Metro Times: News Blawg

Guilty pleas from Swift’s captors

Two Detroit men charged with kidnapping Walter Swift and stealing
his furniture and other items pleaded guilty today in Wayne County
Circuit Court.

Detroit residents Leonard Duplessis, 23, and Cortez McAdoo, 22, had
been scheduled for trial in the May incident, but in a deal with Wayne
County prosecutors pleaded guilty to extortion and armed robbery.
Duplessis also pleaded to a felony firearms charge. Kidnapping charges
were dismissed for both men. Duplessis was remanded to custody, and
McAdoo was to be freed on an electronic tether.

Both men are scheduled for sentencing Jan. 6; Duplessis faces 5-20
years in pr ...

UPDATE: Danger, Barack Obama, danger in Afghanistan

(See update below.)

With Obama nearing a fateful announcement on plans to “finish the job” in Afghanistan, our recent, cautionary interview with historian Juan Cole remains atop the most-viewed list of MT stories. With good reason.

Since Curt Guyette and I conducted that interview, a number of articles have struck me as important complementary reading for that piece.

For instance, Cole made a point of the small number of al-Qaeda that the U.S. is chasing in that part of the world:

And how many al-Qaeda operatives do you think are in the tribal areas of Pakistan? Five hundred? A thousand? What I can't understand is the argument that we need 100,000 troops in neighboring ...

Yet another bridge suit
Add “exit ramps” to the list of issues being litigated by the Detroit International Bridge Co. and its leader, Manuel “Matty” Moroun.
The Warren-based company filed suit this week in the Michigan Court of Claims against the Michigan Department of Transportation, claiming the state is delaying opening ramps from Interstates 75 and 96 to the new Gateway Plaza.
Bridge officials say the closure is an attempt to “damage the Ambassador Bridge’s business” as state officials are supporting a proposal to build a competing bridge downriver.
As reported earlier this year (“Courts and sparks,” Sept. 23, 2009), Moroun is embroiled in several lawsuits with local, state and federal governments over fences, property and permits. ...

Still Smokin’: Detroit incinerator town hall meeting
A coalition of environmental groups and others advocating for curbside recycling in Detroit and an end to the incinerator that burns the city’s trash to produce steam and electricity will hold a town hall meeting on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Elizabeth Church, 3138 Canfield (at McDougall) in Detroit.
The meeting, which will include both experts and area residents, will focus on the economic and health aspects of the incinerator. Childcare will be provided. For more information call Margaret Weber of the Coalition for a New Business Model for Detroit Solid Waste at 313-938-1133 or email mmgweber@gmail.com. ...

Acorn fights back
If you are like me, you probably don’t know what a “bill of attainder” is. At least I didn’t know until I began looking at the lawsuit the Center for Constitutional Rights just filed against the U.S. Government on behalf of the group Acorn.

Turns out a bill of attainder refers to a legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial — an act prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a Brooklyn, New York federal court, alleges that when Congress cut off all funding to Acorn (an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) beginning Oct. 1 without first conducting an investigation or holding a hearing, the group was unfairly targeted for the type of punitive action the Constitut ...

ONIONS & TANGOS: STEFANI’S REVEALING TESTIMONY
Think of the events that led to Kwame Kilpatrick’s undoing as an onion whose layers are still being peeled away.

Last month, during proceedings before the Attorney Disciplinary Board, attorney Mike Stefani, who represented former cops Gary Brown, Harold Nelthrope and Walt Harris in their whistleblower lawsuit, disclosed that he provided the Detroit Free Press’ Jim Schaefer with copies of the now-infamous test messages between Kilpatrick and his paramour and chief of staff, C ...

HOW BADLY IS MICHIGAN SCREWED? READ THIS!

Here's something the Pew Center on the States does not say in its new report on troubled state economies:

Michigan, once a world technological leader, will settle slowly into the ooze. We will become Mississippi with ice storms, or maybe Haiti without sugar cane.

That was from a 2007 Politics and Prejudices column in Metro Times, one of a number columnist Jack Lessenberry has penned warning of the long-term consequences of Michigan's failure to confront its budget crisis. Recent weeks' columns have focused on the current mess in Lansing and the Dwayne Provience will ask a Wayne County judge to release him from prison at a hearing on Tuesday after Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Friday dropped opposition to having his conviction overturned.

Provience, convicted in 2001 of murdering Rene Hunter, is serving a 32- to 62-year sentence. In a separate but related murder trial with a different victim and defendant two years later, Wayne County prosecutors argued someone else killed Hunter. (See “Tale of two homicides,” in this week’s Metro Times.)

Provience, represented by the Innocence Clinic at th ...