Blacks are whining in Detroit….Again

It seems that the “social justice” crowd is at it again, trying to subtly suggest that because Detroit has a white Mayor, that blacks are being discriminated against.

Via NBC News black division:

Downtown Detroit has been fashionably in redevelopment and undergoing resurgence since the economic downturn, but not everyone is feeling welcome.

With its shiny new facades on chic eateries, cafes and microbreweries, the bright transformation and new attitude has often been called “New Detroit.” It’s all a point of pride for Mike Duggan, the first white mayor elected in 40 years who took office last year. His efforts ranging from urban landscaping to lowering the crime rate to incubating booming businesses have brought new hope for the Motor City—consistently plagued for decades with scandals, crime and blight.

Yet, many black Detroiters are crying foul, saying Detroit is becoming a tale of two cities; while young, white residents enjoy a stylish, prosperous downtown, black business owners say they are being systematically forced out of business.

Not everyone is buying that little lie however:

Charlie Beckham, Detroit’s Group Executive for Neighborhoods, who invited the first group of business owners to talk, is adamant there is no effort to push out black businesses. Instead, he said, the economy has changed, and people are repositioning.

“There are plenty of successful black business owners doing the right thing. They scratched and saved and paid their workers before they bought the Cadillac,” said Beckham, who has served six mayors since the late Coleman Young, the city’s first black mayor. “The responsibility is on us. When you’ve had a month-to-month lease for 25 years, and you get pushed out of your lease or when you lose your property because you didn’t pay your mortgage or taxes, that’s just bad business.”

Meanwhile, Smith negotiated a lease with new building owners and Spectacles is staying put. Mo’ Better Blues, which in October won a $50,000 Motor City Match grant from the city of Detroit, is celebrating its grand opening in another downtown location on November 7. The Mongos continue to run Café D’Mongo’s Speakeasy, a downtown bar/restaurant.

“We’ve got to tighten up in this new environment,” Beckham said. “Buy the building. Negotiate a strong lease. If the economy goes up or down, you will not get pushed out. Is there still racism? Yes. But we can’t let that be an excuse.”

Here’s what I wrote in the comments section of this story:

Amazing, the same people that are largely responsible for the downfall of my great city are now @!$%#ing because they’re not being allowed to do it again. How quaint.

The truth is, if you don’t have the money to be in business, you shouldn’t be in business to start with! NO ONE is entitled to anything! If you can’t hang with the big dogs, get off the porch!

Racist? No. Racial Realist? Yes.

If you ain’t got the flow to be in business, than take your broke black a$$ on down the road and let someone who does have the building, it is just that simple.

Amazing how blacks think that they’re entitled to everything. This is what happens when you give them special treatment. Give them an inch and they try to take a mile.

I stand behind that comment 100%.

Michigan House boots Gamrat and Courser resigns

Remember these two dunderheads? Well, he quit and she got the boot:

Lansing — The Michigan House of Representatives ousted state Rep. Cindy Gamrat from office just after 4 a.m. Friday for misconduct involving her extramarital affair with Rep. Todd Courser — one hour after Courser abruptly resigned.At 4:13 a.m., the House voted 91-12 to expel Gamrat from office after the Plainwell Republican made a final plea on the floor for a censure. Gamrat’s ouster makes her just the fourth lawmaker to be expelled from the Legislature”Resigning would have been a whole lot easier, I’ll tell you that,” Gamrat said. “But sometimes the easy roads aren’t the best roads to take.”

Source: House expels Gamrat; Courser resigns before vote

What gets me, like Ed over at HotAir.com, I am amazed it took so many votes. Either way, I’m glad they’re gone.

Others (via Memeorandum): Talking Points Memo, MLive.com, NPR, Raw Story, Political Wire, Detroit Free Press and Associated Press

Justice? Detroit Drug Dealer and FBI informant “White Boy Rick” to be resentenced

This is an interesting development.

Via The Detroit Free Press:

Richard Wershe Jr.— known as White Boy Rick — wore European suits and had a full head of hair when he gained notoriety as a teenage drug dealer in the 1980s.

In a Detroit courtroom today, the now bald 46-year-old had on green jail garb when he learned he will be resentenced for a drug crime committed at age 17, which could lead to his freedom.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Dana Hathaway issued the ruling and said her decision was based on case law related to juveniles and the evolution of penalties for drug crimes.

Wershe was quiet and stoic during the 5-minute hearing in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice attended by friends and family, including his mother and 27-year-old son. About a dozen reporters and several photographers also gathered in the courtroom.

