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.
Federal agency clears way for Emmet County’s negotiations with tarnished disaster-response privateer The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Emmet County the right to lease some of the Pellston airport for commercial use, reviving concerns in the Petoskey area about a controversial company that has pursued space at the airport for a training center. The FAA [...]
Company insiders say job-starved Michigan was poised to make a bad investment When Sovereign Deed LLC came to Emmet County last year advertising a plan to invest millions and create jobs with a privatized disaster-response service, state legislators and the Northern Lakes Economic Alliance put together a tax-financed incentive package worth $19 million. Then troubling [...]
Barrett Moore, founder of a private disaster response firm seeking tax breaks to establish operations in northern Michigan, has acknowledged for the first time that he lied about his military service and was once convicted of criminal fraud in Australia. In a commentary published in the Petoskey News-Review Thursday, Moore repeated claims that his firm, [...]
Resignation follows report that his CEO lied about his own military record. Retired Brig. Gen. Richard W. Mills has left Sovereign Deed, the company that is seeking public funds for development of a national disaster response center in Northern Michigan. Mills served as deputy commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command before joining Sovereign [...]
Michigan Messenger’s reporting on Barrett Moore, founder of the Sovereign Deed private security firm, is “unscrupulous and defamatory,” says the firm’s attorney in a letter sent to Michigan Messenger last Friday. The letter demanded that Michigan Messenger remove from its Web site a story headlined “Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show.” Sovereign [...]
[COMMENTARY] “An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition,” a famous publisher once said. Hypocrisy and ambition, alas, are the dominant themes that have emerged from Michigan Messenger’s months-long investigation into Barrett Moore, the chief executive officer of Sovereign Deed, the private security company looking to set up its headquarters in Pellston, Michigan. [...]
Contractor made millions claiming Army stripes In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq. [...]
Steeped in legal conflicts since its founding, Sovereign Deed, a private security firm spun off from a controversial Iraq war contractor, is seeking to build a base of operations near Pellston. The firm, founded in 2006 by Barrett Moore, a Chicago-area entrepreneur who founded Triple Canopy — one of the largest private security firms operating [...]
“Country Club Fees” Would Guarantee Protection A retired general now working for a controversial private security company told an audience last night about the services the company plans to provide. The government does not have the tax base to provide services to everyone in the event of a major catastrophe, retired Brigadier General Richard W. [...]
The CEO of a private security company that plans to locate its national response center in northern Michigan will respond to citizen concerns at a meeting on Tuesday. In August Sovereign Deed, a company that offers private catastrophe response services, announced that it would build its national response center at the Pellston Airport in Emmet [...]
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