Stokes said at the beginning of his speech. “First they say it’s not a heart attack and not a stroke, then what was it? You don’t just die like that and you’re healthy.”
“So many of us feel, throughout the city of Jackson, that the mayor was murdered,” Stokes told a WAPT reporter after his speech. “I’m not going to sugar coat it. I’m not going to try to say it in a way where the people feel, you know, that we should have said it in another way.”
“I believe that someone killed him. Now I can’t prove it, but I’m going to say it,” Stokes said. “That’s how I feel in my heart, and a lot of other people feel he was killed.”
Watch Supervisor Stokes speak on Mayor Lumumba’s death below:
As previously reported by NewsOne, Lumumba served four years on the Jackson City Council before running for mayor. He was elected on June 4, 2013, winning the general election with 86 percent of the vote.
“I’m just delighted. I feel wonderfully well about the people and their vote. Our slogan has been the people must decide and the people gave us an outstanding mandate today for positive change in the city of Jackson,” Lumumba said after the results were announced. “We intend to work diligently and put all our hearts and efforts into that and we’re going to be calling upon the people to work with us. We’re not working by ourselves.”
Chokwe Lumumba, VP of RNA, in Detroit.
Lumumba spent part of the ’70s and ’80s as vice-president of the Republic of New Afrika, an organization which advocated for “an independent predominantly black government” in the southeastern United States and reparations for slavery [and which was founded in the city of his birth, Detroit, Michigan].
“The provisional government of Republic of New Afrika was always a group that believed in human rights for human beings,” Lumumba told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “I think it has been miscast in many ways. It has never been any kind of racist group or ‘hate white’ group in any way…. It was a group which was fighting for human rights for black people in this country and at the same time supporting the human rights around the globe.”
As an attorney, Lumumba represented legendary activist, poet, actor and Hip-Hop artist Tupac Shakur in several cases, and his godmother, Assata Shakur, whom Lumumba called a “Black Panther heroine.”
Assata Shakur in Cuba/Photo: Kenneth Snodgrass
Lumumba was also founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and his platform called for a move towards Black self-determination in the Deep South.
Lumumba referred to himself as a “Fannie Lou Hamer Democrat,” a nod to the fearless civil rights leader who organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the White supremacist Dixiecrats that ruled the Land of Jim Crow at the time.
The National Conference of Black Lawyers is coordinating fundraising for the costs of an independent autopsy. To read their Legal Biography of Chokwe Lumumba, click on http://www.ncbl.org/chokwe-lumumba-a-legal-biography//
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan announced during his recent Saviour’s Day Address that fundraising would not be necessary because he would pay for the autopsy:
Chokwe, I’ve known him for nearly 40 years. He passed away about a week ago. His funeral will be on the 8th of this month. And he died under circumstances that we don’t know what it was. He became the mayor of Jackson, MS. And any of you who know Mississippi and know Jackson…a Black man being mayor and trying to do right by all the people is not a mayor that those people want.
He was in the hospital. He was on the phone doing mayoral business. He was laughing. He was in good spirits and within a few hours, he was dead. I understand that they’re guarding his body and I was so happy to learn that they are getting an independent pathologist because medical examiners…we can’t trust them when our babies are dead and they make it seem as if it were under ‘natural circumstances.’
They lie to protect the government. We have to have our own independent pathologists and whatnot to look after us, so I understand they’re trying to raise the money. I told them don’t even waste time, call me. I will give you whatever it takes to get our own forensic specialist to go in and make sure that our brother died under the right circumstances.
A special election to replace Mayor Lumumba has been scheduled for April 8.
Special Note: A bus is leaving from Detroit Thursday, March 6, at 6 p.m.; arrives in Jackson, MS 10 a.m.; leaves Jackson Sunday 7 a.m, returns at 10 p.m. Cost of trip including bus ride and hotel is $225.00. Contact Shushanna Shakur for reservations at 313-244-9909.
