Kwame Kilpatrick
 

Mayor of Detroit discusses his recent scandal. http://youtube.com/watch?v=0_ZevFbcIIo

Wasn't he just traded to the Grizzlies in the Gasol deal?

I saw this yesterday. What a disaster that whole text-gate thing has become. As if Detroit needed more credibility problems. But he's just the beneficiary of nepotism, so...I don't know why anyone expected him to ever be anything other than a cheap shill for the status quo.

Kwame is as dirty as Nixon but not as good an administrator.

There's a can't miss high school prospect that Detroit should elect with the 2010 pick they get from the Lakers. He's won both his class presidency elections, and swept the state debate meets. He might have troubles qualifying with his low ACT scores, but his handlers are working on addressing that.

Detroit deserves much, much better than the fraud currently referred to as a "mayor."

Kwame Kilpatrick has to be one of the oddest colineation of names in political history. It always makes me giggle.

Not when they chose not to vote for Hendrix they don't. After four years of Kwame, they knew who he was, and chose to keep him.

Yup the whole thing is sad, as I sit here and watch the city go down the drain. The prople is the people their just keep voting for this idiot. It goes on and on they sit their and spout off... " were not gona let whitey who lives in the suberbs tell us what to do" when it has nothing to do with that but the city goverment plays along as they suck everything out of the city they can.

They pick the pockets of Detroiters from behind as they look and shake their fingers at the white suberbs...LOL

So true, so true. You get what you pay for, and Detroit has chosen to pay for Kwame for years to come.

He's Black Irish.

Reeeally Black Irish.

I believe the vote was rigged. All the polls showed Hendrix on top while Kilpatrick stayed almost too confident. Then a pile of votes happened to come in, with some question as to whether many of those casting ballots were deceased. Kilpatrick then claimed "God" put him back in office... Hmmm...

Hendrix also ran an awful campaign, allowing Kilpatrick to cast him as the choice of the suburbs (while Kilpatrick pulled in a lot of cash from suburban sources.) It's too bad that Ken Cockrel doesn't run against him.

Here's the problem in Detroit.

There's a HUGE population there who love Kwame for being against the Burbs. They feel these stories are attacks by the white media on a black man with power. Dennis Archer wasn't very liked in Detroit because this section of people felt like he was in it for the white man and he's the best mayor the city has seen in ages.

Until this us vs them mentality is stopped, Detroit is in trouble.

This attitude is a two-way street. How is the population of a city supposed to embrace suburbanites who hate the city and its inhabitants? Kilpatrick thrives off this divide while playing both sides against each other.

Detroit needs leadership that is willing to deal with the suburbs, but not at the expense of the city. Detroit needs a leader who can unite a majority of Detroiters in making the city live up to the potential it has, not down to the level which it has been cast. Detroit is not the problem. Detroiters are not the problem. The problem is the economic depression which Detroit faces, and a true leader would do a great deal in leading the most populated city in the state in rebuilding itself into the great city it could be.

It's still a better name than "Gil Hill"

Fixed that for you.

(and that's certainly not a situation I'd limit to Detroit, just sayin' ...)

Though the whole city v. suburban thing quite as huge a deal (though, it's close)...Sharpe James in Newark,NJ managed to do the same thing for decades in a state that's corrupt as hell to begin with.

Now that he was finally disposed of and Cory Booker was elected, the city still faces the same problems as before, but the tide is slowly but surely changing in a city that still has a lot to do with itself to get better and has a lot of the problems (though more acute and it's not as isolated as Detroit is relative to Newark being in the shadows of NYC), but make no mistake that New Jersey folks treat the place the same way and so, it'll take ages before the city restores what was once a proud face.

But...at least they were able to dispose of their big boss and didn't replace him with a silver spooned son of a politician who wanted to continue business as usual and actually got a guy who didn't need the job, but rather, wanted it.

I know I'm a couple of days late, but I was coming into this thread to post exactly that.

Why shouldn't suburanites (and the rest of Michigan) hate them? They've run the city (and the entire state) into the fucking ground.

Detroit needs to learn about a little thing called personal responsibility, and stop being a bunch of fucking pussy-ass whiners.

Who ran the city and the rest of the state into the ground? The people who were left in an economic vacuum, or the people that ran for the suburbs (selling their homes at ridiculously low rates to real estate prospectors) rather than live in a neighborhood with a black family? It's a lot easier to blame the people left to clean up a problem than to blame our parents.

The current state of Detroit is due to a complex combination of circumstances (which I do not have time to delve into at this hour...) Governmental policy, real estate swindlers, the automobile industry, political corruption/stagnation and good old fashioned racial prejudice all have a hand in tearing apart a fine city.

But please do not place the blame solely on the shoulders of Detroiters. They are the least of the problems Detroit has had to endure. They are still there.

Which is the biggest problem Detroit has.

By golly, I believe we're right back where this conversation begins.

But "white flight" to the suburbs is a problem that a lot of cities have had to deal with -- it's not like Detroit was alone in that.

