Published: 10/6/2010
Types: News, Environmental
A few years ago, a mid-Michigan group of fly fishermen won their immediate court fight to prevent an energy company's wastewater from being piped across state land and into the headwaters of their treasured Au Sable River. An Otsego County judge stopped the pipeline, which would have pumped more th...[MORE]
Published: 9/29/2010
Types: News, Transportation
The perfect storm — and we mean it in a good way — of Mayor Dave Bing's renewed emphasis on redesigning Detroit, the state's new Complete Streets legislation, and a grassroots movement toward increasing the safety of and opportunities for nonmotorized transportation has Miguel Pope cauti...[MORE]
Published: 9/29/2010
"You were had," Maj. Robert Smith of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department told News Hits when we gave him a call after hearing from a well-informed source that a photo we'd run in this column wasn't the real deal. The picture, part of a digital press kit handed out by Rick Thompson of ...[MORE]
Published: 9/22/2010
The Rev. Robert Blake sits in the office of his Highland Park church, leafing through a folder filled with stories of teenagers who have run afoul of the law. There's a 17-year-old arrested for carjacking. A 14-year-old who was skipping school and hanging with gangs. Another who committed unarmed r...[MORE]
Published: 9/15/2010
There was much tough talk when a crowd of about 250 medical marijuana advocates gathered outside the offices of Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard on Monday to protest recent raids on clinics where pot was being sold. Along with outrage over the way patients were treated — allegedly thrown ...[MORE]
Published: 9/8/2010
When last we checked on Royal Oak resident Tom Mahany, he was recovering from a nearly month-long hunger strike he'd conducted in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to draw attention to the problems faced by soldiers being subjected to repeated deployments in war zones, known as "stop loss." ...[MORE]
Published: 9/8/2010
A reader recently contacted MT and suggested we check out the Facebook page of a guy named John Truscott. People who pay attention to politics will recall that Truscott was the wunderkind mouthpiece for John Engler during his reign as our governor. As the profile on the website of his public relati...[MORE]
Published: 9/1/2010
Speaking of boggled minds, News Hits dodged a green bullet when no one took us up on our offer to bet an ounce of purple kush that Wayne Circuit Court Judge Michael Sapala would overrule the Detroit Election Commission and order that a marijuana legalization measure be placed on the Detroit ballot f...[MORE]
Published: 9/1/2010
Last week proved to be a bad one along two fronts in the ongoing battle against the police state. At about the same time a Wayne County Circuit Court judge was upholding a Detroit Election Commission action to keep a pro-marijuana measure off the November ballot, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchar...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
Types: News, Environmental
Readers of this column have figured out by now that there ain't no nuclear physicists manning the desks here at News Hits central. And usually that doesn't much matter. It does, however, make a difference this week, because at least an associate's degree in radiology might help us sort through the...[MORE]
Published: 8/18/2010
Remember back in June, when 15,000 or so radical leftists descended on Detroit to raise all sorts of hell, smashing windows and looting stores and setting fires to cars as they attempted to overthrow the capitalist system as we know it? Of course, you don't remember that, because it never happened....[MORE]
Published: 8/18/2010
Attention Detroit voters: You must be idiots. Granted, that may be a harsh analysis. But, in the light of recent events, it is a conclusion News Hits has been forced to arrive at. First, the Detroit City Council decides not to place a measure on the ballot that would let the city's voters decide w...[MORE]
Published: 8/18/2010
We here at the Hits have been contemplating going to an all-marijuana all-the-time format. When it comes to weed in Michigan, there's more going on than you can shake a joint at. Since passage of the state's medical marijuana law in 2008, it has become an issue that's simply too big to ignore. Just...[MORE]
Published: 8/11/2010
Types: News, Government
A serious struggle is quietly playing out over tax revenues from the General Motors' Poletown plant, pitting the city of Detroit against the tiny city-within-a-city of Hamtramck. Detroit, which collects taxes from the assembly plant straddling the border between the two cities, normally gives Hamt...[MORE]
Published: 8/4/2010
Types: News, Environmental
One of those tree-hugging environmental wacko liberals here at the Metro Times (the one writing this very column, actually) recently reported on a group of Michigan environmentalists protesting the proposed construction of a pipeline that would carry tar sands — also known as heavy crude &mdas...[MORE]
Published: 7/28/2010
The Build the DRIC Now! coalition, which wants a public-private partnership to construct a new bridge across the Detroit River, is keeping close tabs on Manuel "Matty" Moroun and his Detroit International Bridge Co., which is fighting fiercely to keep any competition from cutting into the ...[MORE]
Published: 7/28/2010
You may recall the case of Walter Swift, who ended up on the cover of this rag last year ("Swift's justice," Nov. 18, 2009) when we wrote about the 26 years he spent in prison for a crime he did not commit, and the difficult time he was having adjusting to the outside world following his r...[MORE]
Published: 7/21/2010
With an election less than two weeks away, the primary campaign season is hitting overdrive, which means that voters are going to be subjected to all manner of ads from politicians desperate to sway opinions and win votes. One of the inevitable consequences of that desperation will be attempts by c...[MORE]
Published: 7/14/2010
On his official Michigan House webpage, George Cushingberry's event two weeks ago was a celebration of the blues put on by the local elected official eager to host a party. "I am pleased to sponsor this annual event and I'm asking residents and blues enthusiasts from all over to join me at our...[MORE]
Published: 7/7/2010
Types: News, Environmental
At this point there are as many questions as answers, but one thing is certain: The owners of Detroit's incinerator are negotiating sale of the facility to the company that provides steam for heating and cooling buildings to 104 downtown and midtown customers — including the city of Detroit. ...[MORE]
Published: 6/30/2010
News Hits has long admired Detroit Police Officer John Bennett, a guy who stood up to King Kwame back in the day when he was still the power to be reckoned with in Detroit politics. Bennett, you might recall, maintained a blog that had as its goal the ouster of then-chief Jerry Oliver. Jerry O was ...[MORE]
Published: 6/30/2010
Types: News, Environmental
The spin was dizzying last week after the discovery of a 20-pound Asian carp beyond the Illinois waterway barriers that were supposed to keep the invasive fish from the Great Lakes. Politicians, scientists, environmental groups and chemical peddlers issued press releases urging acceptance of their ...[MORE]
Published: 6/30/2010
News Hits read with interest how the two dailies explained the genesis of the Kwamester's indictment last week on 19 counts of mail and wire fraud, and filing false tax returns. The charges stemmed from alleged use of his nonprofit Kilpatrick Civic Fund as a personal and political piggybank. If yo...[MORE]
Published: 6/23/2010
More than 19 months after voters approved the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, the battle over the medicinal herb continues to blaze. Ferndale is one of the state's latest battlegrounds. The City Council there unsuccessfully attempted to close Clinical Relief LLC, a medical marijuana center, two we...[MORE]
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