The City of Jackson has announced funeral arrangements for Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. The arrangements are as follows:
THE BODY WILL LIE IN STATE
(Public Viewing)
City of Jackson – City Hall 219 South President Street Jackson, Mississippi 39205
Friday, March 7, 2014 11:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
(Remembrance Hour) 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
CELEBRATION OF LIFE SERVICE
Jackson Convention Center 105 E. Pascagoula Street Jackson, Mississippi 39204
Saturday, March 8, 2014 11:00 a.m.
Internment following the Celebration of Life Service at Autumn Woods Memorial Gardens
4000 West Northside Drive in Jackson, Mississippi, 39209.
Anyone wishing to send flowers may send them to: Willis & Sons Funeral Home, 5235 Robinson Road Ext. Jackson, Mississippi 39205
Please send letters of condolence to: City of Jackson – City Hall Attention: Halima Olufemi 219 South President Street Jackson, Mississippi 39205
Special memorials in Detroit: Sat. March 15, 1 pm at Fellowship Chapel, 7707 W. Outer Drive, Detroit; 5:30 to 8:30 P.M. Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History: African drummers, dancers, singers, poets, film.
CHOKWE LUMUMBA LIVES! DARE TO STRUGGLE–DARE TO WIN!
A NO STRUGGLE, NO DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTION/ KENNY SNODGRASS
How much do you need to earn to cover your most basic needs or that of your family’s?
A new report released today by the Michigan League for Public Policy
offers the answer.
Making Ends Meet in Michigan: A Basic Needs Income Level for Family Well-Being compiles the costs of providing the basics – housing, food, transportation, personal items, health care and, if you have children, child care.
On average, it takes $10.37 an hour (or $21,570 annually) for a single person with no children, jumping to $21.23 an hour ($44,164 annually) for a single parent with two preschool children largely because of child care expenses.
“We’re not including any vacations or any luxuries at all in this report and no savings for retirement or emergencies either. These are the ‘bare bones’ costs that individuals and families face just to get by without turning to public assistance,’’ said League President & CEO Gilda Z. Jacobs.
(VOD editor’s note: the average City of Detroit General Retirement System pension is $19,000 a year. Orr wants to slash that, likely down to 60 percent and less, depending on whether the state comes through with its little pittance of funding.
This is while he further devastates the pension funds by privatizing most of the city and city workers’ jobs. He still wants to pay the criminal banks UBS AG, SBS Financial, and Bank of America up to 70 percent of the cost of the Pension Obligation Certificates loan, which still has up to $1.45 BILLION OUTSTANDING.
Rhodes and pro-Em, pro-Chapter 9 cronies, from forum in Oct. 2012.
Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has set hearings for tomorrow, March 5 at 2:30 p.m. on vital issues connected to the city’s Plan of Adjustment (POA), including balloting procedures, deadlines for discovery and objections. His ultimate goal is to have the POA trial on June 16, 2016. He has retirees on the fast track to starvation. Click on DB POA dates and deadlines trial June 16. More to come on town hall meeting that took place March 2 and their plans for action.)
Griswold tenant James McNeal discusses outcome of City Council meeting with other tenants Feb. 20, 2014.
Downtown Detroit being readied for invasion of well-to-do whites
As Griswold tenants pushed out, living conditions deteriorate
Public tax dollars doled out to new owners to “renovate” Capitol Park
Catholic Church betrays residents; plans to lease part of 1212 Griswold
By Diane Bukowski
March 1, 2014
DETROIT – “I feel as if we’ve been raped,” Griswold Apartments tenant Jacqueline McCoy told the Detroit City Council during a committee meeting Feb. 20. “The owners of 1214 Griswold have done absolutely nothing they said they would do. We have to pack our own things, we have forfeited our security deposits, and we are woken up every morning at 7:30 a.m. by loud construction noises.”
