We Democrats need to keep our own ranks in line.

Very discouraging after we worked so hard to give them Total Power!

After call from Senator Inouye’s office, small Hawaii bank got U.S. aid
http://tr.im/qv5N

Now we hear that Rep. John Conyers
may have trouble from his wife’s
Federal Bribery Conviction.

The articles in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press explain

Conyers wife Monica took cash and jewelry, ex-aide says
Riddle details questionable transactions she brokered; John Conyers’ name used but role unclear http://tinyurl.com/njehy4

Riddle implicates Rep. John Conyers in wife’s corruption troubles http://tinyurl.com/mkxftx

What did John Conyers know? http://tinyurl.com/mp9t4l

John Conyers not talking about waste-well letter
Explanation asked for shift http://tinyurl.com/lczr6q

Rep. Conyers responds to questions about involvement with Romulus injection well http://tinyurl.com/ntz8q6

John Conyers defends waste-well letter http://tinyurl.com/knq2pe

John Conyers defends switching position on toxic wells http://tinyurl.com/nhqnnu

Rep. Conyers’ office defends flip-flop http://tinyurl.com/mdd3sv

District Democrats back John Conyers following wife’s conviction http://tinyurl.com/ng2gj2

FBI sludge probe won’t stop Democrat Waters’ 2010 congressional bid http://tinyurl.com/l4njnk

Not sure which way this will go. The 80 year old congressman who has been in office for 40+ years used to have a great liberal reputation BUT one wonders what effect this will have on Conyers, Chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee.

His Committee is where Impeachment would have started.

Conyers has been a big disappointment to Impeachment and Torture Accountability Advocates. Conyers portrayed himself as the the leading advocate of Impeachment in the House, but blocked it for 7 years & kept Kucinich’s Bush-Cheney Impeachment Bills from ever being debated in his committee or voted on.

Conyers accepted an IMPEACHMENT PETITION SIGNED BY 1.1 MILLION VOTERS but IGNORED IT AND HAD THOSE DELIVERING IT ARRESTED.

Strange behaviour from the “Champion of Impeachment”.
It would be good to know the truth about this situation.

SIGN THE PETITION at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

Since Conyers is also leading the fight for Single Payer
we wonder what chance it has?

Detroit has a nice downtown but the city overall and its government are in horrible shape.

Bobb cannot balance the hopeless public school budget and may declare bankruptcy. He's already had at least one show-up-for-pay day to delete ghosts from the system payroll, and handed prosecutors a few serious cases for them to pursue, closed down schools (securing those that weren't promptly looted), and all the rest.

There are other Council members who are in trouble of their own, as well as the mayor who was in jail (and the five attorneys who arranged suspicious help for him are in trouble), and more scandals are coming.

Then there's the problem of pension fund record security and the pension trustees' lavish trips abroad…

As for the state's closing prisons, they may get re-occupied, taking prisoners from elsewhere. California, reliant on other states for prison space as well as other things (like electrical generating capacity) due to NIMBYism among its many political problems, may send prisoners there, along with Alaska (Palin Land).

The thing about this other issue (not just Detroit but Michigan and Rust Belt states) is if they don't reform themselves and if they continue to lose businesses and people, their future role may in larger part in the future may be the brown fields of America, where NIMBYs elsewhere dump the things they don't want nearby, and other “default” things: prisons, trash, future senior citizens' housing and long-term care, and so on.

However I have strong suspicions that these are unscrupulous exaggerations.

Oh… wait…

Even if the folks at Guantanamo generate too much idiotic NIMBYism (except among some in the UP), there's a more mundane, but more lucrative market that the governor has not neglected, but has tapped.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090629/NEWS06/90…

How true it is.

Detroit's cast of characters is so bad that I don't even smear lib Dems with them, because these characters are OFFSCALE. They're in a class by themselves. Think “corrupt failed inner city politicians on steroids” with a touch of aging-Sixties-radicalism-retread-nostalgia and other supporters who are in a state either of learned helplessness or a permanent victim mentality.

I've been here for about a year and in addition to browsing about things on-line, have amassed a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about the goings-on here (Kwame, from text-message-scandal to jail to mansion in Texas; corrupt council members and bribes or lavish homes redesignated as wrecks to pay $68 in total property taxes; the fun and games at DPS with Bobb's nearly-impossible task) to send to family on the West Coast.

There's no Constitutional authorization for it, but Detroit's “leadership” is a case for federal municipal receivership and takeover and control.

Detroit as much as any Rust Belt site needs massive stimulus activity in the form of demolition and removal of so many structures wrecked or abandoned since 1967, and permanent removal and replacement in many cases by urban gardens (to grow food for people) and parks, etc., because the population losses in these Rust Belt cities are likely going to be permanent and facts should be faced. The disappointed? “Let them move south and west like everyone else.”