I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Sen. Carl Levin is asking the Pentagon to consider prohibiting any new contracts for service in Afghanistan to Blackwater (now known as Xe) because of a long track record of scandal over the last few years in that country and in Iraq. Levin, who just held hearings on some of those scandals as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the company should not be given a new contract they are applying for, part of a $1 billion contract to train the Afghan army.
In one recent incident in Afghanistan, two contractors tied to Blackwater allegedly killed two Afghan civilians and injured a third. U.S. officials say the May 2009 shooting damaged relations with the local population
“The inadequacies in Blackwater’s performance appear to have contributed to a shooting incident that has undermined our mission in Afghanistan,” Levin, D-Mich., wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Levin’s committee recently heard testimony that Blackwater had illegally obtained military weapons in Afghanistan, signing the name of a South Park character on the forms to acquire them.
The company has also had many incidents where innocent people have been killed, including one Blackwater employee who got drunk and shot the bodyguard of the Iraqi Vice President. Several Blackwater guards were charged for killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians at a checkpoint in Baghdad in 2007, but the cases were dismissed because the guards had previously been granted immunity.
Blackwater/Xe is owned by Michigan native and prominent conservative Erik Prince.
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