Griswold tenants James McNeal and Jacqueline McCoy speak at City Council meeting Feb. 21. Standing in background ignoring them is Claudia Sanford, head of UCHC’s “Tenant Resource Network” which is supposed to be assisting tenants.
McCoy referred to an agreement between 1214 Griswold Apartments, LLC, possibly a front for real estate magnate Dan Gilbert, and the Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO), with United Community Housing Coalition (UCHC) as a partner. Click on 1214 Griswold MOU 2 to read the agreement, which calls in part for the new owner to “provide reasonable costs of packing assistance for the tenants.”
Unfortunately, the agreement says the owner will pay security deposits at new placements but will retain security deposits from the current building. Those are not subject to a limitation of 30 percent of the resident’s income under Section 8 HUD regulations, as are rents. The Griswold tenants are predominantly low-income seniors, disabled and people of color.
Griswold tenant Will Griffin displays “moving materials” including skimpy role of tape the size of Scotch tape, provided to him by building management so far. Management has informed tenants, many of whom are very elderly, that they will have to do their own packing.
“The [council] report this week was supposed to include an agreement that the owner would go down in rent, with HUD approval,” James McNeal, another resident, said. “That’s not in there. The owners knew they agreed to allow 10 residents to remain, but once the agreement was signed and they got their tax abatement, they started changing everything.”
MSHDA, one of multipe public agencies funding the re-development of Capitol Park using public funds, refused earlier to grant “enhanced” Section 8 vouchers for the 10 tenants as promised in the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the owners and NSO.
NSO has not appeared at a single Council hearing on the matter, while Ted Phillips of UCHC spoke at two previous meetings, claiming to represent the tenants.
Phillips was not at this meeting, but Claudia Sanford, UCHC’s coordinator of the organization’s “Tenant Resource Network,” funded by a $481,000 HUD grant, was there in the audience. During McCoy’s and McNeal’s comments she stood behind them talking to a non-tenant in the audience, and refrained from any comment to the Council.
Demands to Gilbert et al being circulated by Griswold tenants. The deadline date at the bottom, which says March 7, 2015, is meant to read “2014,” and will be corrected in final version.
Meanwhile, Griswold tenants are circulating a petition demanding among other items that Gilbert “or the owner of 1214 Griswold” use the proceeds from the tax abatement to allow at least 30 residents to remain at their current rental rates, cleaning of harmful chemicals from the air ducts and other areas of the building, and cessation of renovation until all that choose to move are gone.
The Detroit Buildings and Safety Engineering Department posted a “Stop Work” order on the front of the building, after they were alerted by Griswold tenant Will Griffin that Sachse Construction, which Gilbert uses to renovate his other downtown Detroit properties, had pulled no city permits for the work.
Contractors at 1212 Griswold dump items through chute at night, scattering powder of undetermined nature all over the surrounding area and creating a loud racket. Dust is likely also being absorbed into 1214 Griswold air vents as well as other areas downtown.
Griffin said he has collected soot from the air vents in the building and other dirt and debris left by Sachse for analysis. Tenants have complained that they wake up every morning when the heat is turned on, coughing from the air flowing through the vents.
A BS&E supervisor told VOD that 1212 Griswold, next door to the apartment building, has permits, so work is continuing there, including the loud night-time dumping of objects through a chute in the alley which covers the surrounding area with white soot of unknown composition. Griswold tenants say they have called Detroit Police several times to complain about violation of the city’s noise ordinance, but it is continuing.
1212 Griswold is now owned by Richard Karp & Associates of Lansing, who beat out Gilbert and Mike Illitch in a bid sponsored by the Downtown Development Authority. The Archdiocese of Detroit (the Catholic Church), has announced that it plans to lease five floors of the building, becoming an “anchor” for Capitol Park development plans. The building originally housed United Way.
Billionaire real estate mogul Dan Gilbert.