This is a problem duplicated in cities across America and I'm glad you said it, because I was thinking about, but didn't want to go there.

The chronic mismanagement and victimization of people in the cities by their "own people" is really the shame of it. It's the whole "us against them" mentality that's exacerbated the situation in recent years, but even with well-intentioned people at the helm, it's very difficult to fix a problem that people created decades ago with flawed policies and de facto segregation of poor people into enclaves of their own in cities.

There is more than enough blame to go around, but I do think one of the worst explained phenomenon of the late 20th century is the death of the city and how it happened. The rise of power changed hands and rather powershare and foster the sort of growth and prosperity that could've benefited everybody, folks took their toys and went to the boons to create their idyllic enclaves that were free of the "scourge of the uncouth" that were in the cities.

But in recent years, poor management and third-world governments have been permitted to operate their fiefdoms without any real check from the state who permits this ridiculousness to happen. Realistically is there anything they could do? Who knows? Throwing a few corrupt politicians in jail would only incite the "us against them" masses and "activists" who break windows in their own communities and then get mad because it's that way.

I think that the absence of feeling empowered leaves people in a state of perpetual desperation and leaves those who angle for power in a position to "play the game the way it's played" or who eventually get blinded by their own ambitions and eventually disillusioned by the muck of inner-city politics.

Or maybe that's too much infusion of my own story into this post.

I was going to rant about the whole idea of an "ownership society" and the talk that hasn't been met with action by the GOP seeking an inroads, but I do think that the revitalization (not gentrification, but actual renaissance) of these communities represent the next big financial growth opportunity. Not just in real estate, but in a wealth of other areas.

People are already discovering it in other parts of the country, but I think the whole decline of industrial centres and diversifying them through a mix of entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and passion for place will be the way that they eventually turn the tide. And once it turns, people will swear it's a "miracle" and all of that, but...it's not something I see happening through public-sector projects alone, it has to come from a desire and an embrace of the private sector to recognize and appreciate the need for metropolitan cities to thrive and succeed.

Sorry they didn't flee so they didn't have to live next to blacks, they left because the jobs left to Troy, Auburn Hills, ect. You also find blacks leaving the city to follow the jobs/money as well. Colman Young to Kwame ... 30+ years of not addressing the neighborhoods of Detroit that are in shambles, who wants to live in a place where 1 out of every 4 houses on a block are abandoned rats nests? Garbage picks up , city services crap.

Downtown is a nice area with the water front, casinos, parks, greektown, ect but not a penny has been spent outside of that. Do you realize their isn't a movie theater or even a frickin grocery store in the area's people live?

Judge orders Detroit mayor jailed
 

Judge orders Detroit mayor jailed - CNN.com

If "John Six-Pack" isn't a legal term it should be.

He shouldn't have run for mayor, then. :)


Agreed, though I always thought it was "Joe Six Pack". :)

I watch the local Fox news at 5, and I swear there's a new Kwame is an Asshole update every day, with something new he's done, whether its cussing at photogs or assaulting a police officer distributing supeneas, it is always something new.

Why is that crook STILL officially "the mayor?"

He will not go quietly into that goodnight.

Cold dead hands and all...

Lack of Convictions perhaps?

Will he still be able to play for the Pistons?

Hey, mind the Heston reference! :p Kilpatrick actually belongs to Mike Bloomberg's anti-gun mayor's group (and Bloomie hasn't kicked him out despite Kwame's legal troubles).

Ha-Ha! Yo game is way on, baby.

This guy is a train wreck. First rate entertainment, courtesy of the good citizens of Detroit.

That guy is a wonderful voice actor

He makes it worth listening to, for sure.

Ha Ha.

"Helllllll yeah."

Voice Actor definitely makes this.

Ha ha. Jerry Maguire was in 1996, bitch!!

That clip is full of win. :D

So, working in Detroit, I get daily emails from "Crain's Detroit Business", a local business magazine.

I have received two "BREAKING NEWS" emails already this morning.

The first "BREAKING NEWS" email read:

"An appeals judge has changed the terms of the ruling that sent Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to jail for a bond violation."

(The judge said that the circuit judge should have considered other alternatives before sending the Mayor to jail for the night. He did change that conditions of his bond as follows: the new bond includes a $50,000 cash bond, a complete ban on travel, and an electronic tether. That's our mayor.)

The second "BREAKING NEWS" email (received approximately 12 minutes later) read:

"Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has charged Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick with assault in connection with a confrontation between Kilpatrick and a sheriff's detective."

Wheeeeee!

DAMN THAT! NEVER BUSTED! HA-HA!

The charges are starting to pile up

"Who cares if he is banging Christine Beatty on the side, even though she looks like Scotty Pippen."

classic

He is starting to remind me of a fake ass Idi Amin.

Kwame coming back to work after spending the night in jail...

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Peter/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-5.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Peter/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-6.jpg[/IMG]

There's nothing to worry about until he starts eating people.