The Party of Treason

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Have you ever heard the philosophy that states “if someone tells you, and shows you who they are, believe them”? Trump has been telling us, yelling to us, and showing us that he’s a wannabe dictator who will use racism, hatred and fear mongering rhetoric and tactics to achieve power. He has expressed open admiration for other despots around the world.

(Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

There was never a good excuse for supporting Trump as a political leader, he proved himself right out of the gate to be the antithesis of true American values. The first red flag indicating he’s a dictatorial leader was when he disparaged an entire race of people by stating falsely that Mexicans coming over the border are rapists, drug dealers and murderers. He further implied that Mexico as a country was purposely sending “their worst” people to the U.S. The implication of course is that very few if any Mexican immigrants are good people. 

Same goes for Islam, he spent much of his Twitter time and public appearances spreading false information about Muslims, that thousands of them were cheering and celibrating 9/11, he pushed for a travel ban to and from Muslim countries, suggested we shut down the nations mosques or at least spy on them. 

He encouraged violence and intimidation against dissenters and the reporters. 

These are all things a dictator does without even mentioning the vulgar personality traits that would usually sink a candidate. But as Trump himself observed about his bizarre followers, he wouldn’t lose a single one even if he shot a person on 5th Avenue. He knows what kind of base is supporting him. 

He has since proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only would he lie, cheat and steal to get power, but he would also engage in a coup d’etat to keep it. Add traitor to the list of Trump’s undesirable traits. 

He spent the months leading up to the election grooming his willing base for a possible violent overthrow of the U.S. government by reinforcing certain key falsehoods. He demonized the press as a conspirator working with the Democrats, he has attacked the integrity of the election system by stating hundreds of times that it’s rigged against him. 

He thought he could rig the system himself by installing rabid loyalists, or at least people he thought were blindly loyal, in key positions to “legally” overturn any result that didn’t reelect him. 

He thought his appointees on the Supreme Court would overturn any undesired election results. He was wrong. 

He thought U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr would conjure up some fabricated evidence that would overturn the election. Wrong. 

When all else fails, lead an insurrection. 

What any would-be dictator needs to successfully overthrow their government is large grassroots support from the population, support from loyalists in key government segments, and support from the military. He has the support of some 75 million Americans as evident by the election results. He has the support of nearly all the Republicans in congress. 

He doesn’t have the courts, and he couldn’t get the military. Thank God. Because that’s how close we came to living in an Orwellian nightmare with Trump as president for life. 

In November 2020, after the election Trump took the highly unusual step of firing three high ranking Pentagon officials and replacing them with Trump loyalists. Apparently he thought that would give him the military. He was wrong.  

A rally was being organized for Jan 6, the day congress would officially confirm the electoral results making Joe Biden the next President of the United States. Trump promoted the rally, dubbed StopTheSteal, in public and on Twitter stating “massive amounts” of evidence will be presented to prove the election was stolen. In true dictatorial fashion however, no evidence was then, or ever been presented. 

On January 6, 2021 Trump addressed a crowd that he had been priming for months to believe the election was stolen. Like a mob boss, he encouraged them to march on the capitol and fight, carefully crafting his words to be sure he himself would never be implicated in what was likely to be treason. But everyone in the crowd, and indeed the watching world knew what he meant. 

Trump insinuated that he would march with them, an act a true revolutionary would have done but instead, being a coward he went back to the safety of the White House to watch the scene unfold on FoxNews. Insulated from prosecution while his foolish supporters get hunted down and arrested by the FBI. 

While the Capitol was under attack Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were communicating from a bunker with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan begging for the deployment of his troops that he said was ready, willing and able to go with one exception; they needed permission from the Pentagon. The Pentagon was being held back by the White House. For nearly two hours Trump sat on the Maryland National Guard, presumably waiting to see if his mob could occupy the Capitol, presumably not concerned that Pelosi and Pence could end up swinging from a rope. 

And now, 6 months later the North Carolina Republican Party convention allowed Trump to give a speech where he continued his dangerous false narrative that he’s the rightful president, and Republicans in congress are blocking an investigation into the attack on the Capitol. 

Donald J. Trump is a traitor to the United States and frankly so is anyone who still supports him, after all this everyone should know better. Yet he currently has the support of the GOP. 


The Republican Party is now the Party of treason.

President Trump Sabotages America’s Institutions

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Every U.S. president falls under the intense scrutiny of the media, a spotlight that magnifies every word and action, past and present. And now with social media like Twitter you get to know a guy pretty good. President Trump in his first term has proven for the most part to have two driving motivators; the economy and himself, the former is directly linked to the latter. He is pro-Trump and pro-business. This president cares about little else, he knows historically people vote according to their bank accounts.

It’s his obsession with power and big business that makes his so dangerous. President Trump has linked his self image of greatness to the economy above all other and he measures the economy by how rich the rich are getting. Balancing the economy with all the other concerns, like the environment to name just one, takes precision, and costs money.
Lots of money.

The apparent remedy to the burden of balance is to undermine or even destroy the institutions that keeps big business in check. The president is afforded the right to appoint the heads of these agencies and this president, along with conservative members of congress are installing people with the sole purpose of running these agencies into the ground.

Take for example:

EPA
The word protection in the name Environmental Protection Agency is a huge red flag for those who would make money from activities that dirty up our water and air. The EPA has been a thorn in the side of polluters since Richard Nixon created it 50 years ago.
Trump’s first pick for director, Scott Pruitt resigned in scandal and went on to become a coal promoter for Alliance Resource Partners, L.P, and a lobbyist for Sunrise Coal.
Enter Scott Wheeler, a climate science denier like his predecessor. Mr Wheeler worked as a coal lobbyist for Faegre Baker Daniels, a law firm who represents coal producer Murray Energy.
Trump has spent his entire first term deregulating the energy industry at the expense of our environment, being clean costs the fossil fuel industry a lot of money.
Here’s a list of terrifying rollbacks tracked by the Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trump-era/

NASA
This agency has come to the scientific conclusion that climate change is happening and human activity is a significant factor, so naturally Trump would like to appoint a science denier to that post. Unfortunately for the president it’s not easy finding a qualified scientist to fit that bill, a Trump ally will just have to do. Jim Bridenstine was nominated in September 2017 to head the agency to heavy criticism for falling well below the scientific standards set by previous administrators, and for being a vocal critic of prevailing consensus on climate change. He was confirmed strictly by Republicans in a 50-49 vote in April, 2018.
However, it seems the plan backfired on the president and his allies in congress. One month after Bridenstine’s confirmation in May, 2018, he turned a 180 in a town hall speech at NASA headquarters as reported by The Atlantic he said, “I don’t deny that consensus that the climate is changing,” he said. “In fact, I fully believe and know that the climate is changing. I also know that we humans beings are contributing to it in a major way. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We’re putting it into the atmosphere in volumes that we haven’t seen, and that greenhouse gas is warming the planet. That is absolutely happening, and we are responsible for it.”
That’s gotta hurt.

