Detroit

Charlie LeDuff anticipated all the problems that Trump’s election made plain to the rest of us—then he fell into the Hole himself.

Detroit

August Snow was one of last year’s sleeper hits—and deservedly so. The beautifully written, fast-paced thriller gave readers a tour of Detroit and its suburbs, and introduced them to a charming new literary hero: the half-black, half-Mexican lead character, the eponymous Mr. Snow.

Forget Detroit, let's all move to Italy. During the economic crisis, there were hundreds of stories written about distressed properties in Michigan. Now, in Sardinia, you can buy homes for $2. Of course, there are strings attached. As Thrillist reports:

Detroit

Detroit

Detroit

At her confirmation hearing Tuesday, Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos fought back against allegations that her school reform efforts in Detroit were a failure.

"Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month's presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News," according to a report today in the Detroit newspaper. "Detailed…

Detroit

Donald Trump's speech on the economy Monday puts him in a strong position on the issue on which Hillary Clinton is weakest and politically vulnerable.

For close to a century the Forest Arms apartments was one of the most prestigious addresses on Detroit’s Near Westside. But by the start of this decade, the city’s declining population, municipal mismanagement, and foundering economy had left the building reminiscent of postwar Berlin.

Jeb Bush had fighting words at his Wednesday speech at the Detroit Economic Club. The former Florida governor, who is actively thinking of running for president, said he was down for a rumble—at least, if anyone tried to say a bad word about his father, George H.W. Bush.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie celebrated the Cowboys playoff victory over the Detroit Lions by hugging Cowboys owner Jerry Jones:

As Nicole Curtis says at the beginning of every episode of her number-one HGTV show Rehab Addict, “I’m not your average flipper. .  .  . I don’t just renovate, I restore old homes to their former glory.” 

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking earlier today at the Chamber of Commerce, talked of inner city Detroit women from the "hood," which is apparently slang for neighborhood:

The law does not always deliver what people might consider the “fairest” outcome. But setting aside the law and the various compromises made by elected officials when they crafted it in order to deliver a “fair” outcome would be a costly mistake—costly for every single city, county or state…

General Motors recalled another 718,000 of its vehicles yesterday to correct defects serious enough to require the action. This puts the number at "nearly 30 million vehicles since the start of the year, by far a record for any automaker and more than half the vehicles recalled by the industry as a…

The Motor City is betting big on gambling to bring it out of bankruptcy and back to life.  Maybe not eight the hard way but close. As Michael Erman at Reuters reports:

The bailout of GM – at a final cost to the Treasury of $10 billion and change – was a landmark event in evolution state capitalism, American-style.  The company was saved, certain creditors were stiffed, the unions were protected, and the corporate culture, it seems, was not altered in any…

Detroit

The political conventions will be coming in the summer of 2016 and the parties must choose locations for the festivities.  As Mario Trujillo of the Hill writes, the Democratic National Committee has asked several cities to submit bids, among them:

From the moment Detroit filed for bankruptcy last summer, comparisons to the 2009 Chrysler and General Motors bailouts have abounded. Most highlight the differences, noting that the federal government is unlikely to pump billions of dollars into Detroit. But although the differences are real, the…

The city that President Obama was credited with “saving” – before it turned out that he hadn’t – is getting a little help from Washington as it struggles through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.

Many cheered last month when President Obama finally used his bully pulpit to talk about the problems facing young men of color. Of course, the president did not have much else to offer: Nearly all of the $200 million pledged for his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative is from private foundations, not…

Seems like this is the season for showing the American automobile some love. Also, the town that the automobile built—Detroit, aka the Motor City, where packs of feral dogs now roam the streets and den up in vacant lots between the abandoned buildings. Detroit, these days, seems far more deserving…

Detroit’s government by machine-party politics (Democratic, in case you were wondering) resulted in the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.  And the meter is still running.  As Reuters reports:

Vice President Joe Biden thanked the executive chairman of Ford at today's North American International Auto Show for "saving our ass." The event took place in Detroit.

