Free Republic

Forbes put Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on its cover in 2011 for a story with the optimistic headline: “City of Hope.” The premise was that the city had hit rock bottom and was poised for a turnaround. “Right now, it’s all about survival,” Bing told Forbes. Two years later, Detroit’s problems continue to multiply, sadly. It is still dealing with high levels of violent crime and unemployment. Home prices, already at historic lows, plummeted a further 35% during the past three years to a median of $40,000 as net migration out of the city continued. The latest blow was Tuesday’s...

A Michigan civil servant is in hot water after being exposed as holding down two six-figure public posts at the same time - earning him more than the Vice President. Barnett Jones, has been paid $273,750 since May as Flint's administrator of public safety and head of security for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, despite the fact the posts are both full-time and based 70 miles apart, according to the Free Press. The lawman resigned his Flint role today after the newspaper began investigating his job-juggling. Flint City Administrator, Michael Brown, told the Press he wasn't aware of Jones'...

"Violent event dubbed 'tremendous success'"If you want to know how bad the Flint, Mich., riots of August 2011 were, just check the video from the Flint riots of 2012. Compared to last year, this year’s violence was a “tremendous success,” said the local paper. The scene was the annual “Back to the Bricks” car show: vintage cars parked downtown during a several day festival in what used to be an international center of the car business. Videos show hundreds of black people fighting, destroying property, disregarding police orders and creating mayhem – one with his pants falling down as he...

Violent event dubbed 'tremendous success' EDITOR’S NOTE: The links in the following report may contain offensive language. If you want to know how bad the Flint, Mich., riots of August 2011 were, just check the video from the Flint riots of 2012. Compared to last year, this year’s violence was a “tremendous success,” said the local paper. The scene was the annual “Back to the Bricks” car show: vintage cars parked downtown during a several day festival in what used to be an international center of the car business. Videos show hundreds of black people fighting, destroying property, disregarding police...

Gerald McEntee had Michigan on his mind in June when he delivered his final address as president of the nation’s largest public employee union. “Our sisters and brothers in Michigan are on the front lines in the next critical battle,” McEntee told the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He declared that the imperative was “defeating Governor Rick Snyder's anti-worker and anti-American emergency manager’s bill. These managers are local dictators who rip up union contracts.” Focusing on an emergency manager bill in one state might seem an unlikely valedictory for a legendary labor leader who has served his...

FLINT, MI -- Facing a menacing intruder in her home on Wednesday night, 66-year-old Rosa Myles said she was "nothing but a trembling leaf." With a gun in her hand. Fearing for her life, she shot the intruder once in the chest. "He said 'don't shoot me again," Myles said. She fired again anyway, this time striking him in the left arm. "There were so many things running through my mind," she said. "I knew he was going to kill me." Two gun shot wounds, however, were enough to send the man running from the home -- only to be...

FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Should Flint Township change its name? Some residents believe the community's reputation suffers when people don't make a distinction between the township and its neighbor, the city of Flint, which is known for a high crime rate and chronically poor finances. A state-appointed emergency manager now runs Flint. "I think the issues with Flint are Flint's issues, and they are made Flint Township's by simply having Flint in the name," Chuck Hughes, a former township treasurer, told The Flint Journal. "We're at the mercy of Flint to fix their image." Hughes, township Supervisor Karyn Miller and...

Iranian-American Amir Hekmati has been in prison in Iran since August 2011 but it has only been since Monday, when he was sentenced to death, that the world heard of his plight. That five-month silence could affect whether the 28-year-old from Flint, Michigan lives or dies, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned. "His family is trying to understand the situation, but they made a huge mistake not to publicize the case at the time of his arrest," Iranian journalist Omid Memarian told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive interview. "If they had, this would not have happened at all."

The Whoppers of 2011FactCheck.org – Tue, Dec 20, 2011 **SNIP** Democratic Whopper: Obama’s Dying Mother We also discovered in 2011 that one of President Barack Obama’s favorite personal anecdotes — which he had told any number of times to sell his health-care legislation to the public — was not true. The president told the story often during the 2008 presidential campaign and the many months before he signed the health care law. He said his mother, as she was dying, nearly was denied health insurance coverage due to the fact that her ovarian cancer was considered a preexisting condition. But...