DOI
The Department of the Interior for those who don’t know manages about 75% of federal lands and natural resources. Trumps first appointment to position of Secretary of the Interior was Ryan Zinke, another one that ended on scandal leading the way for the current Secretary David Bernhardt. As one could guess, Bernhardt is a former lobbyist for Brownstein Hyett Farber Schreck, a lobbying firm with a client list including oil and gas energy and exploration companies, and notably the Independent Petroleum Association of America, as well as other mining interests. The Trump Administration is accelerating mining and oil drilling on public lands as well as uranium extraction and plundering forests.

Office of Air and Radiation
William Wehrum is an attorney and lobbyist for such polluters as Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute among others and served as assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation until he was forced to step down for ethics violations, mostly interacting with former clients to discuss government regulation related to their industry.
The new administrator Anne Idsal isn’t a lobbyist or a corporate attorney and is relatively unknown.

DoE
Taxpayer funded public schools are literally centuries old. But of course conservative forces in the United States would rather have a for profit system and what better way to undermine public education than to appoint to the Department of Education a vastly underqualified person who’s known not for education as much as for advocacy of private schools. Betsy DeVos, the current Secretary of Education is just such a person. DeVos has been an advocate of school vouchers, that essentially takes taxpayer money from public schools and funnels it to private schools, for decades. Upon landing in the Secretary position she has ambitiously worked toward the largest school voucher assault on public schools in U.S. history. Like many of Trump’s dubious nominees, the Senate vote to confirm was far from overwhelming and in this case Vice President Mike Pence had to break a 50 – 50 tie.

USPS
The first Postmaster General was appointed by Benjamin Franklin in 1775 and is one of the few agencies authorized by the U.S. Constitution. It’s the epitome of an American institution.
Although the USPS is a government agency it’s self sustaining and takes no taxpayer money to function. For a couple decades Republicans have strongly advocated the privatization of the agency, essentially dismantling it in favor of a for-profit system in spite of operating for over 200 years.
Trump’s pick for Postmaster General is just the man for the job. Louis Dejoy has exactly zero prior experience at the Post Office and in fact had invested in UPS (which he divested). Aside from having interests in competitors and sub-contractors like XPO, DeJoy’s main function seems to be hamstringing the effectiveness of mail delivery, he’s slowing the operation down. Normally one could conclude that kind of leadership is designed to sabotage not only the profitability but the public image of the agency, leading to the argument that it should be privatized. However in 2020 there is an added motive; it’s believed that because of the COVID-19 pandemic a certain segment of the population may vote by mail. That demographic is Democtrats who may be interested in reducing public exposure by avoiding the polls. Voter suppression is an added bonus in Republicans effort to destroy the U.S. Postal Service.

All this and the attempt to stack the U.S. Supreme Court with ultra right-wing conservative judges so incase any lawsuits concerning these changes make it that far will be struck down. Trump is far and away the most dangerous person to ever take residency in the White House and likewise, the true colors of the Republican Party are showing with their quiet complicity. Apparently to make America again is to set us back a century or so.

Voter ID is a useless red herring. Here’s why.

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    Here’s the thing with voter ID, it does virtually nothing. VID is a slight-of-hand trick, a distraction of political convenience. I’d like to see somebody, anybody prove voter ID would change the outcome of any election anywhere by preventing in-person fraud. It won’t. Here’s why:
Voter ID will address in-person voting directly at the polls in real time ONLY. That’s it. That’s all. No election in U.S. history has ever been decided or influenced by in-person voter fraud. There’s a reason for that, it doesn’t happen on any notable level. That’s right folks it doesn’t happen much.
     I’m not against voter ID as long as every American gets ID easily and for free. But I am indifferent to it because it’s a red herring. Voter ID won’t do shit. Nothing. Why? Because there’s nothing for it to do. It’s a solution without a problem. Voter ID at the polls will not address the real fraud because real electoral fraud is systemic.
I would like to see anybody prove me wrong here.
     ID will not address disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, intimidation, ballot manipulation by a poll volunteer or election official, ballot destruction by an official, software tampering, mail-in fraud, etc. Only in-person fraud does ID address and while systemic electoral fraud continues on and on, I guarantee your average poll volunteer has a better chance of being struck by lightening than countering in-person voter fraud.
Once you wrap your mind around the fact that in-person voter fraud or voter impersonation is nearly non-existent, and ID prevents only that, then the question why the push for ID laws must be burning in your brain. Why?
Could it be that requiring photo ID would disenfranchise the poorest Americans by the hundreds of thousands? People in poverty face the problem of living miles away from an office that issues state ID’s, they often lack transportation, many offices in poor areas are open a couple days a week. Who do the poorest among us vote for traditionally? Who is the primary pusher of voter ID laws? It doesn’t take Detective Columbo to figure this out.
     Voter ID laws not only do nothing to prevent electoral fraud but are another example of systemic voter suppression.
Voter+ID+MGN

#MeToo where are you?

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joebiden-1

Recently a hashtag concerning Joe Biden has surfaced echoing a popular mantra in our society. #IBelieveTaraReade is making the rounds on social media and possibly growing legs, the question is when will the Me Too movement catch on?

Tara Reade is former staff assistant for Joe Biden when he was a Senator in 1993. Lately she has been giving a graphic account of sexual assault involving the 2020 presidential candidate to any media outlet who will listen.

