Urban decay to be replaced with farmland in Detroit

Bankrupt and hemorrhaging population, the city of Detroit is banking on greener pastures to lead its rebirth.

A private company is snapping up 150 acres on the Motor City's East End -- property where more than 1,000 homes once formed a gritty neighborhood -- and turning it into what is being billed as the world's largest urban farm. Hantz Woodlands plans to start by planting trees, but hopes to raise crops and even livestock in the future, right in the midst of the once-proud city.

“We are interested with moving into different types of agriculture,” Mike Score, president of Hantz, told FoxNews.com.

“Your eyes would have a hard time absorbing the blight.”

- Mike Score, Hantz Woodlands

Hantz needed approval from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to buy up the 1,500 parcels for approximately $450,000, or $300 per parcel. Many of the parcels held dilapidated and abandoned homes and buildings and were condemned by the city. Others were rubble-strewn or weed-choked lots. The company intends to spend $3 million to clean out the areas.

“Your eyes would have a hard time absorbing the blight,” Score said. “A third of every neighborhood in Detroit has been devalued by blight on public property.

Via: Fox News

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Joe Biden gets a Detroit woman killed.

Good job there, Mr. Vice President:

It was shortly before 1 a.m. Nov. 2 and Renisha McBride was involved in an accident with a parked vehicle in Detroit.

More than two hours later and six blocks away, she was shot in the face by a man who told police he thought someone was breaking into his Dearborn Heights home. The 54-year-old homeowner, according to police, said his 12-gauge shotgun discharged accidentally.

…and by “good job” I mean “I hope that you’re happy, Joe Biden.” Because that homeowner did what Joe Biden told people to do (bolding mine):

V.P. BIDEN: Well, the way in which we measure it is—I think most scholars would say—is that as long as you have a weapon sufficient to be able to provide your self-defense. I did one of these town-hall meetings on the Internet and one guy said, “Well, what happens when the end days come? What happens when there’s the earthquake? I live in California, and I have to protect myself.”

I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.”

Via: Red State
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Report: IRS refunded $4B to identity thieves

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to an inspector general’s report released Thursday.

The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai.

In the U.S., more fraudulent returns went to Miami than any other city. Other top destinations were Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and Houston.

The IRS has stepped up efforts to fight identity theft, but thieves are getting more aggressive, said the report by J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration. Last year, the IRS stopped more than $12 billion in fraudulent refunds from going to identity thieves, compared with $8 billion the year before.

“Identity theft continues to be a serious problem with devastating consequences for taxpayers and an enormous impact on tax administration,” George said in a statement. The fraud “erodes taxpayer confidence in the federal tax system.”

Thieves often steal Social Security numbers from people who don’t have to file tax returns, including the young, the old and people who have died, the report said. In other cases, thieves use stolen Social Security numbers to file fraudulent tax returns before the legitimate taxpayer files.

The IRS, which takes pride in issuing quick refunds, often sends them out before employers are required to file forms documenting wages, the report said.

“The constantly evolving tactics used by scammers to commit identity theft continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing the IRS, and we take this issue very seriously,” the IRS said in a statement.

“The IRS has a comprehensive and aggressive identity theft strategy that focuses on preventing refund fraud, investigating these crimes and assisting taxpayers victimized by it.”

Via: News-jounral.com

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A face to Detroit's bankruptcy: Paralyzed firefighter to lose health benefits

The federal government has money problems. 

So, imagine the federal government telling wounded warriors coming back from overseas that they'll no longer take care of them, and instead, those veterans will get $200 a month for healthcare and a pair of broom sticks to walk around on. 

Outrageous right? 

Well that's what Detroit's wounded warriors, those who wore the badge and honorably served the community, are going to get if the bankruptcy stands as is. 

Here's one of those warriors, firefighter Brendan Milewski, in his own words. 

"August 13, 2010 - Friday the 13th - I was only at work for a couple minutes, never even stepped foot in the firehouse, taking my gear out of the car. We've got to run down to Jefferson and Drexel. We were working on the scene for ten, fifteen minutes and, without warning, a building collapsed on us.

"I was hit with a chunk of limestone the size of a parking lot, and that basically exploded my seventh thoracic vertebra. Now I'm left to live the rest of my life as a T6 Paraplegic.

"It's a complete loss of identity for me, to be in this position now and not amongst my peers, and seen as weak and feeble and handicapped and disabled. I hate all these words. I hate that they describe me. 

