Free Republic

On July 30, 1975, former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa stood outside the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, impatiently scanning the parking lot.  The man who had made the Teamsters the most formidable labor union in the country was already angry.  It was quarter after two in the afternoon, and the men he was supposed to be meeting for lunch hadn’t arrived yet.  Hoffa was a stickler for punctuality, and it was his understanding that they were to meet at 2:00. Wearing a dark blue short-sleeve shirt, blue pants, white socks, and black Gucci loafers, Hoffa walked...

DETROIT - Blood found on the floor of a Detroit home is not that of Jimmy Hoffa, investigators said Monday, ruling out what had looked like one of the most promising recent leads in the disappearance of the Teamsters boss 30 years ago. Authorities had ripped up floorboards last May at a house where Delaware Teamsters official Frank Sheeran said he shot Hoffa to death. Police in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township received a report from the FBI crime lab Monday concluding that human blood from a male was on the floorboards but that the blood was not Hoffa's....

New Details Emerge in Hoffa Case BY EDWARD LEWIS TIMES-SHAMROCK NEWS WRITER 03/19/2004 Details of a written confession by a man who claims to have had a role in the 1975 murder of Jimmy Hoffa shed light on Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino's underworld involvement. The three-page confession by Frank Sheeran, 83, was allegedly written in November, about a month before he died in a Chester County nursing home. Highlights of the deathbed confession, which is not corroborated, were publicized earlier this week by the Philadelphia Daily News. The bottom of each page of the confession bears Mr. Sheeran's...

The book I Heard You Paint Houses came out in 2003, so it’s been gathering some dust on a number of bookshelves around the country for quite some time. The book’s title, according to Amazon, comes from the first words infamous Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. The book is essentially the deathbed biography of one-time Delaware Teamster boss and mob hit-man Frank Sheeran and truly is a fascinating read.

DETROIT — Authorities in Detroit searched a home Friday looking for clues into the greatest murder mystery in U.S. history — what really happened to Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (search). After one man confessed to killing Hoffa in 1975 at a Detroit home and following a Fox News investigation determined traces of blood in the house, Oakland County, Mich., investigators ripped up floorboards to do more analysis. An undetermined amount of material was taken away. Frank Sheeran (search) — nicknamed "the Irishman' — was one of the handful of the FBI's suspects into Hoffa's murder. Sheeran was a local Teamsters...

Hot on the Hoffa trail Taylor cop thinks he has the answer to 1975 vanishing of union leader July 1, 2007 BY JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Jimmy Hoffa's last car ride took less than two minutes. On July 30, 1975, he rode one long block south from a two-story house at 17841 Beaverland in Detroit's tough Brightmoor neighborhood and turned right -- west -- on Grand River Ave. He passed the greens of William Rogell Golf Course and a scenic footbridge, crossed the woodsy Rouge River, cruised past the brown brick Redford Granite Co. building and the Mt....

While taking place at the state level, this one could be very big for the Right to Work movement. The state supreme court in Michigan has dealt a double blow to the unions and the state government apparatus which is essentially owned by them. The Justices ruled yesterday that not only is Right to Work the law of the land for private industry, but it applies to public sector workers as well, and they can’t be forced to participate in unions against their wishes. (Detroit Free Press) The Michigan Supreme Court, in an opinion that has the effect of...

WASHINGTON — Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the longest-serving Jewish member now in the House, said Tuesday that he would support the Iran nuclear accord, lending a hefty voice of approval in a chamber deeply skeptical of the deal. “Israel’s security has and always will be of critical importance to me and our country,” Mr. Levin said in a lengthy statement explaining his decision. “I believe that Israel, the region and the world are far more secure if Iran does not move toward possession of a nuclear weapon. I believe the agreement is the best way to...

A devil-worshipping group calling itself the Satanic Temple has been working to raise funds to promote abortion-on-demand and to counter legal efforts such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and 20-week abortion bans. A highly publicized ceremonial unveiling of the satanic figure of Baphomet in Detroit Saturday, an event billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history,” sold $25 and $75 tickets, the proceeds of which will be used to support the reproductive rights legal action fund, according to a Temple spokeswoman. The cult has also set up a donation website with Indiegogo “to challenge arbitrary, insulting abortion...

NORVELL TWP, MI -- Rick Briggs has always been involved in charity work to help veterans, but when his son came back from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, he knew more needed to be done for veterans. "A lot of guys put a gun in their mouth because they don't have hope, they don't have a purpose," Briggs said. "They need both hope and purpose to move forward." So, Briggs partnered with other volunteers to bring a shared dream to life. The 137-acre campsite of Camp Liberty, once finished, will feature a welcome center able to house a large family...