If one were to search any of the varieties of Tara Reade hashtags one finds there are already a lot of Bernie supporters jumping on this grassroots trend (taking into account that some on any side may be fake). They’re still holding steady with the Me Too mantra of “I Believe Women” and are using Biden’s own words against him because he as well has been quoted saying to the Washington Post, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.” The movement doesn’t leave room for much else, only I Believe, that’s it. If there is more  they’re not very good at articulating it.

The consequence of the Me Too movement’s I-believe-women-unconditionally attitude was painfully obvious from the start and predictably it seems it may come back to bite them. It was just a matter of time before a high profile Democrat would be accused of sexual misconduct, decades after the fact, with no physical evidence and very little or no eyewitness evidence. Literally one persons word against the other, and a compilation of the accused persons dubious character traits; like shoulder rubbing and hair sniffing for example.  So what is the portion of the Me Too crowd who has thrown their support behind Biden to do now?  Will they believe Tara Reade unconditionally and throw Biden to the curb? Some of them may, but not a peep from any high profile supporters so far. And many rank and file supporters have actually accused her of being a Russian asset, and have accused Bernie supporters of blowing this up for political gain. Sound familiar?

Bernie supporters aren’t handling this any better however. They’re forcefully using the Me Too mantra of unconditional belief to destroy a political rival only this time it’s a rival in their own party.  All it takes is an accusation. What will it take for them to realize this is a two-way street? What will they do when a person who they are giving their full-throated support to is accused in such a way? Will they throw their guy away or will they call it a political hit job? It would be no surprise if they chose the latter. That’s politics for you, what’s good for the goose is never the same for the gander is it?

Trump supporters are also getting in on the act, rubbing Me Too in everyone’s face who doesn’t viciously attack Joe Biden. Another reason the extreme and unfair stand of the movement is self defeating. They should have seen this coming, after all it was truly a matter of time that their integrity would be tested on their own turf. Bernie supporters and hard line Me Too advocates would be smart to take note. Of course if Trump supporters had any shame they would sit this one out since their guy, the pussy grabber has been accused by more than 50 women of sexual misconduct and caught red handed paying off a porn star with whom he cheated on his pregnant wife. Talk about having not a square inch of real estate to stand on.

The point is this, the Me Too movement isn’t wrong on merit. Women should be taken seriously when alleging sexual misconduct, rape, abuse, assault, harassment, at home or in the work place. Women in general deserve for Tara Reade to be taken seriously, and Reade deserves to have an impartial and thorough investigation on the strength of only her word. But that’s all ones word can get. The rest has to come with an investigation that either uncovers proof of misconduct or not.

Either way however, at this point the Me Too movement is largely silent on this one. No mainstream outrage. Not yet.

We’re There For The Oil, Folks

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trump

President Donald Trump. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

In the latest reality TV episode of Trump Goes to Washington the President made a curious admission. On more than one occasion in the last few days President Trump has repeated in one context or another, “we’re there for the oil” when asked about troops in Syria.  At a press conference with Turkish president Erdoğan Trump declared “We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.”

The big irony of this president is that he tends to tell the truth rarely but when he does, he wasn’t supposed to. The fact that the U.S. is in the Middle East and Africa solely for the natural resources is the worst kept secret in Washington. Of course they keep up the facade that our troops are there to for a number of honorable reasons, for this they maintain a grab bag of deceptive go-to talking points. The first one is the term “national interests”, which is of course a euphemism for financial interests. Other misleading items in the bag include national security, American freedom, the Constitution, democracy (home or abroad), human rights, and fighting terrorism among others.

The Pentagon is doing it’s duty by pushing back on the presidents blunder by going out of it’s way to clarify the U.S. position that we’re actually there to fight ISIS. That’s only a partial truth. They want us to believe the fight against ISIS is a stand alone issue because…we just don’t like terrorism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We fight terrorism in the region because they tend to disrupt our extraction of resources. We’re there for the oil, folks.

Even far right talking head and Trump cheerleader Laura Ingraham tried to rein in the president during an exchange on The Ingraham Angle, she sounded more like she was coaching him.

“Not taking the oil, they’re not taking the oil,” Ingraham said.

“Well, maybe we will. Maybe we won’t,” Trump said.

“They’re protecting the facility,” Ingraham said.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should take it, but we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil. So they say he left troops in Syria. No. I got rid of all of them other than we’re protecting the oil. We have the oil,” Trump said.

This president can’t take a hint. Much like targeting and destroying cultural sites, another thing Trump threatens to do, outwardly plundering resources with the military is a war crime. Trump doesn’t know enough about foreign policy or international law to even be involved; after three years as POTUS he’s still grossly unqualified to be president.

Bottom line, Trump mistakenly let the cat out of the bag. Our freedom and the integrity of the U.S. Constitution in no way hinges on our presence in the Middle East or Africa. We aren’t there for human rights, or to encourage democracy. Quite the opposite. It’s far more common for the U.S. to prop up and coddle dictators who will in exchange allow our oil companies carte blanche within the borders of their country.

“We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.” — A rare truth escapes the lips of President Trump.

Jussie Smollett may have been behind his own attack, but that doesn’t get Trump supporters off the hook.

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It appears the Chicago police suspect Jussie Smollett of possibly having a part in his own assault, where Smollett claims two men attacked him and used racial and homophobic slurs. Since the Jan 29 attack, police have made two arrests but released the two men  saying more investigation was needed in light of new evidence. According to CNN two inside law enforcement sources say they believe Smollett may have paid the two, one of which Smollett worked with on the show Empire.

Jessie Smollett denies the new development in the case and has expressed frustration over the matter. He also denies claims that he ever said the perpetrators were wearing MAGA hats.

Conservative media, Trump supporters on social media and bloggers have latched on to the story in its current state of development as further proof that the public perception that Trump supporters are mindless bigots and homophobes is being unfairly crafted by celebrities and left wing activists and is perpetuated by willing accomplices in the so-called fake news media.

The thought that Trumps supporters are being unfairly maligned by hoaxes is a fantasy.  All one need do to realize a crystal clear illustration of what a Trump supporter is would be to follow Trumps own Twitter feed. And yes, his supporters are guilty by association. There are literally dozens of documented accounts of Trump encouraging or condoning acts of violence against dissenters and members of the press, which of course makes a few fakers insignificant compared to the magnitude of the real thing.