The DDA, a public front for the private Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, the State of Michigan’s Land Bank Authority, Invest Detroit, The Wayne County Land Bank, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and the Michigan State Housing Development are spending millions of public money on re-developing Capitol Park and displacing its current low-income tents.
Gilbert currently owns several other buildings on Capitol Park as well, through his Bedrock Real Estate firm.
Griffin met with Atty. Margaret Brown, Executive Director of the Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit, Feb. 28 regarding huge ads with drawings depicting all-white new residents displayed on the front of the building. The ads violate the Federal Fair Housing Act, according to Brown, and numerous lawsuits against such ads have been upheld in court.
St. Aloysius Church on Washington Blvd., adjacent to buildings being redeveloped.
An update from that meeting has not yet been received. Griffin told VOD, however, that he and other vocal residents were barred from a meeting held earlier in the week between Phillips, a nurse from St. Aloysius Church, and representatives of the owners regarding conditions in the building. He said the only tenant allowed there was the head of the Tenants Council. The nurse denied Griffin was barred and said she would call him, but he said she has not done so yet. She would not give any details of the meeting to VOD. St. Aloysius is a Catholic parish where Griffin has helped out for 10 years delivering food to the homeless in downtown Detroit. Considering the Archdiocese’s involvement in the Capitol Park development, however, the nurse’s refusal to comment is not surprising.
Griffin said another meeting held later in the week by UCHC revealed that numerous tenants have not yet received new placements, although the deadline for their move-out is March 31. UCHC has been working with the tenants since May of 2013.
As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right street-fighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.
Graffitti says: SS Dudes, according to article’s author.
White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped [3] inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted [4] Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed [5] a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.
An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. “They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists,” one of its members said. [6] “There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult.”
“There are lots of Nationalists here, including Nazis,” the anti-fascist continued. “They came from all over Ukraine, and they make up about 30% of protesters.”
Oleh Tyahnybok
One of the “Big Three” political parties behind the protests is the ultra-nationalist Svoboda, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has called for [7] the liberation of his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” After the 2010 conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok rushed to Germany [8] to declare him a hero who was “fighting for truth.” In the Ukrainian parliament, where Svoboda holds an unprecedented 37 seats, Tyahnybok’s deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn is fond of quoting Joseph Goebbels – he has even founded a think tank originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center.” According to Per Anders Rudling, [9] a leading academic expert on European neo-fascism, the self-described “socialist nationalist” Mykhalchyshyn is the main link between Svoboda’s official wing and neo-Nazi militias like Right Sector.
Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine.
Right Sector is a shadowy syndicate of self-described “autonomous nationalists” identified by their skinhead style of dress, ascetic lifestyle, and fascination with street violence. Armed with riot shields and clubs, the group’s cadres have manned the front lines of the Euromaidan battles this month, filling the air with their signature chant: “Ukraine above all!” In a recent Right Sector propaganda video, the group promised to fight “against degeneration and totalitarian liberalism, for traditional national morality and family values.” With Svoboda linked to a constellation of international neo-fascist parties through the Alliance of European National Movements, [10] Right Sector is promising to lead its army of aimless, disillusioned young men on “a great European Reconquest.”
U.S. Senator John McCain, right, meets Ukrainian opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk, left, and Oleh Tyahnybok in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013.
Svoboda’s openly pro-Nazi politics have not deterred Senator John McCain from addressing [11] a EuroMaidan rally alongside Tyahnybok, nor did it prevent Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland from enjoying a friendly meeting [12] with the Svoboda leader this February. Eager to fend off accusations of anti-Semitism, the Svoboda leader recently hosted [13] the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine. “I would like to ask Israelis to also respect our patriotic feelings,” Tyahnybok has remarked. [14] “Probably each party in the [Israeli] Knesset is nationalist. With God’s help, let it be this way for us too.”
