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.
A USA Today article on federal spending for low priority airports kicks off with a description on Northern Michigan’s Pellston airport, which received $7.5 million from the FAA for improvements that include a massive stone fireplace and lodge-style exposed log construction though the airport serves only 72 passengers a day. This airport is now slated [...]
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 [...]
In a Monday editorial, “Questions Must Be Answered,” the Petoskey News-Review called on elected officials to look into allegations raised by Michigan Messenger reporting on false claims made by Barrett Moore, CEO of Sovereign Deed. In a series of articles beginning in October, Michigan Messenger reported that Sovereign Deed sought public support for a base [...]
In the wake of our coverage of Sovereign Deed, we wondered whether traditional media would sit up and pay attention to this story. Would they look deeper into the underlying issues and into the people involved? Would their work encourage greater accountability and reporting transparency for constituents? Here’s what the media has reported so far; [...]
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. [...]
Texas billionaire Richard Rainwater made his fortune by figuring out ways to profit from the misfortune of others. When the oil bust hit Houston in the mid ’90s and property values bottomed out, he swooped in to buy up millions of square feet of office space at pennies on the dollar, investments that made him [...]
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