A hoax far from exonerates the culture of hatred being encouraged by rhetoric from this president. People should indeed be aware of such fakes, they have no place in our discourse, however neither does using them as an exercise in misdirection. Both sides have supporters who behave badly on occasion, but I can think of only one person who brazenly encourages violent behavior. Trump CLEARLY encourages and condones violence. Nobody should be surprised when it happens. You won’t find a single other person to say “kick the crap out of them, I’ll pay for your defense attorney”.

The examples go on and on.

It can’t be pointed out enough that not the fake news media, nor the shadowy deep state, nor does Obama or members of academia, or the corrupt scientific community write daily on Trumps Twitter account. Nope, he’s a lying, illiterate, vile, pig all on his own, every day without exception, with nobody else, and no grand conspiracy to blame. It’s just him and his Twitter alone. He’s the fly in his own ointment. He’s his own troll.

If a Trump supporter can suspend his or her own integrity enough to be lead by a guy who tries to scare us into following him by claiming that an entire race of people are largely to blame for rape and murder to the extent that a border wall will produce a significant drop in those crimes, then fine.  But it’s not the media or anyone else making Trump sound like a racist when he tells such lies. And likewise it’s not the media or anyone else who makes Trumps followers look like racists for supporting him.

The Devil We Know: A Review

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The Devil We Know is a documentary like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s a terrifying look at  the chemical industry’s impact on the environment and human health. It sounds like a familiar story on the surface, chemical company dumps waste in the river and lies to the local town until they get caught. The end.

devil we know

Don’t make the mistake that this is the case here. It’s not hyperbolic or even melodramatic to say the actions of DuPont and 3M have implications that literally reach every corner of the world, affecting nearly every living creature; a point this film goes to length to drive home. This film highlights a group of compounds produced first by 3M and later by DuPont and others that are now in the blood of 99% of people around the world. The short name for the chemical, C8 is used in hundreds of products because of it’s non-stick qualities, most notably but far from limited to Teflon and Scotchgard.   

The film begins with an ominous home video and voice from Parkersburg West Virginia farmer Wilber Tennant, who sold a large parcel of his farm land to DuPont for discharge of “non hazardous waste”.  They go back to Mr. Tennant’s video throughout  the movie. 

To tell the complex story that spans decades and has a large cast of characters the film creates a vehicle of three major people: Rob Bilott, Bucky Bailey and Joe Kiger.   

Rob Bilott is an attorney who first gets involved by agreeing to represent Wilber Tennant in a lawsuit against Dupont for the contamination of his farm downstream from the Dupont plants waste runoff. Mr Tennant has video of frothing stream water, dead fish and deer, and his cattle. The cattle is shown, with the farmers narration, with tumors on their bodies, black teeth and eye deformities, Mr. Tennant exclaiming, “they’re born that way, I’ve never seen anything like it”. The Tennants and DuPont quietly settled on an undisclosed sum in 2001. Mr. and Mrs. Tennant would die of cancer a few years later. 

Joe Kiger and his wife Darlene get a letter Lubeck Public Works in 2000 informing the residents  of Parkersburg that a chemical called ammonium perfluorooctanoate also known as PFOA, or C8, was found in samples of well and drinking water.  The letter described the  unregulated chemical as “persistent, slow to be eliminated from the blood steam”. The term persistent is a euphemism for a chemical the is bio-resistant, it can’t be broken down. Not by sunlight, not with heat, not with microbes. It never goes away. You’re born with it, you die with it. Chemists working with the development of C8 gave it the nickname “Devils Piss”.   The letter assured residents that the level of exposure in the water was well under DuPont’s standards for safety. The chemicals found in their water are completely harmless.  Turns out legally speaking, the letter comes with a time stamp. From the time the letter is sent there is a two year statute of limitation for lawsuit among the people who receive the letter, this information was not disclosed. Joe Kiger like most people in Parkersburg took LPW and DuPont at their word until it started to become clear that something was happening to their town. Mr. Kiger began to notice the dogs in the neighborhood were developing tumors and even some of the kids teeth were turning black. He started contacting different agencies and the EPA sent him a letter abstract of the Tennant case, mentioning the condition of the cattle, tumors, black teeth, deformed eyes. The letter included Rob Bilott’s name and contact info.   

Around that time 3M, the producer of C8 and Dupont’s supplier had come to the conclusion that the chemical was too dangerous and was to phase out it’s production by 2002. This would cost 3M $300 million. That same year DuPont took this as an opportunity to produce the chemicals themselves and began production in Fayetteville N.C.  The 3M announcement along with the news that DuPont would be continuing production caught the attention of Rob Bilott who then began to send his files to the EPA asking them to investigate the PFOA chemical.  DuPont tried and failed to get a gag order against Bilott. According to an internal DuPont communication Bilott had shared “130 of our worst documents” to the EPA. And that was just from the Tennant case. Documents found in discovery from the Tennent case (and a lawsuit to come) show that 3M and DuPont conducted studies as far back as the 1960’s that show these chemicals would likely do serious damage to the environment and cause cancer and other illness in animals and humans. One rather frightening comment in a report said “C8 could be affecting DNA”. 

The film portrays another person, Bucky Bailey, who’s mother worked for DuPont making Teflon in their plant. Bucky was born having only one nostril and deformed eyes. They weave Bucky’s story in throughout the film to great affect. In spite of his deformities and the more than 30 operations to address them, Bucky displays incredible strength, an enduring faith in humanity and and a quite touching aura of genuine happiness. His existence is marked with tragedy yet, as with most people the complexity of life offers him so much more; like parents who stand by him with fierce love and loyalty, he gets married and with his wife makes the incredibly tough decision to a child of their own. Bucky Bailey would be named in the class action lawsuit to come.        

Class Action 

Rob Bilott was already on DuPont’s trail, and when Joe Kiger contacted him it opened up a floodgate. They decided a class action lawsuit would do the best by everyone involved. This is where it gets interesting. The discovery process which includes letters, emails, internal documents, depositions uncovers a mountain of information going back decades and shows what 3M and DuPont knew and when they knew it.  One document shows a DuPont communication discussing the decision whether to go the 3M route and spend millions developing another chemical or take their chances with what they had. The memo describes C8 as “the devil we know”. The decision was made to go forward essentially with a cover up. The lawsuit would eventually include six water districts and 70,000 people. 

