Free Republic

DETROIT (AP) — A man who was punched in the head over the weekend while refereeing an adult-league soccer match in suburban Detroit died Tuesday, authorities and a longtime friend of the referee said.

As Detroit prepares for a sweltering summer, thousands of residents are having their water shut off by the city because they cannot afford it. At a rate of 3,000 households per week since March, Detroit has made the executive decision to shut off the tap of some 150,000 of its residents for as little as being behind by two payments. On the ground, groups like Detroit Water Brigade have popped up with emergency plans to stockpile donated drinkable water, implement affordable rainwater collection systems for potable and sanitary use, and strategies to create networks for distribution. Detroit is a struggling...

Several people protested outside the Detroit Water And Sewerage Department building Thursday, saying customers are having service cut off at an alarming rate and the practice is inhumane. Organizer David Bullock with the Change Agent Consortium says the water department is going after customers that may be as little as $150 delinquent and says the department ignores large corporations which are behind. “People always want to attack the poor … why are we attacking poor people?” he asked. But when asked which large companies are behind in their payments, Bullock would only say that WWJ should research the issue. “I...

Residents of Detroit, Michigan who are $150 or two months past-due on their water bills are having their water shut off by the bankrupt city. Now, even the United Nations has stepped in, saying Detroit is in violation of the human right to water. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is facing $5 billion in bad debt, and is scrambling to recoup its losses. The city, which filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in history last year, argues that the financial burden of paying water bills has been put on the back burner by many families who didn’t believe services...

Every week, as some 3,000 additional families’ water is shut off by their “public” utility, Detroiters protest on Freedom Friday. “We are hiding out in our own house with no water,” Shelah, a 15-year-old youth and poverty skola whispered on the phone to me. She went on to tell me she and her mama and 9-year-old brother were among thousands of poor families who have had their water service cut off in the last few months by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Since spring, up to 3,000 Detroit households per week have been getting their water shut off –...

ON LAKE MICHIGAN NEAR POVERTY ISLAND, Mich. – In a remote part of northern Lake Michigan, divers have started looking at an underwater pit, hoping to find the resting place of the Griffin, a ship commanded by the 17th century French explorer La Salle.

Most of us don’t completely trust the government. We certainly don’t want government to be able to prevent us from getting information we want or need. We are against governments suppressing information…unless it is stuff that we personally want suppressed. Then that’s different, of course. I thought of that this week when Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation that prevents the press or public from being able to get gun records. From now on, we will be unable to find out who owns guns, and who has permits and licenses to have them. Well, conservatives and gun lovers are thrilled about...

Detroit has too much of some things – stray dogs, abandoned houses – and not enough of others, such as residents who pay their water bills. The latest sign of Detroit’s decline came from the city’s water department, when it said in March it would begin shutting off water for up to 3,000 homes and businesses a week in an attempt to stop the utility from sliding even further into debt. The announcement sparked outrage among activists groups, who say the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is going after the city’s most vulnerable citizens to shore up its bottom...

A U.S. Navy sailor from Washington State is currently serving on a submarine thousands of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, but a judge has ordered him into an impossible custody scenario: Appear in a Michigan courtroom Monday or risk losing custody of his 6-year-old daughter. Navy submariner Matthew Hindes was given permanent custody of his daughter Kaylee in 2010, after she was reportedly removed from the home of his ex-wife, Angela, by child protective services. But now a judge has ordered him to appear in court Monday, or risk losing his daughter to his ex-wife in addition to a...

by Gina Cassini | Top Right NewsThe date has been set - in stone. Circuit Court Judge Margaret Noe has ordered Matthew Hindes to appear in court on Monday, or risk losing full custody of his daughter. There's one problem -- a big one: Matthew Hindes is a Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, and is currently stationed on a submarine deployed in the Pacific Ocean! Yes, the judge is out of her mind, but it is worse than that. Hindes has had full custody of his daughter since 2010. He received full parental rights when his daughter was taken from...