In a leaked phone conversation [15] with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, Nuland revealed her wish for Tyahnybok to remain “on the outside,” but to consult with the US’s replacement for Yanukovich, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, “four times a week.” At a December 5, 2013 US-Ukraine Foundation Conference, Nuland boasted [16] that the US had invested $5 billion to “build democratic skills and institutions” in Ukraine, though she did not offer any details.
“The Euro-Maidan movement has come to embody the principles and values that are the cornerstones for all free democracies,” Nuland proclaimed.
Torchlight ceremony in Kiev Jan. 1, 2014 honoring Nazi collaborator,
Two weeks later, 15,000 Svoboda members held a torchlight ceremony [17] in the city of Lviv in honor of Stepan Bandera, a World War II-era Nazi collaborator who led the pro-fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). Lviv has become the epicenter [18] of neo-fascist activity in Ukraine, with elected Svoboda officials waging a campaign to rename its airport after Bandera and successfully changing the name of Peace Street to the name of the Nachtigall Battalion, an OUN-B wing that participated directly in the Holocaust. “’Peace’ is a holdover from Soviet stereotypes,” a Svoboda deputy explained.
Revered [19] by Ukrainian nationalists as a legendary freedom fighter, Bandera’s real record was ignominious at best. After participating in a campaign to assassinate Ukrainians who supported accommodation with the Polish during the 1930’s, Bandera’s forces set themselves to ethnically cleanse western Ukraine of Poles in 1943 and 1944. In the process, they killed over 90,000 Poles and many Jews, whom Bandera’s top deputy and acting “Prime Minister,” Yaroslav Stetsko, were determined to exterminate. Bandera held fast to fascist ideology in the years after the war, advocating a totalitarian, ethnically pure Europe while his affiliated Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) carried out a doomed armed struggle against the Soviet Union. The bloodbath he inspired ended when KGB agents assassinated him in Munich in 1959.
The Right Connections
Many surviving OUN-B members fled to Western Europe and the United States – occasionally with CIA help – where they quietly forged political alliances with right-wing elements. “You have to understand, we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence,” one member told journalist Russ Bellant, who documented the group’s resurgence in the United States in his 1988 book, “Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party.”
In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of “complete OUN-B fronts,” according to Bellant. By the mid-1980’s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group’s chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.
“Your struggle is our struggle,” Reagan told the former Nazi collaborator. “Your dream is our dream.”
When the Justice Department launched a crusade to capture and prosecute Nazi war criminals in 1985, UCCA snapped into action, lobbying Congress to halt the initiative. “The UCCA has also played a leading role in opposing federal investigations of suspected Nazi war criminals since those queries got underway in the late 1970’s,” Bellant wrote. “Some UCCA members have many reasons to worry – reasons which began in the 1930’s.”
Roman Shukhevych
Still an active and influential lobbying force in Washington, the UCCA does not appear to have shed its reverence for Banderist nationalism. In 2009, on the 50th anniversary of Bandera’s death, the group proclaimed [20] him “a symbol of strength and righteousness for his followers” who “continue[s] to inspire Ukrainians today.” A year later, the group honored [21] the 60th anniversary of the death of Roman Shukhevych, the OUN-B commander of the Nachtigall Battalion that slaughtered Jews in Lviv and Belarus, calling him a “hero” who “fought for honor, righteousness…”
Back in Ukraine in 2010, then-President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of “National Hero of Ukraine,” marking the culmination of his efforts to manufacture an anti-Russian national narrative that sanitized the OUN-B’s fascism. (Yuschenko’s wife, Katherine Chumachenko, [22] was a former Reagan administration official and ex-staffer at the right-wing Heritage Foundation). When the European Parliament condemned Yushchenko’s proclamation as an affront to “European values,” the UCCA-affiliated Ukrainian World Congress reacted with outrage, [23] accusing the EU of “another attempt to rewrite Ukrainian history during WWII.” On its website, the UCCA dismissed [24] historical accounts of Bandera’s collaboration with the Nazis as “Soviet propaganda.”