Doing scientific study was nothing new to DuPont but when Bilott starting turning up the heat the company began to employ measures that add up to little more than public relations. They used any scientist they could find to publicly announce that C8 was harmless. They also used their power in the government, specifically by employing Mike McCabe who in 2000 was the Deputy Administrator to the EPA. His firm, McCabe and Associates were hired as consultants to DuPont in 2003.  Communications circulating  throughout DuPont indicates they were feeding the EPA with comments that the EPA should include in public statements.  They had to resort to this because the decades of studies by their own scientists showed they knew of the damage they were doing. 

In one such study done in the late 70’s DuPont wanted to test the blood of their employees against a control group of uncontaminated blood. They started out with archived blood but there was a problem, the archived blood they got was also contaminated. They the began to search by using volunteers from men and women, old and young, all contaminated. They expanded their search across the planet, all contaminated with C8.  They finally found an uncontaminated control group, in archived blood of army soldiers from the beginning of the Korean War. They had to go back to the early 1950’s to find uncontaminated blood because since then they had managed to infect the entire planet with C8. Another study conducted by DuPont involved gathering water samples to see how far their chemicals from the plant were reaching. They found high concentrations of PFOA as far as 40 miles from their plant contaminating much of the Ohio River Valley.    

As the film progresses it goes into great detail of DuPont’s influence over the towns they inhabit, a major part of the community not just by employing every other person in it but by making a conspicuous presence in their schools, churches, community centers and local media. Right down to the names of some of the roads, DuPont is everywhere. 

In 2005 DuPont agrees to settle the lawsuit for $343 million dollars. However the plaintiffs who could have taken the money and walked decide to counter with a different offer; they’ll take the money and set up a science panel to study the effects of C-8 on their community and under the settlement if any illness is linked, anyone diagnosed with such illness could further pursue legal action against the company. DuPont rolled the dice assuming that no study could be done large enough to produce conclusive a link between C8 and human illness.  They were wrong. 

Parts of this film feel like a horror movie rather than a documentary but when it sinks in that 3m and DuPont have managed to, in the words of one attorney, permeate the living world with C8, you realize that no fictional movie can rival the reality of DuPont. This film is a strong indictment of the business practices and moral compass of a company that put it’s own well being in the form of profits in front of the health and lives of not only the people in proximity of the plants, people who receive the highest exposure, but indeed every living person and creature on the planet.  You, everyone you have ever known and everyone you ever will know have C8 in his or her blood. 

Chemical company dumps waste in the river and lies to the local town until they get caught. In order to reduce exposure to lawsuit they create a spin off company called Chemours and produce a different non stick chemical called GenX which is already showing up in waterways. And is known to cause cancer in rats. 

The end?

 

Want to know more? Go to The Devil We Know 

As the credits roll at the end they give “very special thanks” to a lot of people and groups including Sharon Lerner of The Intercept. You can find her series on this subject here The Teflon Toxin 

 

 

 

Cons Really Reaching on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx Roots

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Congresswoman of New York’s 14th congressional district  

Conservatives are getting sensitive lately. They take issue with bad language, they’re disturbed by all the bullying and mocking, and they’re incensed by all the lying in politics.  Specifically concerning lies told by the newly sworn-in Democrat from New York’s 14th congressional district Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who as some of you may know left a lasting impression on incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley by losing a shoe in his arse on his way out the door.

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 One of these shoes is now part of an exhibition at the Cornell Costume Collection titled “Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline.” The other is forever lost in Joe Crowley’s ass.

The lie conservatives are so worried about concern claims on the Congresswoman’s website and other social media of her ties to the Bronx. The problem: It’s not a lie. Not even close. The Daily Mail brought up residency and the district where she went to school and conservative America Talks Live host John Cardillo zero’d in on her in an attempt to discredit her Bronx girl image. In doing so Cardillo crafts his attack in a way that leads one to believe Cortez has no ties to the Bronx other than being born there and that she is really a privileged, spoiled rich girl who has fabricated the story of her roots to better, yet fraudulently connect with constituents in the 14th district which includes the Bronx and Queens.  His attacks on Twitter include using a pic of her childhood home.

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Aside from being wrong about the college, (she attended Boston University) he’s purposely misleading people about her own representation of her upbringing.  She never said she lived in the Bronx or went to school there; she never denied living in Yorktown. Her narrative is that her parents decided when she was 5 years old that she would be better off in school district other than the Bronx. They moved from the Bronx to a middle class home in Yorktown Heights where she went to school, then BU. None of this is a secret. It doesn’t take much looking to see that Cardillo’s insinuation that Cortez is lying about her ties to the Bronx is false.  She says on her campaign website that she went to public school in Yorktown and she split time between that life and her extended family who lived in the Bronx.

But conservatives pointed out that the website changed the wording of that narrative after she was called out by them in order to cover up the truth. Again that is a lie. They did indeed change the wording however they didn’t change in any way the meaning or point of the narrative, see for yourself.  Official website

The original statement said, “She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40-minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.”

The statement now reads, “She ended up attending public school in Yorktown, 40 minutes north of her birthplace, as a result, much of her early life was spent in transit between her tight-knit extended family in the Bronx & her daily student life.”

That’s a cover up? My question to conservatives: is that all you got? This and mocking her for dancing in college is the best you can do?  I think you’re in trouble.

 

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A Letter to Anti-Trump Conservatives

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The 2016 election cycle must be the strangest anyone in America has seen. Ever. Hillary Clinton is a politician to the core with more than her share of baggage but nothing new there. It’s Donald Trump who’s turned this election into a rather bizarre freak show and moderate conservative voters are baffled as anyone. How could this guy have made it this far?  I’m here to tell you it was inevitable. The vast majority of conservative Americans have been waiting for Donald Trump for years, even decades and here he is like some kind of strange Pied Piper.  For years we’ve had to endure right-wing pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and all the rest wax on about how if only a real conservative with balls would show up on the scene. Someone with the guts to stand up to the so-called left-leaning media. Someone to ignore political correctness and just say it like it is. Someone who will put good Christian values in front of all others. A person who will save America from Mexicans and Muslims, from the gays, from a lot of uppity Black Lives Matter thugs,  from healthcare. A guy who can remind a woman of her place. A candidate who will save Christmas for Chrissake!

