Saturday, November 08, 2014

November 8, 2014
Daniel Howes 
Detroit News

...Detroit – — The hammers will be gone soon. (click here)

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes' approval of Detroit's 1,165-page restructuring plan, delivered Friday, is a historic milestone for the largest city in American history to file Chapter 9. But it's just the beginning.

Come later this month, there will be no emergency manager to pre-empt Mayor Mike Duggan and City Council. Nor a federal mediator to pull creditors into line. Nor a tight court schedule to push reluctant adversaries to negotiate or risk a forced settlement that could prove more Draconian.

"Judge Rhodes' decision has given new life to the city we all love, Detroit," Council President Brenda Jones said after the judge read his ruling from the bench. "Now our true work begins."

She's got that right. The mayor and the council she leads will be expected to implement and execute a restructuring plan they did not conceive nor draft — but will be judged by, nonetheless. They should be, however individual Detroiters feel about a bankruptcy that needed to happen....
September 15, 2014
By Nathan Borney and John Gallagher

Instead, (click here) amid a huge exodus of residents, plummeting tax revenues and skyrocketing home abandonment, Detroit’s leaders engaged in a billion-dollar borrowing binge, created new taxes and failed to cut expenses when they needed to. Simultaneously, they gifted workers and retirees with generous bonuses. And under pressure from unions and, sometimes, arbitrators, they failed to cut health care benefits — saddling the city with staggering costs that today threaten the safety and quality of life of people who live here.
April 8, 2014
By Nathan Borney

The City of Detroit (click here) plans to reveal as soon as Wednesday that it has reached a bankruptcy settlement with unsecured bondholders, reflecting a key resolution to one of the case’s most contentious issues, sources familiar with the plans said.

The sources declined to be named because the results of mediation talks aren’t supposed to be publicly disclosed out of court.

Terms of Detroit’s settlement with insurers of general obligation bondholders were not available, but the deal could make it easier for the city to force other unsecured creditors — including pensioners — to accept cuts.

By reaching a deal to pay bondholders less than they are owed, Detroit will also have more cash to pay other creditors and more money to reinvest in city services after it emerges from Chapter 9 bankruptcy....

Why did Detroit fail?

For every reason anyone can think of, but, the city's population declined. No matter how much the mayor and council tried to save Detroit, there were less and less people to make the city hum. 

Population, the Middle Class disappeared. That is what caused Detroit to fail. 

June 27, 2013
By Larry Edwards
...Global economic shifts (click here)
did not help—Detroit’s Big Three have struggled to compete with foreign carmakers. But the big problem is that Motown has seen a “perfect storm of mistakes at every level”, says Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. Its leaders ran up debts that a shrinking population could never pay. Those debts forced the city to raise taxes and cut services. That made Detroit a less appealing place to live, causing the population to shrink even more. Moving to the affluent (and politically separate) suburbs is easy, so many people have.

Only 30% of the jobs within the city are held by residents, and 61% of Detroiters who work do so outside the city, according to Bruce Katz, also of Brookings....

It begins. I am certain there will be more to come.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella and his son, (click here) Tommy Rodella Jr., pleaded not guilty Friday morning in federal court to charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights, deprivation of rights, brandishing a firearm and falsifying police documents, according to CBS affiliate KQRE.
U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez announced the sheriff and his son were arrested by FBI agents at their Espanola homes early Friday for their role in a March 11 confrontation that left a driver injured.
Authorities wouldn't detail the injuries.
The sheriff and his son, the indictment said, engaged "in a high-speed pursuit and unreasonable seizure" of the driver identified only as M.T. The sheriff was not in uniform when he jumped out of his Jeep SUV armed with a silver revolver, court papers said....

...Rodella's home was raided as authorities investigated the March arrest of 26-year-old Michael Tafoya, a driver Rodella had detained, Rodella's then spokesman Jake Arnold said at the time.
Tafoya was arrested on charges of aggravated assault of a peace officer and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on March 11, but prosecutors dismissed the case two weeks later....

It was close. That is good. "The good fight is always uphill." It is where the enemy hides.

November 5, 2014
By Alistair Bell

(Reuters) - A Missouri Republican (click here) who rode a wave of discontent against law enforcement in the town of Ferguson narrowly failed to pull off a local election upset on Tuesday, despite backing from black leaders unhappy at the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. 
State Representative Rick Stream lost the race for executive of St. Louis County, a swath of suburbs including Ferguson where riots broke out after a white police officer shot dead Michael Brown, 18, in August.

Democrat Steve Stenger, a county councilman, edged ahead with 47.7 percent of the vote to Stream’s 47.1 percent with all ballots counted, securing control of a county that has been Democratic for more than two decades....

St. Louis County now knows they have a new part of the electorate they have to answer to. I wouldn't let them off the hook. They need to address all the issues facing the people of Ferguson, Missouri. There needs to dedicated citizens from the community that attend City and County Council meetings, taking notes and reporting back to the community. Perhaps a small non-profit organization can form to put together a weekly newsletter to provide A PLATFORM for information and empowerment. The weekly paper can address what it takes to be a candidate in an election, how funding is raised and how issues are resolved within government.

Ferguson already has an agenda to change the heirarchy within the police department and SAFER streets for their young men. It is a huge and important agenda. Ferguson doesn't lack for help either. There are many, many people (African Americans) that can help and guide a new direction for Ferguson. 

I believe good things are going to happen. It can. But, it takes vigilance and motivation. I would think the wrongful death of a young black man would be enough to carry the momentum toward a permanent base for this new political movement in Ferguson. It has to start somewhere. The circumstances aren't going to change without this movement.

