Leid Stories - 01/06/14

Heartless, Conniving Pols Deserve Unemployment Assurance;

Detroit Bankruptcy Trial Exposes Bankster-City Dealings

 

Fresh from their end-of-year holiday break, congressional underperformers are hoping to impress a turned-off, disgusted electorate with productivity in “doing the people’s business.” Long-term unemployment insurance, which they refused to deal with last year while hammering out a budget, is now at the top of the list – except it is being used as a giant carrot to gain partisan points in this re-election year. Leid Stories explains why politicians who callously cut off extended unemployment insurance benefits to 1.3 million people deserve unemployment assurance from voters.

In Detroit, an ongoing federal trial has exposed highly questionable (and possibly illegal) dealings between several banks and the previous city administration that obligated the city to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in termination fees on interest-rate swaps that were used to finance its pension debts in 2005 and 2006.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African Newswire, reports on the trial. The Rev. William Wylie Kellermann, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, discusses a building grassroots movement in the city.