"I always understood that death was a legitimate possibility; I've seen enough of my friends die. I can't say Walter Harris' name enough. I never considered being injured to the point where I wasn't going to be who I was before, and having to live with the consequences. One would only assume that you make these kind of sacrifices at work, performing your job, that you'd be taken care of.

"I got a letter saying that my healthcare, through the city of Detroit, was going to be terminated as of January 1, 2014, and that, if I don't have another plan purchased by December 15th of this year, that I'll have a gap in coverage. And they're offering a $200 a month stipend to supplement the cost of purchasing my own health insurance.

Via: My Fox Detroit

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Digging into Detroit's bankruptcy filing

Detroit has once again been in the headlines as the city and its creditors battle in court over whether the city is eligible to receive bankruptcy protection.

Municipal bankruptcy, like just about everything else that contains the word "municipal" or has anything to do with lawyers, is complicated. We checked in with Detroit lawyer Nathan Resnick, a municipal bankruptcy expert, and with his help we'll try to explain what an ongoing court hearing means, and where Detroit stands in its efforts to turn around its finances.

Didn't Detroit already file for bankruptcy? What's the purpose of the hearing?

Detroit did file for bankruptcy protection on July 18, a process that automatically protects the city against any impending action from creditors. But that doesn't mean it definitely gets to remain in bankruptcy.

Judge Steven Rhodes is hearing arguments about whether the city was, in fact, insolvent when it filed for bankruptcy, and whether it negotiated in good faith with its creditors.

Detroit seems pretty broke — $18 billion in debt. Why would anyone argue it shouldn't be able to file for bankruptcy?

Creditors, which include public employee unions and pension funds, say that the city did not try to negotiate with them before filing for bankruptcy.

They say that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to take over city governance with the idea that Orr would force the city into bankruptcy rather than figure out a way to pay creditors. They've been asking the judge to look into who else [the Republican governor] considered for the emergency manager position before settling on Orr, who represented Chrysler in its 2009 bankruptcy, to prove that Snyder just wanted someone who knew a lot about bankruptcy.

Via: LA Times

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Questions Rarely Asked—and Never Answered

It Can't Happen Here?

What does it take to warn Americans about unchecked pension growth, socialized medicine, vast increases in entitlements, higher taxes, and steady expansion of government? In other words, what is it about Detroit, Italy, or Greece that we do not understand?

In the last five years, the Obama administration has raised taxes on the top income rates, implemented Obamacare, added millions to the disability and food stamp roles, grown the size of the federal work force, run up the national debt, and vastly expanded the money supply, along with insuring near zero interest rates. Are there any historical examples where these redistributive efforts have brought long-term tranquility and prosperity?

To put it another way, does anyone ask basic questions about human nature anymore? If one gives more incentives to obtain government support while unemployed, why would not fewer people be working? If the food stamp, unemployment, and disability rolls are markedly up, and if it is almost impossible to verify that recipients are also not working for unreported cash wages (we hear mostly of government efforts to add more to these programs, rather than to audit those already on them), why would one seek a “regular” job that would lose such subsidies and make all one’s income reportable? (We know two basic truths about the IRS in the age of Obama: first, it goes after political opponents in partisan fashion, and second, it gives away billions of dollars in federal income tax rebate credits to those who did not deserve them.)

If you allow illegal immigrants to enjoy full government subsidies, driver’s licenses, in-state tuition discounts, sanctuary cities, participation on juries, and all without fear of deportation, then why (a) would people not flock here illegally from Mexico, and (b) why after arriving would they go through the hassle of seeking citizenship when residency provides almost all the same benefits?

Via: PJ Media

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Michigan Dem John Conyers, Jr., Slams Government Shutdown Over “Small & Modest” Obamacare Law

One of the Architects of the Meltdown of Detroit as we know it!!

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) calls Obamacare a “very small and modest bill,” even though he previously said he failed to see the point in reading it "if it's a thousand pages" and required lawyers to decipher it.

During an Oct. 17 appearance on “Democracy Now!” Conyers criticized lawmakers who had partially shut down the government in the fight against Obamacare, expressing concern about what might happen when a single-payer system is proposed.

“It's just unimaginable the actions they would turn to, to get their way on a very small and modest bill – Obamacare. We’re talking about universal health care for everybody – single payer, that’s what the new direction is,” Conyers said.

Via: CNS News

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Feds Want Detroit Mayor Jailed for 28 Years

Detroit citizens endured a tumultuous period of corruption, scandal, mismanagement and greed under the leadership of their former mayor, say federal prosecutors in asking a judge to slap the thug with nearly three decades in prison.