Good ‘ol conservative Americans wanted him and they got him.

This however leaves a lot of people who thought conservatism was a good thing staring at the TV in disbelief.  We all watched while Trump destroyed Fox News. He steamrolled the GOP. We watched in amazement while he brutally insulted republicans like Cruz, Christie and Rubio and then turned them into hypnotized puppets. But Trump didn’t turn his supporters into puppets. He didn’t hypnotize anyone and if fact is a manifestation of American conservatism. He’s a symptom. They created him; not the other way around.

Bottom line, if you moderate conservatives feel like you’re suddenly on the outside you’re wrong; there’s nothing sudden about it. You’ve always been on the outside you just didn’t know it.

 

 

 

Detroit: The Fall of A Great City

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The Downfall Of Detroit

            The fall of Detroit and other industrial cities similar to it seems like an absolutely amazing and profoundly insuperable  phenomenon. To just read up on it in on paper won’t prove good enough, one must see it to believe it. To drive through random neighborhoods in Detroit leaves an unsuspecting person in culture shock. Some parts of the city look like war-torn pictures viewed on CNN.  A new term in the American lexicon called “ruin porn” puts a label on such images.

 

    detroit-abandoned-buildings        Detroit stands with 60,000 vacant houses according to then mayor Dave Bing in 2012. Detroit lost 25% of its citizens in the decade following the year 2000 and around 38% of Detroit’s current residents live under the poverty line according to a 2011 article in The Economist (So Cheap). The problems Detroit faces in 2014 appear insurmountable.

            Detroit started the 20th century as a moderately industrial town with under 286,000 people living there (Martelle 71).  Henry Ford boosted the manufacturing industry however, with his obsession with the automobile and the hyper-manufacturing of the same, ushering in the era of rapid assembly and changing the operation of manufacturing forever. Mr. Ford invented the modern assembly line giving his company the ability to churn out automobiles at an incredible pace, and by 1923 had rolled 2,000,000 units off the line (Watts 135). Other car companies followed Ford’s lead and by the 1930’s Detroit’s population swelled to 1,569,000 people (Sugrue, 23).  

            The entire world took notice. The ability of the assembly line to accelerate a war effort was of course on the minds of world leaders.  Adolf Hitler, so impressed with the ability to manufacture machines on a mass scale set out to build a plant that would make more automobiles than Ford (Shirer 266-67).  During World War II the U.S. government put Detroit’s expertise in manufacturing and man-power to use making war machines; a practice Mr. Ford resisted until the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war on the United States drew the auto-maker out of his isolationist views (Watts 508).  The war made the city an employment powerhouse and by the 1950’s the population was 1,849,568 (Sugrue 23). The auto industry and the United Auto Workers union created the middle class in Michigan and Detroit was conspicuously on the map.  

            Fast forward to 2013 and the population counts down to around 700,000, nearly as low as the 1910 numbers (Mirviss 31). The obvious questions becomes what happened to cause this incredible decline in Detroit’s population, and what actions can the city and the surrounding metro area employ to remedy it?  The former seems easy to account for until one adds political ideology into the mix reducing the facts of the matter down to arguable points of view.  The latter will prove just as difficult if not more so, and easier said than done.

            Conservative political ideology make the problem and its causes easy to figure; it all boils down to culture and social engineering. With many of these theories the decline of Detroit and most other industrial cities start just after the civil rights movement in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In many cities this time frame coincides with the elections of black mayors and the takeover of cities by the Democratic party.   Detroit hasn’t had a Republican in the mayor’s office since 1962 hasn’t seen a white mayor since 1974.

 

The Conservative Theory

            The combination of the Democratic Party and African American leaders running these major cities fuel a racist political theory full of right-wing talking points based mostly on coincidence rather than solid and complete facts. These theories include un-proven ideas including the inherent laziness of the urban population only too willing to take whatever hand-outs given to them in place of employment. The Democrats and black leaders helped create a nanny state in which the government takes care of the wants and needs of the people with very little expectation compensation in the form of work. Urban people now re-enforced by these socialist policies believe they are entitled to free or subsidized housing, free healthcare, free food, and free education all without paying into the system, all without contributing in any useful way to their own communities. The people of Detroit have no incentive and consequently no desire to make things better; they therefore elect the leaders who will most likely continue the socialist nanny state while the population dwindles and the city decays into complete ruin.  

            Another popular conservative view focuses attention on the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.  Conservative think-tanks like The Heritage Foundation for example, routinely attack labor unions and their members, blaming them largely for society’s economic woes. The demand for higher wages and better benefits naturally sends companies looking for cheap labor. James Sherk, a writer from The Heritage Foundation sums it up this way:

“Union wage gains do not materialize out of thin air. They come out of business earnings. Other union policies, such as union work rules designed to increase the number of workers needed to do a job and stringent job classifications, also raise costs. Often, unionized companies must raise prices to cover these costs, losing customers in the process. Fewer customers and higher costs would be expected to cut businesses’ earnings, and economists find that unions have exactly this effect. Unionized companies earn lower profits than are earned by non-union businesses” (Sherk).

History Proves Otherwise

            In reality Detroit’s woes stem from a much more complex set of problems.  Big city problems are a real study in social science. What made Detroit how it appears today turns out to be an entire chemistry of social ills, a poison cocktail of racism, union busting, white flight to the suburbs while systematically excluding the same opportunities for blacks to make the same choices and many other elements. Even throughout the 40’s and 50’s when blacks thought moving to Detroit would provide some form of security they found huge obstacles. Financial institutions and real estate brokers considered the black community a high risk pool and used what’s become known as housing segregation and as a result, confining the black community to certain poor neighborhoods;  areas destined to get worse since obtaining loans to improve properties were hard to come by (Surgue 34-36). When the city and the US Housing Authority tried to build 200 public housing units the proposal was met with strong opposition from white homeowners living in nearby neighborhoods and in a strange twist the USHA announced it would no longer insure new mortgages in the surrounding area, only reinforcing the fear housing value will go down (Martelle 150). The seeds of Detroit’s demise where being planted.

1945 saw the end of World War II and the U.S. as the only un-wrecked country on Earth. Europe and Asia were destroyed having no industry anymore; the U.S. had zero competition on the world stage. Throughout the 1950’s the U.S. auto industry  enjoyed huge sales moving 8 million units in 1950 alone (Martelle 159).    