Drudge is headlining a report from Fox News foreseeing the demise of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.  In other words, the end of civilization as we know it.

Is to stiff the taxpayers. Not to mention the bondholders. As Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press reports:

The bankruptcy of Detroit, which has been a widely appreciated fact for some time now, has now become sanctioned by law.  As Reuters reports:

Detroit failed after years of one-party rule (guess which one), mismanagement, and corruption. Businesses closed down. Buildings were left derelict until they were torched for the fun of it.  Feral animals roamed the streets as the people fled.  After the usual protestations that it would never…

Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press, writes about some of the obstacles in Detroit's way if it is to show its best face come the "invasion by the nation’s media in October for baseball playoffs and, hopefully, a World Series."

Marisa Schultz of the Detroit News reports:

Lame jokes ("gone to the dogs") cannot mask the demoralizing nature of the latest news of Detroit's descent from the world's premier manufacturing city to third world squalor.

No doubt, the bankruptcy of Detroit will have unintended consequences. But one possibility, currently under discussion, is especially distressing: sale of the paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, which, unlike most municipal collections, is owned by the city, not a nonprofit trust.

It's been a while since Benjamin R. Barber, the left-wing political scientist and ex-Howard Dean adviser, attracted the attention of The Scrapbook. Barber is one of those anticapitalist types who is careful to disguise his unpalatable ideology in anodyne terms—see Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism…

Although Detroit’s bankruptcy is only a few days old, it already has become clear that it could bring answers to two very important questions: whether municipal bankruptcy law is a plausible alternative to either bailouts or decades of fiscal malaise for large cities that are sagging under…

The bankrupt city of Detroit may have found a way out of its health care woes for its retired city workers: shifting the costs to taxpayers nationwide via Obamacare. If Detroit and other struggling municipalities follow through, the result could be a "huge cost" to taxpayers.  The New York…

The headline on this Chicago Sun-Times story is arresting, to say the least:

The city of Detroit is unable to light or police its streets but it can provide circuses on ice for its (mostly unemployed) citizens.  While the city may have declared bankruptcy just the other day, as Chris Isidore of CNN reports:

Charlie LeDuff, writing in the New York Times:

Detroit mayor Dave Bing tells ABC's George Stephanopoulos that there's no bailout "yet":

To first place.  In baseball, that is.

The CBS News headline from last October:

Detroit is so close to insolvency that there is talk in the city of selling off some of the Detroit Institute of the Arts' treasures, including works by Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh.  

The American taxpayers stand to lose billions as General Motors today announced a plan to buy back 40 percent of the company owned by the federal government.

Newspapers endorse candidates with such solemnity that you'd think they believe their readers actually care and that elections might actually hang in the balance.  "Oh my God, did you see this, Helen?  The Times is endorsing Obama. I guess that changes everything."

The president of the largest trade union federation in the country told reporters Thursday morning that the union money donated to Democrats in the 2008 election was "worth it."

Mitt Romney maintains that "President Barack Obama is holding on to the government's stake in General Motors to avoid an embarrassing financial loss before the election, and says he'd sell the stock quickly if he wins the White House," according to the Detroit News, which recently interviewed the…

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has a post in his series, "This Day in Baseball History," reminding us that it was fifty years ago yesterday, May 26, 1962, that the Detroit Tigers defeated the Yankees 2-1 at Yankee Stadium: 

Less than a week before the Michigan primary, the editorial board at the Detroit News has endorsed Mitt Romney, calling him the "best choice" for "leading this nation to prosperity and stability" and saying that he gives "the GOP a fighting chance of defeating President Barack Obama this fall."…

So now they have gone and politicized the Super Bowl ads. Have they no shame?

One of the most popular Super Bowl advertisements last night was the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood, titled “Halftime in America.”

Talking Points Memo: Elizabeth Warren will announce her run for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts--against Scott Brown--tomorrow.

"In Bin Laden’s Compound, Seals’ All-Star Team"

This is the place where bad times get sent to make them belong to somebody else, thus, it seems easy to agree about Detroit because the city embodies everything the rest of the country wants to get over.