It would mark the harshest punishment for public corruption in U.S. history, but the truth is no one deserves it more than Kwame Kilpatrick. If this were the Olympics, he’d get the gold. If it were the Tour de France he’d wear the yellow jersey. Even among today’s dirty politicians, Kilpatrick sticks out among the pack, even compared to the Louisiana congressman (William Jefferson) busted with a $100,000 cash bribe in his freezer!  

Convicted of 24 corruption charges, Kilpatrick operated monstrous extortion, kickback and bribery schemes in which virtually all parts of city government were up for grabs for the right price. He also lived the high life on taxpayer dime, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars on city-issued credit cards for pro football tickets, fancy spas and restaurants, rock concerts and family trips to Las Vegas. Kilpatrick even had taxpayers pick up the $42,000 tab to lease two luxury vehicles for his wife and he put his friends and relatives on the city payroll.  

But the single transgression Kilpatrick is most famous for involves lying under oath and billing his constituents north of $8 million to cover up an extramarital affair with a city staffer. Cops on the mayor’s security team were forced out of their job for raising questions about the affair and the city kept the wrongfully terminated officers quiet with an $8.4 million settlement. Kilpatrick and city-paid lawyers masterminded the secret deal, but two local newspapers got wind of it and obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

Via: Judicial Watch

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Six decades in Detroit: How abandonment, racial tensions and financial missteps bankrupted the city

It was called a city of magic, and many believed the best was yet to come.

For a week in July 1951, Detroit put down its tools to reflect on its magnificence. The city that in four decades transformed from an unremarkable Midwestern community into a prosperous urban powerhouse was celebrating its 250th birthday.

A million people lined Woodward for a parade. A musical written for the occasion, “City of Freedom,” ran for 11 days. The city marked the anniversary by creating the Detroit Historical Museum and launching a fundraising drive for Cobo Hall.

“The magic of Detroit is the way it sprang apparently full grown, fully prepared, into a world-wide metropolitan eminence, virtually overnight, after two centuries of somnolent obscurity,” John C. Manning, editor of The Detroit Times, wrote in the anniversary’s program.

Detroit was something new and hopeful. Its 185 war plants cranked out arms that propelled the Allies to victory in World War II. Its population soared because of a promise: Sacrifice your body to the assembly line, make enough to realize the American dream.

But as Mayor Albert Cobo lit a cake with 250 candles and sent balloons into the summer sky, Detroit was already in decline. President Harry Truman capped the celebration with a speech outside City Hall assuring residents that layoffs rippling through the city were a “temporary situation.”

They weren’t. The nation was on the brink of a recession. The auto industry was consolidating. Racial tensions were festering. The slow descent that ended 62 years later in the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy had begun.

Many of the forces that propelled Detroit to such heights — autos, the might of unions, migration from the South and inexpensive housing — also contributed to its fall.

Via: Detroit News

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General Motors 2: The Strengthening of the Strength is Strong & Stuff

Regular Red State readers know how much fun I’ve had covering the auto industry in recent years. From Obama’s push for newer, tougher CAFE standards on a struggling industry to GM’s crony CEO Dan Akerson. From the Chevy Volt’s fits and starts to GM blowing tax dollars onbonuses, marketing schemes, and ideologically-driven “green” projects.  I even had the honor of  being attacked by Attack Waaaaaaaaaatch probably because I wrote about GM’s special tax gift, as well as the fact that I’ve been caught parodying GM ads and clips.  To put it mildly, it’s an issue I’ve followed closely.

It would all be funnier if none of it was true.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe “Government Motors” is over. Maybe, once Treasury sells off its remaining shares, GM will magically become a pioneer of free market industry, worthy of its storied legacy. Maybe, just maybe, GM will begin to appeal to anti-bailout conservatives & libertarians again one day. Take, for example, GM’s new Chevy Silverado commercial, “Strong”:

Doesn’t it make you feel warm? “He,” whoever he is, shows up to work on time! And he’s monogamous! He has a barn, and he works on a farm and stuff! You can totally trust him – he’s steady!  Like a Chevy truck, obviously. Nashville artist Will Hoge, a hip, edgy, self-styled musical pundit, recorded the music for the ad.

‘Murica, y’all.

GM knows conservatives are a huge target market. That’s why they sponsored a “Free Enterprise tour” with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this summer (which was rightly mocked by the National Legal and Policy Center), and that’s why they made this ad. I’m curious what readers think: are you more or less likely to buy a GM truck because of the GM bailout?