Following the demise of Yanukovich this month, the UCCA helped organize [25] rallies in cities across the US in support of the EuroMaidan protests. When several hundred demonstrators marched [26] through downtown Chicago, some waved Ukrainian flags while others proudly flew the red and black banners of the UPA and OUN-B. “USA supports Ukraine!” they chanted.
Rhodes set to cram-down plan to profit banks, cut pensions, break up city
Orr lawsuit v. POC banks a paper tiger
Group files motion to remove Rhodes
Emergency Town Hall meeting Sun. March 2 @ 3 PM
By Diane Bukowski
February 27, 2014
Judge Steven Rhodes at forum favoring EM’s and Chapter 9 Oct. 10, 2012.
DETROIT – U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes appears ready to “cram-down” a so-called “Plan of Adjustment” (POA) in Detroit’s Chapter 9 proceedings that will reward mammoth criminal banks with huge chunks of their outstanding debt, while slashing the pensions and health care of city retirees, and denuding the city of assets that are worth trillions of dollars.
His viciously hostile tone towards all creditors during a Feb. 25 hearing, during which their attorneys said the POA is grossly incomplete, missing at least 32 vital exhibits, made his intentions evident. Under bankruptcy law, Rhodes has the authority to enact, or “cram-down,” the city’s plan if at least one creditor agrees to it.
“There isn’t a single creditor constituent that supports the plan right now,” Attorney Carol Neville of Dentons, representing the Official Committee of Retirees, told Rhodes. “We’re looking at a total cram-down although I’m sure some creditor will be created to approve the plan.”
Bruce Bennett of the city’s state-imposed legal team Jones Day said the State of Michigan is a voting creditor in the case, “with respect to two classes at least,” during a press conference Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr held on the POA Feb. 24.
“No doubt there will be at least one impaired accepting class, but we expect there to be many,” Bennett said.
STATE CAN FORCE ‘CRAM-DOWN;’ GROUP WANTS RHODES OUT
James Cole, Jr. and co-filers want Rhodes OUT.
The State of Michigan under Governor Rick Snyder and Public Act 436 effectuated the emergency manager takeover of Detroit. It planned the filing of Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy as early as 2011, using the corporate crony law firms of Ernst & Young, Miller Buckfire/Stifel Financial, and Jones Day as consultants. There is no real question regarding how the state would vote.
In a “quo warranto” motion challenging Rhodes’ authority filed Feb 24, community activist and paralegal James Cole, Jr. along with dozens of other plaintiffs, called for all of the judge’s actions to be declared “null and void ab initio.” They contended that Rhodes has judicially supported “parties/agents/carpetbaggers (the financial 1% leaders) that pursue a fast-track policy of plundering and pilfering the assets of Detroit’s Indigenous Citizenry under the bankruptcy fallacy and fiction. Click on DB James Cole petition to read filing.
Greenwood, also known as “Little Africa,” in Tulsa Oklahoma burns in 1921.
The motion compares the dismantling of Detroit to the horrific, racist 1921 burning and looting of Greenwood, a prosperous community in Tulsa, Oklahoma known as “The Black Wall Street,” during which 300 Black residents were murdered.
Judge Rhodes of course, will not grant Cole’s motion, just as he refused to grant a motion for recusal filed by this reporter as a city retiree. That motion referenced his gross conflict of interest and “appearance of impropriety” in chairing a forum on Chapter 9 bankruptcy and Emergency Managers in Oct. 2012. The six-person panel consisted entirely of proponents of both, with the possible exception of one speaker. Click on DB Objection and request for recusal with expedited hearing for filing.
CANCEL THE CITY’S DEBT! TOWN HALL MEETING MARCH 3 @ 3 P.M
March to cancel Detroit’s debt to the banks.