            In 1950 mayor Albert Cobo made it his policy to deter any public housing within his power by vetoing any pending housing proposals, refusing Federal money and stacking the Detroit Housing Commission with elements of the private developing industry (Martelle 171). 

            Jobs for a variety of reasons fled Detroit for the suburbs and for other cities. One strategy for doing so was to fight the unions. The Big Three believed by spreading out the UAW would find itself too weak to recruit members. It was also a matter of space; auto companies found spreading a plant out over a larger area was more efficient than building the plant upward into floors.

             Moving most of the jobs to the suburbs became problematic for blacks for many reasons including there was no public transportation in and out of the city and banks were less than likely to give loans to blacks for automobiles for the same reasons as mortgage loans. Add to this the resistance to allow blacks to purchase property in white neighborhoods and the decline of the city starts to take shape. Perhaps the biggest irony of all shows Henry Ford found no problem hiring blacks and encouraged it. Mr. Ford kept a good relationship with local black churches and used them as a recruiting ground for workers. A solid one half of all black workers in the auto industry worked for Ford Motor Company in the 1940’s.    

            Detroit made its fortune in the steel and auto industries, and the workers shared in the wealth.  As the companies grew and the labor unions took hold, the companies started to make policy out of escaping the cost of labor in Detroit and indeed Michigan. In the 1950’s the Big Three spent billions relocating to the Detroit suburbs and to other cities. In 1950 Michigan was home to 56% of all auto employment in the country, reduced to 40% by 1960 (Sugrue 128).  In this period 163 auto-related factories leave Detroit along with 70,000 jobs ( Kurth 2S).  Detroit deteriorated like this for years while the auto industry moved steadily into the suburbs. Soon the foreign competition started kicking into high-gear. The formerly defeated and literally destroyed Japanese came back, the Big Three didn’t see it coming.

            The oil crisis in the mid 70’s hit the Big Three and their gas-guzzling cars hard, while Japan started exporting their fuel efficient Toyotas and Hondas to America. Detroit’s auto companies responded with less than desirable cars setting them further behind in the minds of the American consumer. While American car companies spent energy fighting the government over fuel and emission standards, Honda generally embraces the regulations and met them without a fight (Maynard 75).    

            All of this cannot become interpreted to in sinuate African American democrats performed a stellar job of saving Detroit, indeed the city seems lifeless; but the city found itself on life support by the time the first black mayor, Mayor Colman Young took office in 1974. This new mayor continued, instead of stopping, the time honored practice of corruption in Detroit by using the cities resources to reward loyal supporters, friends and family members over the course of his twenty years in office (Sugrue 269). The cities demise however began decades before; the result of years of corruption.  Mr. Young presided over the city during a time when it’s foundation was already deeply compromised. When Colman Young took office Detroit was already known as the Murder Capital of America, crime became out of control, the Detroit school system still had segregation issues, jobs were becoming more and more scarce and shortly after the end of Young’s first term 414,000 whites continued their exodus out of the city putting blacks in the majority for the first time (Kurth4S).

            In 1980 when the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act was signed into law the auto company started building their new line of cars in Windsor Ontario. No regard given to Detroit where the unemployment rate was nearly 40%, much higher than the statewide average of 17%. The UAW made concessions to the tune of $720 million in wage and benefit cuts as part of the deal (Kurth 4S).  According to the U.S. Census Bureau Detroit’s total workforce diminished nearly two-thirds from 1970 to 2011 (Kurth 5S); one example of the auto industries policies defining the next quarter century in Detroit and in 2008 the crash of the nation’s financial institutions dealt the final deadly blow to the Big Three and the Detroit Metro region.

            In 2008 the greatest financial failure since the Great Depression happened in the U.S. and rippled around the world, destroying the U.S. economy and taking the auto industry with it. The auto industry in fact took a huge hit with GM and Chrysler accepting a tax-payer funded bailout.  The government spent 49.5 billion to save GM alone and according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, the U.S. stood to lose 1 million more jobs without the auto bailout (Lestch).   

A New Beginning

            On July 18, 2013 the city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection putting into question the fate of such things as pensions earned by retired city workers and other assets like ones found at the Detroit Institute of Art. Detroit becomes so far, the largest municipality to file for such protection at more than $18 billion in debt, half of which comes from unfunded health insurance and unfunded pension payouts for current and retired city workers (Dybis 22). Every other major city reeling from similar pains will watch Detroit now with great interest. On December 3rd, just weeks after Detroit elected Mike Duggan its new mayor, a U.S. bankruptcy judge approved another form of life support by ruling Detroit will go ahead with Chapter 9 bankruptcy paving the way for financial restructuring.(Bomey).

            The idea of a bankruptcy started as a black cloud looming over the city, but now it’s done the concept almost seems closer to a new beginning than a funeral. Leaders involved in the management of Detroit like Governor Snyder, city emergency manager Orr and mayor-elect Duggan want to see the re-organizing and Chapter 9 re-structuring wrapped up in 2014, which will clear the way for a new Detroit, and both camps express an optimistic eagerness to work together in the better interests of the city.

            One cannot overstate the importance of education in a crisis such as this, a fact not lost on Governor Snyder. Only 11% of the city’s residents earned a college degree according to a 2011 article in The Economist (So Cheap).  2013 graduates of city high schools will become eligible for tuition-free enrollment into local community colleges in the metro area for the fall. This program, promised by the Governor in 2011 gets support from local business and foundations, bearing the $1 million price tag (Troop). However education and available employment go hand-in-hand, educated people with no job prospects will seek those opportunities somewhere else. Detroit and indeed the State of Michigan suffered the effects of an educated migration since the financial crash in 2008. Without the jobs the region looses the talent. The state of Michigan at least found a slowdown if not a slight turnaround in the hemorrhage of educated people to other states; up to 63% of college graduates stay in the state compared to numbers found in 2007 (Troop).

            Giving people the financial opportunity however doesn’t address the drive, or lack of drive maintained by the students attending these institutions. One problem recognized by higher education becomes the drop-out rate among Detroiters. Wayne State University for example reports 23% of students from the city will not attend a second year at WSU, a ten percentage point difference in the negative compared to students from other places (Kiley). Indeed Detroit suffers among the worst cities in America in terms of public schools. This presents a complex cocktail of problems including but not limited to lack of funding in the public schools on all levels from state to federal and the lack of interest or ability from parents.

