Chicagoland

He is the 29th Chicago alderman in the last four decades sent to prison for wrongdoing -- an inglorious list that includes his own dad.

Isaac "Ike" Carothers, once a close political ally of Mayor Richard Daley, was sentenced today to 28 months in federal prison for using his public office to enrich himself.

- Chicago Tribune (June 24, 2009) article

The Chicago Tribune also remembers dear old Dad. "His sentencing comes 27 years after his father, William, a former alderman, was convicted and sentenced to prison for trying to extort remodeling work for his ward office in exchange for permits needed for a hospital expansion."

Lest you think old man Carothers's activities were limited to just taking bribes,  see the Wikipedia entry for the father and son.

9th Circuit Reversed three times in one day

June 21, 2010 - The Whacky 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was reversed three times by the U.S. Supreme Court, with a partial defeat in another case. All in one day.

In 2008, the 9th Circuit was reversed in eight of the 10 cases reviewed.

DETROIT PLANTATION POLITICS

MONICA CONYERS
Monica Conyers has gotten a sentence delay until September 10th. See Top Stories link below header. She pleaded guilty June 26, 2009, to accepting cash bribes and was sentenced to 37 months in prison. The wife of the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, Monica Conyers was a colorful figure in Detroit. (See various postings.)

KWAME KILPATRICK under indictment -- again
Kwame is another familiar name in Detroit. He the 40-year-old former mayor of Detroit. The son of Rep. Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, Kwame is currently serving a 14-month to five-year prison sentence for probation violation in connection with two 2008 criminal cases stemming from lies Kilpatrick told under oath during a 2007 whistleblowers' lawsuit trial.

Today he was federally indicted with 10 counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, five counts of filing a false tax return, and one count of tax evasion. The indictment allegs Kwame used the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a tax-exempt fund that was supposed to pay for voter education and other purposes to fund two campaigns and for personal expenses.
Indictment here (13 pages PDF)

Detroit Free Press: Kwame Kilpatrick indicted on 19 charges

The grand jury is still meeting. Ten people have already pleaded guilty to felony charges in connection with the Detroit corruption probe. Not indicted yet is Kwame's father, Bernard Kilpatrick. In 2006 alone, the Fund reported over $500,000 in contributions to the fund started in 1999.

Tax returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008 at the Detroit Free Press site show contributions for 2007 of $600,421. And an astounding $860,839 reported contributions on the 2008 return.

DETROIT SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT MASTURBATES AND RESIGNS
See blog post this week, "Detroit - Incapable of self governance?" The Detroit School Board President resigned after the school Superintendent reported he had fondled himself and masturbated while in a meeting with her. The newspapers seem to think it is a question of whether or not the illiterate Mathis should resign or not. (See blog entry for more on the story.)

Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley wonders the same thing about Detroit.

Every single one of them Democrats.

BEST READ OF THE DAY

Michael Barone:

Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."

For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law.

Read the whole thing. It is entitled, "Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill"

Fine Print

The entire board of the Sundance Resources mining company, an Australian firm, were killed in a plane crash in Cameroon, along with shardholder and mining tycoon Ken Talbot.

The AP story is thin on details when they said,

albot, a truck driver's son, first made his fortune through a network of pubs before founding mining company Macarthur Coal. He left Macarthur over corruption charges and was due to go on trial in August.

Talbot's wiki page is more informative. Aa is the wiki page of the corrupt Australian politician, Gordon Nuttall, the man Talbot illegally supported.

Nuttall is now severing 7 years in prison.

Detroit - Incapable of self governance?

Detroit school board President Otis Mathis admitted Friday to engaging in "inappropriate actions" but tried to take back his resignation after he was accused of fondling himself during a meeting with the district superintendent.

Superintendent Teresa Gueyser that during a meeting, Mathis touched himself for 20 minutes, then unzipped his pants.

Mathis was defended by another board member.

Reverend David Murray said Mathis took responsibility for his bad behavior toward Gueyser.

"He's a young man; maybe he didn't know it was offensive to her," Murray said of the 55-year-old Mathis. "It's not something I would do. He's a young man. That's just the way it is."

Murray was investigated in 2008 and "lost custody of his four children after allegations of abuse, neglect and domestic violence surfaced."

There were complaints that Murray’s attorney was a hired vendor for the school district. As for Murray. He is the pastor of First Holy Temple Church of God in Christ and is a licensed social worker. The congregation consists of 10 people. He legally changed his name from David to "Reverend" some years ago.
Read all about Murray. It's enlightening.

2009 election results
Mathis' "communication issues"

You won't be amazed that the Detroit Free Press ("ON GUARD FOR 179 YEARS") has taken no editorial stand on this. And neither does The Detroit News. And now you know why Detroit is a political sewer.

The Detroit Free Press is owned by Gannett -- parent company of USA Today. MediaNews Group owns The Detroit News. (They also own the Denver Post, poster child for Liberal politics.)

Subsidizing yet another union with Stimulus money

Bumped
UPDATE (Apr 10) - See bottom of article. Fires are thought to be  for "perverted political purpose."

First Obama bailed out the UAW but not to preserve jobs.  If the idea was to preserve jobs, why would their first act be to close 3,000 dealerships?   The outlet for their products.  They bought out GM and Chrysler  primarily to avoid bankruptcy that could be used to invalidate all those generous pension benefits. Now,  they are bailing out the firefighter's union in Flint, Michigan.

Original Post APRIL 8 - Flint, Mi, is being given a $6.8 million federal stimulus grant so that the struggling city can recall recently laid-off firefighters.  The grant, administered by Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, was made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

There's a small catch:

To keep the grant, paid for with federal stimulus dollars, the city must maintain its current staffing level of 66 firefighters above and beyond the 39 firefighters paid for by the grant.

CHRONIC PROBLEMS
The city has lost half of its tax base over the past decade, most notably in the past five years. The city is struggling with a projected $8-million deficit. The projected deficit for next year is $10 million. The mayor is asking police and fire unions for double digit concessions and the unions are refusing to cooperate. Currently, police and firefighters make up 60% of the City budget.

The city may ask the state to allow them to borrow $13 million to help relieve the city’s past and current deficits. It would be in the form of a stabilization bond. (The legislature voted in February to raise Detroit's cap limit for issuing stabilization bonds from $125 million to $250 million.)

Flint has been chronically mismanaged. In 2002 Flint had accrued a $35 million debt. Unable to pay this and balance its budget, the state of Michigan placed the city into receivership late that year, with a financial manager effectively replacing the acting mayor. It took two years before local control was resumed.

In 2002, over 12 percent of Flint homes were vacant, the highest vacancy rate in Michigan. The city’s unemployment rate was 14.3 percent. Things have gotten worse since.

UNEMPLOYMENT
By May 2009, the unemployment rate was an astounding 27.3 percent for the city. (And THAT was up three percentage points from the month before.) In February 2010, it was 26.4 percent.