A coalition of community organizations is planning an Emergency Town Hall meeting Sun. March 3 at 3 p.m. at Central United Methodist Church to oppose the plan and organize a means to stop it.
“We demand: Cancel the debt to the banks that caused Detroit’s crisis!” their flier (see below) reads. “The banks, corporations and the state must be forced to repay Detroit for the destruction they have caused. The hundreds of millions they owe us should go to fund a massive public works program, paying our youth to re- build our neighborhoods.”
Hopefully the coalition’s efforts will succeed, and Detroiters will flock to the meeting.
City of Detroit workers strike Wastewater Treatment Plan Sept. 30, 2012.
But without a massive national march on Detroit, a boycott of Michigan products, and a general strike of the nation’s unions, who should be on the frontlines protecting the city of their birth, the largest Black-majority city in the U.S., the outcome remains in question. No national leaders have proposed these options, although they know the Detroit/Greenwood Plan is coming to their communities next. Jones Day is already planning bankruptcy proceedings for the entire U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
BANKS MAKE OUT LIKE BANDITS IN PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT
The Orr/Jones Day Plan of Adjustment claims “settlements” are being worked out with the Wall Street banksters who perpetrated the $1.44 billion “Pension Obligation Certificates” (POC or COPS) scam of 2005-06, complete with interest swap agreements totaling another $370 million. (Click on DB plan for full 120 page plan.)
This is despite the fact that Orr sued the banks involved, asking Rhodes to declare all outstanding POC and swaps debt to them illegal and “void ab initio,” and absolving the city of any future payments. That would be at least $1.45 billion more in the city’s coffers for the services Orr claims he wants to provide to city residents, not to mention the money that should come BACK to the city for payments made between 2005 to 2013.
Jan. 31, 2005: (L to r) Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow who afterwards took a position with lender SBS, Joe Doherty of SBS, Stephen Murpy of Standard & Poor’s, Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings, and Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams press $1.44 B POC deal at City Council table.
Rhodes has set no date for the lawsuit to be heard.
The “settlements” would involve payments of 40-70 percent of the “outstanding principal” on the still remaining POC debt of $1.45 billion (no mention of interest). That would therefore be at least a payment of $680 million on the POC debt alone. The plan also says a “lower” re-payment is being negotiated on the swaps than the two deals already rejected by Rhodes.
Pres. Barack Obama playing golf with Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS AG America, one of his strongest supporters. No wonder Obama won’t come to Detroit.
The banks involved include UBS AG, Siebert, Brandford and Shank, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (which has backed SBS credit), all of them criminally and civilly convicted in courts across the nation and the globe of interest-rate manipulation, money laundering, and other scams. UBS AG paid the U.S. Department of Justice $1.5 billion to settle one lawsuit, while it faces a $5 billion claim from the Securities and Exchange Commission in another action.
ATTACKS ON RETIREES, CITY’S YOUTH
During his press conference, Orr painted the POA’s proposals as “generous” for retirees, claiming general retirees would see a “recovery” of two-thirds to 70 percent of their pensions, while police and fire retirees would see a rate “at or below” 90 percent. In other words, the plan proposes monthly pension payment cuts of up to one-third for general retirees, and possibly more than 10 percent for police and fire retirees, along with severe cuts to health care.
Detroit EM Kevyn Orr with sidekick Bill Nowling/Photo Mandi Wright DFP
He told reporters also that the plan attacks retirees’ annuity funds, money they themselves paid into the retirement system without city support. The minority of retirees who left their annuities in the system when they left get checks that separate their “pension” and “annuity” amounts.
“The mechanics of this have not yet been determined,” Orr’s spokesman Bill Nowling later told VOD. “What employees have payed (sic) in themselves is not at issue. What is, rather, are the rates of return that were over and above actual market rate for return for the funds. When payments in excess of the rate of returns are made to annuity fund holders (dividends), it comes at the expense of the health of the overall pension funds.”