Via: Red State

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Defining 'journalist'is a slippery slope. Journalism is an act defined by the doing, not place of employment

A number of years ago, my wife found herself in a fender-bender. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, but the accident was serious enough to require the filing of a police report. Over the next day or two, our phone rang nonstop: Personal-injury lawyers had grabbed hold of the information and pounced.

Brrring! Hello. Wanna sue? No. Click.

It was an obnoxious and annoying ordeal.

So I understand why Michigan legislators are trying to prevent the ambulance chasers from enjoying easy access to similar data. These are the lawyers who give the rest a bad name: I picture them as vultures, circling document centers, swooping down and carrying away information in their grasping talons.

But Lansing is going about it the wrong way.

Last week, a bipartisan majority on the House Judiciary Committee approved House Bill 4770, which seeks to define the word “journalist.” The goal is to distinguish between those who should see accident records immediately (vehicle owners, prosecutors, journalists, etc.) and those who shouldn’t (the vulture-lawyers).

Journalists, of course, ought to have access to public documents. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Ellen Cogen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods, recognizes this. Unfortunately, it also comes dangerously close to the licensing of reporters.

This is a rotten idea, and liberal societies like our own abandoned it long ago.

Via: Detroit News

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Don’t Let Them Detroit Virginia

Fight for Tomorrow, a new national Super PAC based in Texas and developed by several conservatives in Virginia and in other states, is launching an advertising campaign as major effort in the Virginia Governor’s race.  Our first ad, “Don’t Let The Detroit Virginia,” is running on TV in Richmond and northern Virginia in the Washington, DC market and in the “A” section of today’s Washington Post.

Like-minded individuals can help us run this ad in Virginia.  While our focus is on this critical contest for the next two months, our interest is wider than simply one state.

A GOP 2014 “wave” in 2014 to ensure Republican control of the U.S. Senate and the Congress is there for the taking, but it won’t happen until the Democratic Party leadership and its allies are confronted over the one tactic they have been using to hold onto power, especially in the U.S. Senate.  Avoiding any “liberal” vs. “conservative” comparisons is paramount for Democrats and they have done this by making elections ugly mano a mano contests.  Their tactic: isolate the Republican with a furious barrage of attack ads sponsored by mega rich environmentalists, abortion extremists or smear groups funded by anti-American financier George Soros.

This is only the latest iteration of a tactic first recommended by Clinton-Obama hero, Saul Alinsky.  It has been most shrewdly employed in recent years by two principal Democratic players – New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who has raised much of the Wall Street and Hollywood money, and David Axelrod, who employs the Obama echo chamber by working the phones with the closet Obama partisans masquerading as news executives and editors in the elite media.

On display all year in Kentucky against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for speaking out against the administration’s attempts to silence dissent, the attacks are focused most recently on the GOP candidate in the Virginia governor’s race, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.   Coordinated by the national Democratic Party, the Obama White House, and the Clintons, as Clinton protégé and professional “Friend of Bill” Terry McAuliffe is Cuccinelli’s opponent.  Democrats believe turning Virginia from red to blue would be just the sort of demoralization needed to slow down a GOP “wave.”  They hunger for the headline “Conservative Disaster in Virginia.”

Va: Red State

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Kerry Bentivolio: Why this veteran opposes war with Syria

Being the only congressman to serve in both the Vietnam War and the latest conflict in Iraq, I can tell you that I know a little bit about war. I’ve seen the misery it can cause—both on the battlefield and at home. From civilians who’ve had their homes caught in the middle of the fighting to families in the United States going through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones serving overseas, war is not something to take lightly.

George Washington always gets brought up whenever military intervention is discussed in our country. I, too, have been thinking about the wisdom of the father of our country as I’ve examined the debate over bombing Syria. Our first president’s warning about entangling alliances is often remembered. However, something else stuck out to me as I read his Farewell Address this time around.

In regards to bombing the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, this passage is more pertinent: “We may choose peace or War, as our interest guided by justice shall Counsel.”

What has been happening in Syria is truly a human tragedy. The nation has been torn apart by civil war. Tens of thousands have either lost their lives or been driven from their homes. It is without a doubt that Assad is not a friend of ours.

However, it has also been made clear that those who oppose him have direct ties to al-Qaeda. Whoever wins this war will not be affectionate toward the United States.

What, then, is “our interest guided by justice” as it relates to involving ourselves in the Syrian fight? In other words, what is the objective of any American mission? On Sunday, Secretary Kerry explained the president’s reasoning: Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, breaking international treaties that only the United States can enforce

Via: Detroit News

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