Wershe was convicted of possession with intent to deliver more than 650 grams of cocaine in 1988 and has spent the last 27 years in prison. Authorities said Wershe had eight kilos of high-grade powered cocaine worth about $5 million.

I remember when this man’s trial and sentencing happened back in the 1980’s. I never knew him personally, as he lived on the other side of town from me. However, I remember the buzz in the local media. There is alot more to Rick’s story, to put you up to speed, here are a few videos on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJWoqqMftis

For some context, watch these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10SprwE0qmM

As you can see, Rick was used by the feds and then left in jail to rot. 😡

The truth is, that if Rick were a black man, he would already be out of jail. However, because Rick is a white man and because he happens to know a good deal about the corrupt workings of the Detroit police and the political elite class in Detroit and the federal government’s so called “war on drugs,” the feds want him to stay behind bars.

Here is hoping that Rick finally gets some justice in his very sad case.

Others: Raw Story and Guardian (via Memeoradum)

MICHIGAN NEWS UPDATE: State Rep. Todd Courser says he was being setup

Remember the scandal that I reported about here in Michigan, involving State Rep. Todd Courser?

Well, there is more news about that. The story via The Detroit News:

State Rep. Todd Courser claimed Monday he distributed a story accusing himself of paying a male prostitute for sex to “expose” individuals trying to blackmail him into resigning office over a relationship with Rep. Cindy Gamrat.

In his first response to The Detroit News’ story Friday exposing Courser’s role in the email, Courser claimed his former aides Ben Graham, Keith Allard and Joshua Cline were behind the anonymous text messages he received, threatening to expose his relationship with Gamrat, a fellow Republican from Plainwell.

“The email in question was really put in motion to disrupt, disrupt the blackmailer and to give me some clues as to what their ability was as far as surveillance over my life and the threats they were making,” Courser said in an audio recording released early Monday morning.

[….]

Courser accuses Graham, 25, of being part of the blackmail plot. In May, Graham refused to send the email for Courser. Weeks later, Courser gave Graham a 6 percent pay raise, state records show. On July 7, Courser fired Graham without explanation.

“The blackmailer’s still operating, goading me,” Courser said on the audio recording. “So I’m not sure how big the ring still is, but they’re still out there and still anonymous.”

Courser accused Graham, Allard and Cline of being “ill-suited” for legislative work and claimed they “bugged and then wiretapped” the combined House office he and Gamrat ran — an unusual arrangement at the Capitol — at the behest of Speaker Kevin Cotter.

“There’s obvious malice and hostility and anger about being let go, and they’re bonded together with that and moved to extract their revenge in the way that they did,” Courser said.

Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, said Monday Courser’s claims of a House-led bugging operation of he and Gamrat’s office are “just ludicrous.”

“He’s really displayed a long and consistent pattern of that type of paranoia,” Cotter told The News. “There are no black helicopters here; no drones circling the House Office Building.”

Ike, for his part, is denying all involvement:

Lansing — State Rep. Todd Courser told an aide that he had a longtime friend and business associate send Republicans an email falsely claiming the lawmaker was caught having sex with a male prostitute, audio recordings show.

The email, which Courser first ordered a staff member to send out, was sent as part of a scheme to conceal the lawmaker’s relationship with Rep. Cindy Gamrat.

But Immanuel “Ike” Eickholdt, the man Courser says sent it, denied any involvement in distribution of the email in an interview with The Detroit News. Rank-and-file Republicans received the message May 20 and May 21 from an anonymous sender.

Former Courser and Gamrat aides confirmed to The News that the “Ike” mentioned by Courser during two recorded meetings is Eickholdt, who ran in a Democratic primary last year against Courser’s eventual general election opponent, Margaret Guerrero DeLuca.

[…]

In a telephone interview, Eickholdt acknowledged being a “friend and business associate” of Courser’s for a decade, but denied sending the email or having any knowledge of it.

“I did not send an email thing out,” Eickholdt told The News. “Whatever nonsense they’ve got going on, I don’t deal with that kind of stuff anymore.”

Either way, State House officials are not buying the story and are working to get to the bottom of what really happened:

State House officials have seized computers and paper records from the offices of Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat as part of an investigation into whether they used taxpayer resources to conceal their relationship, Speaker Kevin Cotter said Monday.

“All of the evidence is protected,” Cotter told The Detroit News. “Nothing can be deleted. We have the servers. We have all of these things. So there’s nothing that’s at risk of being lost at this point.”

