A massive sinkhole that swallowed eight prized sports cars at the National Corvette Museum has become such a popular attraction that officials want to preserve it — and may even put one or two of the crumpled cars back inside the hole.
Makes perfect sense to me, really.
Via
What started as a tragedy has turned into an tourist draw. Corvette museum sinkhole to stay http://t.co/5jVSQHzkvG God Bless Capitalism!
— Renna (@RennaW) June 26, 2014
NAME!
THAT!
PARTY!
Two Detroit police officers shoved aside a TV reporter with Fox/WJBK Channel 2 who was trying to interview a city councilman on Tuesday night.
M.L. Elrick was attempting to speak with City Council President Pro Tem George Cushingberry Jr. before a community meeting at a local church when the cops on the city security detail intervened and pushed the reporter against the wall.
If this stands – and it HAS already been appealed – this is, um, Things Go Boom Time.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes ruled today that pensions of city retirees can legally be cut in Detroit’s bankruptcy — a decision that came as a significant surprise to people observing the case.
Rhodes emphasized he won’t necessarily allow pension cuts to be approved in the city’s final reorganization plan, called a “plan of adjustment.”
Rhodes previously signaled that he planned to decide the issue of whether the pensions can be cut later in the case. But today he said he changed his mind and decided ruling on the issue now would expedite the bankruptcy.
Continue reading Bankruptcy judge removes preferential treatment for Detroit’s pension obligations.
MSNBC just can’t help themselves, poor things.
Important update from MSNBC: Detroit is fast becoming America's most "libertarian city" http://t.co/8yZbVlvwCf
— HotAir.com (@hotairblog) July 26, 2013
The fascinating part is the way that a progressive network so casually went for the disemboweling stroke on libertarians, there. Which is unsurprising: the alternative is to face that Detroit is the way that it is because the most rabid ideological elements of [the] Democratic party had no opposition to its will and desires there for a half-century. And dear God, but it shows.
Mind you, they’re not going to do this.
Yet.
Prosperous suburbs surrounding Detroit — and even the struggling enclaves within — are working to distance themselves from a city in financial ruin.
In Hamtramck, one City Council candidate is taking that idea to the extreme.
Richard Fabiszak has proposed that Hamtramck build a 12 or 14-foot wall around the city, keeping out Detroiters, and requiring state-issued identification to get in.
I have been told that the below is actually the case:
[Ingham County judge Rosemarie Aquilina] says Thursday’s historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.
[snip]
Lawyers representing pensioners and two city pension funds got an emergency hearing Thursday with Aquilina, and she said she planned to issue an order to block the bankruptcy filing. But lawyers and the judge learned that Orr filed the Detroit bankruptcy petition in Detroit 5 minutes before the hearing began.
Aquilina said the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees, including those in the City of Detroit.
I think that it’s this clause that the judge is referring to: Continue reading At this rate, they’ll soon be forced to burn down Detroit for the insurance.
So. Detroit has filed for bankruptcy.
Ahem.
Deeper and deeper in its gathered regret
The city cannot bear its crushing debt;
Things fall apart; Blue Models cannot stand;
Smith’s virtuous Fist is loosed upon the land,
The bankruptcy is loosed, and everywhere
The solvency of proud Detroit is drowned;
The Left lacked all competence, while the Right
Was kept away, per standard policy.Surely some intervention is at hand;
Surely the Administration is at hand.
The Administration! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Dreams of my Father
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of Hawaii
A boy with careless spirit and the age of a man,
A gaze blank and indifferent as a mask,
Is savoring slow puffs, while all about him
Lurk shadows of soft-bigoted sycophants.
The image fades again; but now I know
That Motown’s century of reckless deeds
Have spawned a nightmare that walks, with bill in hand,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Michigan to be born?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
[Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn] Orr on Friday sat down in a closed-door meeting with about 150 creditors, bond holders and unions to discuss the city’s fiscal situation, seeking concessions that would save Detroit millions of dollars in payments.
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of his plan: Orr said, starting now, there will be a moratorium on debt payments for all unsecured funded debt. Creditors are being asked to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what’s owed them. Underfunded pension claims would get less.
This is my only comment – well, aside from the one where I note that Detroit should take another look at that zombie plan that I suggested a while back – but it’s a doozy: those underfunded claims that I bolded, if I am reading this correctly, represent 3.5 billion dollars’ worth of debt. The Emergency Manager is stating outright that at least 3 billion of that is going to be defaulted on. Now, I am a rank amateur at many aspects of public policy and all that, but I suspect that this will end up having adverse effects on the local economy, no?
I’m telling you, again: it’s already post-apocalypse, over there. They might as well just admit it.
Via Drudge.
This is an odd story:
Federal agents arrested a Saudi Arabian traveler who arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with a pressure cooker, a key component used in the Boston Marathon bombings last month.
Hussain Al Kwawahir will be arraigned at 1 p.m. in federal court for allegedly using an altered passport and lying to a Customs and Border Protection Agent about the pressure cooker.
To the point where I’m wondering whether there’s something else going on.
Moe Lane
PS: It is not my intent to critique unsuccessful attempts to blow up portions of my country – if that is what this is – so I won’t point out the obvious flaws in the suggested scenario.
…still has a certain ring to it.
Detroit, near death after years of being crushed by the weight of its own industrial decline, political malfeasance and insurmountable debt, needs a savior. Michigan’s governor will soon appoint an emergency financial manager for the city, giving him or her 18 months to execute a plan to pull the Motor City out of its financial sinkhole.
And Mitt Romney has every reason to volunteer for that job.
Besides, what the hell CAN they do to Mitt Romney, past calling him a racist? Which, and I agree with Glenn on this, they will. But if Romney gets the kind of powers that I would realistically expect from the nickname “Warlord of Detroit” – and, thanks to Right-to-Work, I can see him getting them – and uses them to fix the horrific mess that the Democrats have created… well. That will resonate elsewhere than in Detroit.
And, who knows? Maybe some of the people in Detroit will figure out where their class interests actually lie.
Moe Lane