6
Any clearer now, for those retirees who will allegedly receive ballots to vote on the proposed plan of adjustment, through a process which the plan does not detail?
Orr said that any settlements with the city’s creditors, including its unions and retiree associations, would be predicated on their withdrawal of federal lawsuits against the city’s bankruptcy eligibility, which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear just before he filed the POA. The Court did not agree to expedite the hearing.
This may explain Rhodes’ unseemly haste in getting to the cram-down phase, before the Sixth Circuit gets a chance to weigh in on whether Detroit should even be in bankruptcy proceedings. Additionally, U.S. District Court Judge George Caram Steeh is just resuming hearings on a state-wide lawsuit challenging the legality of PA 436, from which the City of Detroit has been redacted to get Rhodes to lift the stay on it.
The mainstream media keeps claiming the urgency is due to the expected departure of Orr in September. However, PA 436 provides that the City Council, the Mayor, and the Governor must all approve that departure. Even if he goes, the city would remain under transitional state control for an indefinite period.
PRIVATIZATION KEY TO DETROIT PLAN
Orr proposed more massive privatization, which has already included the Department of Water and Sewerage (DWSD), the Public Lighting Department, Belle Isle, the Department of Public Works, and three departments that were nearly 100 percent federally-funded, with the Department of Transportation likely next under a Regional Transit Authority. He did not discuss the huge damage the privatization would do to the General Retirement System pension fund, in particular, as well as the prospects for jobs for Detroit’s youth.
It is only because an Emergency Manager is dealing with Detroit’s bankruptcy that such disposition of its assets can even be considered under Chapter 9. The law forbids creditors’ demands that assets be liquidated “unless the debtor agrees.”
Regarding the proposal to regionalize DWSD, Orr said, “The city gets $27 million annually in an income stream for years, and adequate funding for capital needs for an authority.” So far, suburban leaders have not reached any agreement with the Detroit on this matter, but Orr claimed “we are negotiating, trying to act in good faith and a professional manner.” He said he has met with the county executives involved, except for Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, who he plans to meet with soon.
During the press conference, Orr said the city plans to invest $1.5 billion in city services as part of the plan, but could not specify any revenue stream that would provide those funds.
“We are working on that,” Bennett said. “There will be a new revenue stream, not post-petition financing, but another instrument in the process of being defined, which will include the opportunity for creditors to participate in city’s revenue growth events.”
Hantz Farms proposal.
Orr also declared that the plan involves demolishing 70,000 houses in the city, which he claimed are vacant or in disrepair. A reporter asked what he plans to do with the vacant land.
“It won’t be like Hantz Farms,” he said. “I am working closely with Mayor’s proposal, and plan another meeting to review the Detroit Future Cities plan. I’m not going to speak to that right now.”
Hantz Farms developers want to grow a forest on a wide swath of Detroit’s east side, while others want to turn Detroit, to which sharecroppers from the south fled in the mid-20th century, into an “urban farm.”
Excerpts from filing by James Cole, Jr. et. al. asking for Rhodes’ removal.
Greenwood or “Little Africa” section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was known as “Black Wall Street” before whites burned it down in 1921.
The Coalition is proposing a “People’s Plan for Restructuring for a Sustainable Detroit,” which will be discussed and added to at the Town Hall meeting. Click on People’s Plan for Restructuring for a Sustainable Detroit to read the proposal.
Coalition press conference held Feb. 24 to announce People’s Plan for Restructuring of Detroit. Monica Patrick is at podium.
International observers are planning to present their final declaration on the Crimean referendum on March 17, the head of the monitors’ commission, Polish MP Mateush Piskorski told journalists. He added that the voting was held in line with international norms and standards.
THOUSANDS IN EASTERN UKRAINE JOIN CRIMEA TO PROTEST KIEV REGIME 
Borotba describes itself as representing four or five anti-capitalist and anti-racist groups, including former members of the youth organization of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
