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.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s political future is in doubt as he faces a perjury investigation. This past Friday, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced that she will investigate allegations of perjury by Mayor Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. The catalyst for Worthy’s decision was an investigation by the Detroit Free Press that secured roughly 14,000 text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty that appear to contradict statements the two made during a police whistle blower trial last year.
The trial centered around former Deputy Chief Gary Brown and former mayoral bodyguard Harold Nelthrope, whose suit charged that Kilpatrick unfairly retaliated against them for participating in an internal affairs investigation of wrongdoing by people close to the mayor.
Continued -The fallout from the recent revelations generally runs along two tracks, with the first being Kilpatrick and Beatty apparently perjuring themselves by denying any romantic or sexual relationship. However, one of the text message exchanges from 10/16/02, 11:48 p.m., has Kilpatrick telling Beatty, “I’ve been dreaming all day about having you all to myself for 3 days…relaxing, laughing, talking, sleeping and making love.” The same day the report was released, Kilpatrick released a press statement that said in part, “These 5 and 6 year old text messages reflect a very difficult period in my personal life. … My wife and I worked our way through these intensely personal issues years ago.”
One popular Detroit blogger, John K. Bennett, had this reaction to the mayor’s press release:
“If the relationship was over years ago and he and Carlita Kilpatrick had reconciled why would the mayor lie about it on the witness stand just last summer? At the 2007 NAACP dinner a couple arrived, she dressed in a canary yellow outfit from head to toe, the man in a dark suit with a canary yellow tie. He opened the car door and escorted his companion into the building. This couple was Mayor Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty, not Carlita Kilpatrick. Does it sound like this ended 5 or 6 years ago?”
The other track involves the frustration that the mayor’s insistence on going to trial and ultimately losing cost Detroit taxpayers $9 million in a settlement when it is reported that Brown and Nelthrope were willing to settle for as little as $100,000.
Kilpatrick was on vacation Wednesday, the same day the Free Press released its story. Although Kilpatrick cut his vacation short to return home, he has yet to make any public remarks. With this story dominating local news and even attracting attention from national press outlets like CNN, people across the country will be interested to see Kilpatrick’s next move.
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