Does Mediaite have an editor screening its content before it goes up online?  In a 24-hour period, that lefty news site published one story defending Vice President Joe Biden’s charge that Republicans want rape to increase if they don’t align with the President’s “jobs” plan, and another article claiming that Biden, in fact, never did use a rape reference.  First we have some dude named Nando Di Fino, whom I’ve never heard of before.  He argued that Biden’s assertion about rapes surging really isn’t that “crazy” after all.  “He was basically showing that as you cut police, crime goes up,”...

In essence, the reporting of this simple data, whether using Biden's data or city data, does not describe changes in the incidents of homicides in Flint or any city. The Facts Flint is certainly a violent city, ranked number one in many categories. The website of the Flint Police Department only gives data through 2008, but both the FBI and the Michigan State Police have more recent figures that are provided to them by the Flint police. The numbers are not precisely the same because of different reporting requirements, but they are roughly the same—and show a different picture than...

An organization with close ties to government employee unions is trumpeting pronouncements by a university “labor studies” department (that’s also closely aligned with unions), claiming the unionization of government employees has “no link” with state “deficits.” Michigan’s largely unionized state, local and school employees, however, are granted fringe benefits exceeding what they would get in the private sector by $5.7 billion every year. The figure may start to fall now that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed legislation capping local government and public school employee health insurance benefits at $15,000, which represents a haircut for many, but is still 46...

Flint, a city where more than half the children live below the poverty level, lost out on a pair of $1.1 million electric buses that the federal stimulus program would have paid for when the “green technology” company making them went out of business. So now, the head of the Flint bus authority says they are trying to get a new hydrogen-powered bus that comes with a $2.5 million sticker price, more than eight times the cost of a traditional diesel bus. Ed Benning, general manager of Flint’s Mass Transportation Authority, said in an email that MTA has been discussing...

"Dozens of American cities throughout the industrial Great Lakes states and Midwest have lost half of their populations over the course of one generation -- places like Cleveland, Youngstown, Detroit, Warren, Buffalo and Flint. This is the first time that so many cities have lost half of their populations in such a short amount of time since the Plague struck Europe in 1348........."

FLINT, Michigan — Fifty homicides in less than nine months, a chilling milestone for the city of Flint. “It scares me,” said resident Cathy Layne, 49, who lives near where the body of the 50th homicide victim was found in a vacant home last week. “It scares me to walk to the store, because I might get jumped and end up in an abandoned home like that kid.” Police announced Wednesday that the body found Sept. 23 in an abandoned home on Garland Street near 10th Avenue had been ruled a homicide, making it the 50th of the year. The...

Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline. The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature. Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area. The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint. Having outlined his strategy...

FLINT, Michigan -- Look in any direction from Bianca Bates' north Flint home, and you'll see graffiti-covered siding, boarded-up windows and overgrown lots. About half of the homes on her block are burned out or vacant magnets for drug dealers and squatters. It isn't where she thought she'd end up, but it's all she can afford to rent. "It's a dangerous place to live," said Bates, 21, who lives on East Russell Avenue. "Everywhere you look, these houses are empty around here." Property abandonment is getting so bad in Flint that some in government are talking about an extreme measure...

Flint mother Latrica Ryan of 10 looks to community for help by RoNeisha Mullen | The Flint Journal FLINT, Michigan -- With 10 kids and no vehicle, Latrica Ryan is used to juggling. Going to a movie or out for dinner is a like plotting a major tactical undertaking. Not that such outings happen that much. "It would really be nice if I could take my kids where they needed to go, instead of having to find them a ride," Ryan said. "And when we do go somewhere, I have to pay four or five people (for gas) to get...

FLINT, Mich., June 27 (UPI) -- The new police chief in Flint, Mich., has a new policy on low-riding pants -- those that ride low enough to expose the rear end can lead to arrest. Interim Police Chief David Dicks said that he has been getting a lot of complaints from Flint citizens sick of looking at buttocks, Newhouse News Service reported. "This immoral self-expression goes beyond free speech," Dicks said. "It rises to the crime of indecent exposure/disorderly persons." Dicks said that any police officer who spots someone with pants that hang too low and show too much can...

<p>Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate. As an added kicker you need more Superfund dollars allocated to your city to clean up contaminated toxic waste sites than just about any other metro.</p>