The Michigan Education Association is following through with its vow to threaten the credit of employees who don't voluntarily pay dues despite their desire to exercise their right under the law and leave the union. Bangor Public Schools kindergarten teacher Kimberle Byrd received a notice from a collection agency for unpaid dues in the amount of $394.20 with the Michigan Education Association listed as the creditor. Byrd said she thought she was out of the union when her union contract expired in 2013. The notice from the collection agency. A new contract with a tentative agreement for teachers in the...

DETROIT — The top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken major steps toward recognizing gay marriage. The General Assembly voted Thursday in favor of redefining Christian marriage in the church constitution as the union of "two people," not just "a man and a woman." The redefinition will take effect only if most of the 172 regional Presbyteries approve it in voting over the next year.

Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Gary Peters (D., Mich.) has received thousands of dollars from the labor union representing IRS agents, leading to strong criticism from Republicans. Peters has collected $8,500 from the National Treasury Employees Union over his career, according the National Republican Senate Committee. The union has spent more than $100,000 so far in the 2014 cycle, including a $2,500 donation to Peters Senate campaign. The NRSC demanded that Democrats benefitting from the largesse of the union return the money, since IRS employees are “stonewalling” a congressional investigation into the agency’s admitted targeting of conservative non-profit organizations. The scandal...

This story isn’t that unusual. But the swift response from the bishop is.Details: A gay man in Marquette was told he can no longer have an active role in his Catholic church after he and his longtime partner held a commitment ceremony, according to news reports out of Northern Michigan.Bobby Glenn Brown and his partner ,Don Roberts, held a ceremony celebrating 31 years together among friends and family on Saturday, June 14. The next day, officials at St. Michael Parish said he couldn’t continue his role on the pastoral council or positions of cantor, lector and a member of the...

Republican control of Michigan’s government didn’t prevent a minimum wage increase and an increase in taxes may be coming to fix Michigan’s roads. That’s left many wondering whether the GOP got outmaneuvered or was painted into a corner to prevent a minimum wage ballot initiative that would have been worse. It was both, combined with plenty of politics, wrote Joseph Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and Michael LaFaive, director of fiscal policy at the Center, in a recent Wall Street Journal column: Careful economic analysis did not lead the Michigan GOP to hike the minimum wage....

More than two months after a woman reported being called homosexual slurs and beat at an Ypsilanti Township bus stop, investigators report finding no suspects and a slowed investigation. Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Derrick Jackson said Thursday deputies still believe the 28-year-old woman was assaulted because she is a lesbian. The incident, reported on March 31, took place in the 3000 block of Roundtree Boulevard. While a “Wanted” poster was released and tips were called in, Jackson said no suspect information of substance was generated. “It will stay an open investigation for a while, but there’s no real leads...

DETROIT - A man is in the hospital after he got into a car crash, but it wasn't the crash that injured him. Instead, he was severely beaten afterwards on a nearby street corner. Nathanial Szczerbinski admitted to Local 4 he caused the wreck because he was driving the wrong way down an unfamiliar Detroit street. He said he stopped and started to turn around when he was struck by a Chevy van. As Szczerbinski got out, he was confronted by the three guys who were in the van. Police sources told Local 4 the men quickly went on the...

DETROIT, MI, June 10, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Whenever the American people try to curtail abortion or maintain marriage laws, the followers of Satan will be there to fight back, promises the national spokesman for the Satanic Temple. “Lucien Greaves” told Detroit's Metro Times that he would like to help women avoid complying with pro-life laws by saying abortion restrictions violate their Satanic religious beliefs. He added that gay “marriage” is a Satanic “sacrament.” He said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican from the party's moderate business wing, “has been trying to make it untenable for women to terminate a pregnancy.”...

Citing safer jails and a reduction in unnecessary lawsuits, State Sen. Rick Jones introduced legislation that would allow anyone put in jail for a misdemeanor to be strip searched without probable cause. Sen. Jones, R-Grand Ledge, introduced Senate Bill 958 last week. It was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Jones said the law would bring Michigan's jails in line with the federal prisons, where he said strip searches are allowed without cause. There have been people with weapons hidden on or inside their bodies, he said. Sen. Jones has a background in public safety and served as a...