Employees in the House Business Office began taking possession of documents, laptop computers and servers containing Courser and Gamrat’s state email accounts on Friday and continued over the weekend, Cotter said.

Cotter ordered an investigation into Courser and Gamrat just hours afterThe Detroit News first revealed Friday that Courser sought the help of a House employee to distribute a fictitious email alleging he had a homosexual affair in order to make allegations of an affair with Gamrat look tame by comparison.

Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, said the House’s computer servers preserved all electronic records in Courser’s and Gamrat’s systems.

“If either of the representatives, or anyone for that matter, had gone immediately with this story and tried to delete things, that information was not lost,” Cotter told The News. “We have a system in place whereby if even a user deletes an email, that those are still retained. So nothing was at risk of loss.”

It should be very interesting to see how all of that plays out, for his part, Rep. Todd Courser says he is not going anywhere:

Courser, a tea party conservative who has battled Republican leaders since being elected to office last year, said in the recording he would not resign as representative of the 82nd District in Lapeer County.

“I could have resigned, this is really the option that anonymous texter wanted, and doing so quietly,” Courser said. “I simply would have been submitting to the authority of the establishment machine and doing so to protect myself and protect my family.

“… I felt that in of itself really allowed them to win and continue to do this in the way that they do in finding the screw and the thing that they can turn and turning it,” Courser added.

Courser said remaining in office is “absolutely essential” to advance the cause of smaller government.

“I feel it is absolutely, absolutely essential to have these clandestine operations to control public officials exposed,” Courser said. “So I refuse to leave quietly and have decided to that these efforts really need to come out.”

What a freakin’ dope. 🙄

Customs and Immigration Officer shoots suspect in Detroit; Suspect had a hammer

Of course, you know, the left is going to play this one for all it is worth. Considering what’s happening elsewhere.

Detroit — The 20-year-old armed robbery suspect who was fatally shot by a federal agent on Monday was “armed with a hammer,” Detroit’s police chief said Tuesday.The shooting, on the city’s west side, angered residents who had to be placated by the city’s police chief.The Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team, a task force that included officers from the Detroit Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Marshals, were serving an armed robbery warrant in the 9500 block of Evergreen at the time of the shooting around 1:13 p.m., Detroit Police Chief James Craig said.The officers were allowed into the home to conduct their search, Craig said.The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between police and black communities in some U.S. cities, spurring a national debate about race and police tactics.In the Detroit incident, the suspect was black, as was the federal agent who shot him.

Source: Federal officer shoots, kills Detroit man one east side

The man was armed with a hammer, he tried to attack a federal officer, and he got shot. Just another day in the big city. But, as you know, because he is black, as was the agent that shot him; because of the stuff happening everywhere now, the left and their media lap-dogs are going to exploit this, in hopes that there is another riot in Detroit.

Because that, is what marxists do. Marxists exploit stuff like this to disrupt the system. You watch and see, summer is coming and Detroit has a white mayor. You watch, another uprising is coming and the marxists will be in the middle of it.

Others –YMMV: ThinkProgress, Fusion, Detroit Free Press, Raw Story, ABC News and CBS Detroit

BREAKING NEWS : GOVERNOR RICK SNYDER WINS!!!

The story via WXYZ-TV:

Incumbent Rick Snyder has been re-elected as Michigan’s governor based on returns from key precincts around the state of Michigan, 7 Action News pollsters say.

Snyder defeated Democrat Mark Schauer after a tight race early in the polls.

In key precincts, Snyder defeated Schauer with 53 percent of the vote to 46 percent.

This is very good news. I voted a straight Republican Party ticket, as I simply do not trust the democrats to run this state again. Jennifer Granholm ruined that for me.

Let’s hope that Republicans pick up enough seats to take back the Senate, so that we can get back to running the Country.

I voted today

It is a patriotic duty of ALL Americans to vote in elections. Many men and women died on battlefields for the right to vote in free elections. Don’t pass it up.

I voted today and I hope you did too. As you all know, I am in Michigan and today we are having our primary for governor and several local seats. I voted for governor Snyder for governor of Michigan.

The reason why I voted for governor Snyder for governor of Michigan again is for the following reasons:

1. Governor Snyder passed expanded Medicaid for people like me who were long-term unemployed and fell through the cracks of Obamacare. Some people on the right here in Michigan did not like the fact that Governor Snyder passed expanded Medicaid. I am NOT one of those people. As some of you already know I have not worked for almost 10 years now, at least not for anybody else. I also found out this past year that I have diabetes type 2, and I also have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Not to mention I also have ADHD and I take meds for it. So this expanded Medicaid for me was a blessing and for that I voted for governor Snyder again. Now I wasn’t too happy with the right to work law the governor Snyder passed, however as far as I can tell that law has not affected the big three at all which includes my Dad.