The Satanic Temple of Detroit threw off protesters of their unveiling of a demonic statue by leaking word that the event would take place in one place but holding it in another. In addition, in an apparent attempt to weed out Christian moles who might disrupt the presentation of the statue, the Satanic Temple required everyone who had a ticket (for which they paid $25 and up) to sign a quasi-legal document in which they agreed to “transfer” their soul to Satan.​ “I agree that by signing this document under any name, given or adopted, actual or pseudonymous, I am...

DETROIT -- Fiat Chrysler must offer to buy back from customers hundreds of thousands of Ram pickup trucks and other vehicles -- the biggest such action in U.S. history -- as part of a costly deal with safety regulators to settle legal problems in about two dozen recalls. The Italian-American automaker also faces a record civil fine of up to $105 million. In addition, owners of more than a million older Jeeps with vulnerable rear-mounted gas tanks will be able to trade them in or be paid by Chrysler to have the vehicles repaired. ~SNIP~ Vehicles eligible for buy-back offer...

Joseph Rivers, an aspiring artist from Michigan, had his dreams shattered by federal agents. On a train to California, where he was going to start a video production business, he had his $16,000 in life savings seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency under the mere claimed suspicion that it was going to be used as drug money. A hunch or suspicion is enough for some law enforcement agents to seize someone's property and hold it until they prove themselves innocent. As the Albuquerque Journal, which first reported Rivers' case, quoted the DEA agent in charge: "We don't have to prove...

After weeks of speculation and protests by Christian leaders in Detroit, the unthinkable took place.Just after 11p.m. on July 25, a satanic organization unveiled a 9-foot statue of the goat-headed Baphomet, a pagan symbol of Lucifer. The 1-ton statue features two young children looking up adoringly at the devil.Leaders of the Satanic Temple have been saying for weeks they planned to unveil the statue somewhere in Detroit and leave it there temporarily before moving it to Arkansas, where they plan to set it beside the Ten Commandments at the State Capitol. This is the same statue they attempted to erect...

A group is planning to unveil an 8-foot-tall bronze statue featuring a goat-headed Satan in Detroit during a gathering that’s being billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history.” The Satanic Temple has said Saturday’s private event will be open only to people with tickets, $25 each. Invitations to “The Unveiling” summoned guests to prepare for “a night of chaos, noise, and debauchery… Come dance with the Devil and experience history in the making.” The event location is not being announced publicly and is known only to those with tickets.

Most of America thinks of Detroit as Motown, or the Motor City, and Ann Arbor as the home of the storied Big Ten football program and world-class medical research facilities of the University of Michigan.Illegal immigrants look at those towns differently. They see Detroit and Ann Arbor as “sanctuary cities,” communities where local law enforcement has a policy of not cooperating with federal immigration agents.Michigan Republicans, led by state Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kowall, want to erase the concept of “sanctuary cities” from the lexicon of municipal leaders in the state.“I am strongly opposed to any Michigan cities...

An Ypsilanti pastor called upon parents Thursday to be a part of the solution in decreasing violence in the city and township. Alex Easley, pastor of City of Hope Ministries in Ypsilanti, spoke on behalf of clergy across Washtenaw County at a press conference about rising gang violence in Ypsilanti on Thursday, July 23. "Parents, I call you out today. Take care of your children and then you don't need state funding to help you raise your kids," he said. At the press conference, law enforcement officials laid out a plan of temporary increased patrols and partnerships with the Washtenaw...

LAKE MICHIGAN — It was 3:30 a.m., and Jeff Voss was tired. Voss, a tool and die shop owner when he's not diving on shipwrecks, had been at the wheel since midnight, kept awake by Red Bull and the monotonous duty of keeping the boat on course while simultaneously monitoring the sonar. Somewhere below, a phantom lay waiting. Voss and his fellow wreck sleuths had been patiently combing a 10-square-mile grid of Lake Michigan off Muskegon for the past three days in a modified 25-foot Bayliner; "mowing the lawn" with side-scan sonar in search of a lost propeller steamer that...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder confirmed a state review team's finding that Wayne County is operating under a financial emergency. County leaders have until 5 p.m. July 29 to request a hearing on the governor's determination. Should a hearing be requested, it will be held at 10 a.m. July 30, in Lansing, before the state treasurer or his designee. Following the hearing (or if no hearing is requested by the county), the governor can either confirm or revoke his determination that a financial emergency exists. The Wayne County Commission then can choose one of four options to deal with this financial...

In a recent story in MLive, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation is given credit for "retaining" 40,200 jobs in Michigan when it awarded two MEGA tax credits to the Ford Motor Company. The story reports: "… in the end the two credits were supposed to retain up to 40,200 jobs.” ForTheRecord says: At the time of the agreement in 2010, the MEDC reported that Ford had 36,720 employees in Michigan. Ford Motor Co. estimates there are 40,000 employees in Michigan currently. That means the MEDC is taking credit for retaining every job in the Ford Motor Company. Would the company...