Don't ever be discourages, the country now knows Ferguson is important to us all.

I suppose this was to attempt to intimidate the Mexican government. That isn't going to work.

This is partly what the undocumented children and their parents were running away from. The parents believed the children were safer on trains without seats or means to feed themselves than in Mexico.

I hope the Mexican government can confirm the DNA.

November 7, 2014
By Josie Ensor Suspected gang members in Mexico (click here) have confessed to killing more than 40 missing students and incinerating their remains in a case that has shocked the country, the country’s attorney general has said.
For weeks, authorities have been searching for the students since police attacked their buses in the southern city of Iguala in late September, allegedly working under the orders of former mayor José Luis Abarca and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda.
The three Guerreros Unidos gang members, named by Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam as Patricio Landa, Jhonatan Gomez and Agustin Reyes, said the students were killed after they were handed over to them.
The suspects, who confessed while being questioned by police, said they burnt the bodies before crushing the remains of the victims and stuffing them into bags and tossing them in a river.
Mexico's government is still waiting for DNA confirmation to establish the identity of those killed, which Mr Karam warned should prove difficult....

...From my research, (click here) it appears that the first use of the name Guerreros Unidos was on December 16, 2011, when a banner was found in northern Guerrero against Los Rojos (The Reds) signed by "Guerrero Unidos brazo armado de La F.M."  ( Guerrero States armed wing of the FM, in reference to La Familia Michoacana ) Guerrero Unidos armed wing of La F.M., in reference to La Familia Michoacana).  At that time, Los Rojos (The Reds), based out of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, and La Familia Michoacana were locked in a brutal battle for control of the region....


...Around 6:00 AM on March 18, 2012, 10 heads (7 males and 3 females) were left at the entrance of the municipality of Teloloapan,Guerrero.  A message written on a card accompanied it as well, which stated that "This will happen to all those who support La F.M."..."Sincerely: Guerrero Unidos".

I have never read a solid explanation for why Guerreros Unidos split from its parent organization, though, around this time frame, Los Rojos and La Familia Michoacana reached a ceasefire which, I believe, played at least a factor in its rise to independence.  Since that time, Guerreros Unidos has fought an unending war against both Los Rojos and La Familia Michoacana....

This all seem very outrageous to most Americans. Why the gangs? Why so many gangs? Why the violence against children?

Drug cartels are a way of life. The governments of these countries have not been able to instill economies whereby the citizens have work. This is the reason there are undocumented immigrants in the USA. Either they work for the cartels or they take a very long trip of almost impossible odds to cross the border with the USA and cross a desert with depleted body conditions to arrive somewhere with hopes of other Mexicans to begin to work and support their families back home. 

That is what the choice is for undocumented workers. This is what happens to their children. These were high school students. They were nearly adults. That is almost an impossibility in these countries. 

The cartels are everywhere south of the USA border. They drop off in members and numbers just below Brazil's southern border. There are cowboys in Argentina and Chili and mines that provide some degree of income and status.

The countries in Latin America are discriminated against by most politicians, when in fact the governments do their level best to improve their countries and grow an economy. The governments are succeeding in marginal ways, but, at least they are marginal and not completely absent.

The USA deploys soldiers and trainers to areas in Latin America, but, as if looking for a State Police Assassin, it is difficult to patrol 'the woods' where most of the activity occurs.

The USA thinks drug gangs are violent in the USA. That ain't nothing to the heinous acts against innocent people who dearly cling to God and Jesus for hope.

My sympathies to the families and friends of these wonderful students. My sympathies to Mexico as the government knows the pain of losing too many people every year.

There are times like this I think Americans have too much freedom for as naive as they are.

November 9, 2014
By Chris Strohm

Washington: North Korea (click here) has released two Americans it had sentenced to years of hard labour in detention camps.
The United States Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the government of Sweden negotiated with North Korean authorities to gain their release, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The arrest and detention of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller had raised tensions between President Barack Obama's administration and the regime of Kim Jong Un. Ms Psaki provided no details about terms of the release....

It is the same thing with Bowe Bergdahl, whom might act within the USA on behalf of his captors. The USA had an obligation to return any and all POWs before leaving Afghanistan, but, I have my doubts Bergdahl. He simply walked off into the night and was lucky he wasn't killed. Americans believe they have this entitlement to go anywhere and do anything in HOPES of changing circumstances. It's ridiculous. They are not Jessie Jackson or Dennis Rodman, but, they want to act as if they actually have something to say or do that will change the world. Next time buy a ticket to a movie theater.

Thank you to North Korea for cooperation in returning silly Americans back to their family. They really have no ties to the US government. They are simply people with enough means to travel, see the world and make judgement to attempt to change things so everyone in the entire world may have the same freedoms within the USA. The country appreciates your help.

Oh, one other thing. It is about time Clapper finally earned his paycheck.

That makes the fourth student to die.

November 8, 2014

SEATTLE (AP) — Another of the teenagers (click here) wounded in a Washington state high school shooting has died, raising to five the number of fatalities after a student opened fire in the cafeteria two weeks ago.
Officials at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle said 15-year-old Andrew Fryberg died Friday evening.
Zoe Galasso, 14, was killed during the shooting Oct. 24 by a popular freshman at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Gia Soriano, also 14, died Oct. 26 at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett and 14-year-old Shaylee Chuckulnaskit died Oct. 31 at the Everett hospital.
The shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, died of a self-inflicted wound.
On Thursday, 14-year-old Nate Hatch was released from Harborview and returned home. He had been shot in the jaw.
The school 30 miles north of Seattle reopened Monday after being closed for a week.