            Another encouraging statistic from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shows homelessness decreased in Michigan at the rate of 11.7%  since the same time last year, thanks in part to a federal program called Opening Doors (Laitner 4A).   This along with a slow but steady decrease in the national unemployment rate, down to its lowest point since 2008 at 7% and a healthier, stronger manufacturing environment creates a modicum of hope.  The U.S. Government sold its share of stock back to GM so the company stands now on its own.  Five of the major auto companies, which includes two of the Big Three, enjoyed record sales in recent years adding up to a combined 50 billion per year  in profits (Macaluso).  GM stock, in fact reached  $40 per share for the first time since the company went bankrupt in November 2010 (Bomey).  

            Detroiters want to get rid of Governor Snyder’s emergency manager and they expect the new mayor to get it done. For now however, the city and Mr. Duggan will need all the help they can get.  In a city where even the most rudimentary of functions like streetlight repair require a judges stamp of approval, mayor elect Mike Duggan’s work will seem never ending.  Duggan must reduce the physical area of services the city provides, the exodus of citizens out of Detroit left the 139 square mile city, enough real estate to fit Miami, Minneapolis and San Francisco with room to spare, without the tax base to cover the cost of operating in such a large area (So Cheap).  This means reducing the number of miles of road repairs, the square miles in which garbage pick-up activities proceed, reduce the number of areas in need of street lights, reduce the response areas of emergency services like police and fire.                      

             The most obvious solution of course becomes available employment but many more solutions must present themselves.  Education, public transportation, urban renewal, government oversight and enforced affirmative action will make a difference.  In reality the local communities must get involved and the government must enact and enforce policies to encourage industry back into the city, bring back the long missing tax base the city needs to function, encourage better education in the city which again will require working with the governor, and find a way to reduce the vast areas of blight plaguing the neighborhoods and hindering sharply any chance of repairing Detroit’s destroyed image. 

             All things considered however, possibly the most important element in the entire chemistry of solutions will constitute the diligent nature-or lack thereof the people who live in Detroit.  The residents will become effected by their own actions and indeed inactions; only 25% of the eligible voters in Detroit bothered to vote in the new mayoral election, the contest between the now mayor-elect Mike Duggan and Benny Napoleon on November 6, 2013 (Meyer 7A).

             Some precincts waited for hours for any voters at all to show up while others, like Precinct 109 with only two registered voters and Precinct 105 with a total of four, saw no voters what-so-ever (Riley 5A).  The cynical observer will deduct the lethargic 75% who won’t even come out to vote for the mayor of their town, certainly will perform very little other activities to better their communities. Mr. Duggan seems all too aware of this saying, “Detroit’s turn around will not occur until everyday Detroiters are involved in this effort” (Helms 6A). Perhaps the two issues most unifying in terms of the public became the possible selling of treasures from the DIA and the city’s looming pension cuts; charitable foundations targeting the public for donation with the goal of reaching $500 million began recently (Gallager 1A).   Detroit seems like a city in a coma, it will take not only the citizens of the city but the entire region; as well as the state the federal government to resuscitate it.  

 

 

 

        

 

Works Cited

Bomey, Nathan. “GM Stock Busts Through $40 Barrier.” Detroit Free Press. 7 Nov. 2013: 1A-    8A. Print.

Bomey, Nathan, Brent Snavely, and Alisa Priddle. “Detroit Becomes Largest U.S. City to Enter Bankruptcy.” USA Today 3 Dec. 2013: n.pag. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.                            Dybis, Karen. “Resurrecting Detroit.” Corp!  Sept/Sept. 2013: 22-26. Print.  

Gallager, John. “Fund Lets You Help DIA, Pensions.” Detroit Free Press. 7 Dec. 2013: 1A-9A.   Print.

Helms, Matt and Joe Guillen. ” Detroiters To Duggan: Turn Our City Around.” Detroit Free         Press. 6 Nov. 2013: 1A-8A. Print.

Kiley, Kevin. “Wayne State U.’s Stark Graduation Gaps Reflect Detroit’s Struggles.” The             Chronicle of Higher Education 57.09 (2010). Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.                                                                                                                                                             Kurth, Joel, Mike Wilkenson, and Louis Aguilar. “Six Decades.” The Detroit News 4 Oct. 2013:   1S-8S.             Print.

Laitner, Bill. “HUD Finds Number Of Homeless Falling.” Detroit Free Press. 22 Nov. 2013:        1A-9A. Print. 

Lestch, Corinne. “Bailout of General Motors Cost Taxpayers $10.5, Treasury Dept. Says.” New    York Daily News 10 Dec. 2013: n.pag. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago: Chicago Review Press Inc. 2012. Print. 

Maynard, Micheline. The End of Detroit. New York: Currency Doubleday, 2003. Print.

Macaluso, Grace. “Major Carmakers Enjoy Decade-High Profits.” The Windsor Star. 13 Dec.        2013: n.pag. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.

Meyer, Zlati. “In Detroit, Weather Good, But Just 25% Cast Ballots.” Detroit Free Press 6 Nov. 2013: 1A-8A. Print.

Mirviss, Laura. “Rebuilding Detroit piece by piece.” Architectural Record Oct. 2012: 31.   Academic        OneFile. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.

Riley, Rochelle. “Biggest Worry? The Residents Who Don’t Care.” The Detroit Free Press. 6        Nov. 2013: 1A-8A. Print.        

Sherk, James. “What Unions do: How Labor Unions Affect Jobs and the Economy”. The Heritage Foundation.  The Heritage Foundation. May 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2013. 

“So cheap, there’s hope; The parable of Detroit.” The Economist 22 Oct. 2011: 31(US). Academic             OneFile. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.

Sugrue, J. Thomas. The Origins Of Urban Crisis: Race And Inequlity In Postwar Detroit.   Princeton.  Princeton University Press. 1996. Print.

 Troop, Don. “Detroit, Bankrupt, Looks to Colleges as Partners in Recovery.” The Chronicle of     Higher Education 60.02 (2013). Academic OneFile. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.