Archive for the ‘Robert Laurie’ Category

Robert Laurie

Officials with the Detroit Police Department are lobbying the City Council in an effort to install a $2.6 million crime-fighting network throughout the city. The system is called ShotSpotter Flex and it would cover 14 square miles of Detroit with listening devices designed to hear, and automatically report, gunshots. According to the company that created it, ShotSpotter is remarkably accurate. It can determine a shot’s location, the number of rounds fired, the type of firearms involved, and whether the shots were made on foot or from a moving vehicle. Within one minute, the information is processed and delivered to police.

Currently, the system has been deployed in Washington D.C, Minneapolis and that bastion of big city crime, Saginaw. According to Police Chief Ralph Godbee, Detroit needs it too.

“Quite frankly, we don’t get reported all the gunshots that happen because now it has become part of the city culture and expectation that you go to sleep with gunshots,” Godbee told the City Council on Tuesday. “This is an opportunity for us to change that paradigm. That is not normal. It’s not acceptable. It should not happen.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Laurie

We need more mass transit.  We need more taxes designed to generate cash, which would be used to repair aging roads and infrastructure.  We need more fees on new car purchases.

These are not the newest Obama-sponsored talking points, though you’d be forgiven for assuming they were.  After all, the ‘taxes + mass transit = enlightened, successful, government’ canard has been a staple of the left for the past 40 years.  Now, however, it’s a new centerpiece of Governor Snyder’s vision for Michigan, and if you think it sounds strange coming from a Republican, you’re not alone.

Snyder’s proposals would see a system of high-speed buses running from the downtown area, out Woodward to Birmingham, out Michigan Avenue to western Wayne County and to Metro Airport on their way to Ann Arbor.  A second system would serve the eastern suburbs, connecting Detroit to Mt. Clemens.

Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Laurie

Hollywood loves Democrats. Democrats love the fact that the government owns GM. So it only makes sense that Government Motors is ready to get in bed with Hollywood. After all, when you’re a car company awash in taxpayer funding, making a movie is the next obvious step, right? It’s only a question of finding the right material.

According to multiple sources, the brain trust at GM has found its muse. The car company is in talks to revive the early ‘80s cheeseball film franchise “Cannonball Run.”

The rumored plan is to feature all of General Motors’ 2014 vehicles in a “major motion picture” that would amount to a massive, costly, two-hour commercial. Film producer Al Ruddy – who produced the original Cannonball films – is returning, and British director Guy Ritchie is on the short list to helm the project. Ritchie would like to see Brad Pitt step into Burt Reynolds’s starring role – and set the whole thing in Europe.

Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Laurie

Monday night, over 1,000 people gathered at Detroit’s Spirit of Hope Church to plan the “spontaneous” demonstration known as “Occupy Detroit.”

The protest will begin under the Spirit of Detroit statue on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. So far, more than 3,000 people have announced their intention to charge up their iPhones, hop into their Priuses and head to the event, just as they have in cities nationwide. Once assembled, the spoiled throng of malcontents plans to carry a few “Eat the Rich” signs through Detroit’s financial district to Grand Circus Park, which they intend to occupy for an indefinite period of time.

“Spontaneity” never enjoyed such thorough advance planning. Nor has it been the subject of so much Big Labor funding.

If Detroit’s gaggle of Marxists, socialists and anti-capitalists follows the precedent set in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, it will enjoy the backing of, at least, the AFL-CIO and SEIU. It will also be aligning itself with the views of self-proclaimed communist and former Obama “Green Czar” Van Jones, as well as global socialist billionaire George Soros. All have helped organize the “occupy” movement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Laurie

There’s nothing like fall in Detroit. The air turns crisp, leaves begin to change, and pumpkins appear at the grocery store. Shoppers bundle up and head to the Farmers Market for corn stalks and hay bales to use in their Halloween decorations. Parents stock up on candy while kids get to work on costumes.

We’re a city of traditions and, unfortunately, so is the Detroit Public Schools system. Halloween is no longer Michigan’s only October holiday. These days, we have “Count Day,” and to the people running the DPS, it’s far more important than anything you’ll find on a calendar.

In case you missed it, yesterday was Count Day 2011.

For every child in a DPS building on Count Day, the city gets about $7400.00 in state funding. On a normal day, about 60,000 kids show up. Ten thousand are absent, meaning that – if those numbers hold – DPS sees itself losing around $7.4 million. Obviously, it’s in DPS’s interest to push attendance as high as possible, at least for The Day That Matters. But, if kids and parents don’t care about an education on any other day of the year, when their futures are on the line, why should they show up to help the budget?

Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Laurie

Taxation without representation. It was the primary spark that ignited the revolutionary war, led to the creation of our country, and still manages to be the perfect summation of all things unjust. This is America. By and large, we believe that, if you’re giving the government your money, you should be able to vote and have a say in how it’s spent.

Unless of course you live in Metro Detroit.

Here, if you live in the ‘burbs but work downtown, you give 1.25 percent of your income to the city and, in return, you get nothing. No vote, no say, no input whatsoever. It’s unfair, unjust, and immoral – and reversing it is the ticket to saving Detroit in one easy step.

Consider the city’s population. Once, it numbered in the millions. It was expansive, racially and politically diverse, and concerned with the future of Southeast Michigan. Our public infrastructure was intact, and we enjoyed a functional local government. Back then, most of Detroit’s workforce lived inside the city limits, so city taxes made sense.

According to the last census, Detroit’s official population sits at 713,000 – though some suggest the figures have been cooked to keep the number as high as possible. We are saddled with a crumbling city and a dysfunctional local government.

Read the rest of this entry »