2. Quite frankly, I simply do not trust Democrats to run the state again. Jennifer Granholm’s tenure here as governor of the state of Michigan was an absolute freaking disaster. When the previous governor left office in the state of Michigan, the state of Michigan had a budget surplus. Jennifer Granholm left office, the state of Michigan was in so much debt it was unbelievable. To me, that points to incompetence. For this, I decided that I could no longer trust Democrats to run the state; and I voted for governor Snyder the first time and because of Governors accomplishments, I voted for him a second time.

I do pray the governor Snyder does win this election again. Because I would sure hate like hell to see this state go back into the craphole that it was, when Granholm was running it.

Here is hoping the governor Snyder wins again.

Dick Wagner of Michigan Band “The Frost” dead at 71

We lost the man who made “The Frost.” It’s a sad day for classic Rock and Roll in Michigan.

The Story:

It was a final medical battle Dick Wagner couldn’t win.

Wagner, the Michigan-bred guitarist renowned for his work with Alice Cooper, the Frost, Lou Reed and others, died this morning in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 71.

Wagner succumbed to respiratory failure at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea Medical Center, where he had been in intensive care for the past two weeks following a cardiac procedure.

The guitarist had famously overcome a series of medical issues during the past decade, retraining himself on guitar after a stroke paralyzed his left arm. He re-emerged to begin recording, writing and performing gigs, including a triumphant homecoming concert at the Magic Bag in November 2011.

Wagner was born in Iowa, moved with his family to Waterford as a child, and later settled in Saginaw. He was a key figure in southeastern Michigan’s emergent rock scene in the 1960s, a go-to guitarist who made his name with the Bossmen and the Frost.

He was eventually recruited by Alice Cooper for the milestone 1972 album “Welcome to My Nightmare,” and went on to A-list session work with the likes of Reed, Peter Gabriel and Rod Stewart. Rock lore has long held that Wagner was a secret hired hand on albums by several high-profile bands.

via Dick Wagner, esteemed Michigan rock guitarist, dead at 71 | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

Here’s “The Frost” at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq1z_cYFrbs

Video: Local Story: Home invaders pick the wrong house

The Video:

The Story via WXYZ-TV:

(WXYZ) – A Detroit mother opened fire Monday night when three suspects broke into her home.

Surveillance cameras caught it all.

The mother tells 7 Action News she “didn’t have time to get scared.” When she heard the door to her home on Woodrow Wilson being kicked in, she immediately warned the three teenage intruders and then opened fire.

UPDATE: Detroit Police Chief reacts, says, “She did the right thing.”

One of the teens dropped a handgun on his way out the door. He then tried to get back inside the house a second time, but was again met with gunfire. Once again, he took off and all three were arrested shortly after the incident by Detroit Police.

Recalling the panic she felt, the mom says “I let them know I had a gun once they were in the house. They said no you don’t so I shot off the first round. I wasn’t feeling anything at the moment, I got scared afterwards.”

The Detroit Police chief? He’s cool with it.

The Story via WXYZ-TV:

(WXYZ) – It’s the video creating a national stir as it goes viral.

Seen first on 7 Action News at 11 , a mother from Detroit opening fire on three teenage burglars inside her home.

Now Detroit’s Chief of Police is responding to the dramatic footage and the mother’s actions.

“She did the right thing” says Chief James Craig acknowledging the mother gave a verbal warning prior to firing the weapon.

As we first reported, the mother was protecting two small children inside the home.

She tells us “I let them know I had a gun once they were in the house. They said no you don’t so I shot off the first round.” Her husband is thankful she and the kids are safe.

He gave her the weapon just two weeks ago and showed her how to use it.

“If I hadn’t prepared my wife for this kind of situation, I could have came home to a family that was gone,” he says.

I wonder what liberals like Diane Feinstein would say about this little situation? 🙄

Interesting Reading: How the U.S. Bankrupted the Big 3

A man by the name of Curt Brockhaus sent me an email about a book that he has written. It’s a web book and it has a good deal of video and pictures about the history of the automotive industry in it. It makes for very interesting reading, especially for history buffs like me.

Please, click here to check out How the U.S. Bankrupted the Big 3.