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Among all of the 2008 presidential battlegrounds, Democratic-leaning Michigan - with 8.5 percent unemployment and an auto-industry economy in deep recession - should be an easy slam-dunk for Sen. Barack Obama. But the freshman senator from neighboring Illinois remains stuck in a dead heat in the state against Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, who is "within striking distance of winning, strange as that may sound," veteran Michigan election analyst Bill Ballenger said Tuesday. Mr. Obama narrowly leads his Republican rival by 3.2 percent, 46 percent to 42.8 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics Web site, which tracks the presidential...

A judge has ruled that the Detroit City Council cannot hold a hearing to try to remove Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office.

FBI probe targets father of embattled Detroit mayor Leftist link only...

DETROIT -- Wayne County District Court Judge Ronald Giles ruled there is enough evidence for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to stand trial on felony assault charges.

DETROIT — A judge ruled Friday there is enough evidence for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to stand trial on two felony assault charges stemming from a confrontation with two investigators. The investigators testified that an angry Kilpatrick shoved one of them into the other and made racial remarks while they were trying to deliver a subpoena in the mayor's perjury case to a Kilpatrick friend last month. Judge Ronald Giles made the ruling after hearing several hours of testimony and arguments in 36th District Court. The mayor remains free on bond ahead of an Aug. 22 arraignment in Wayne County Circuit...

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DETROIT (AP) — Barack Obama doesn't want Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his legal troubles to be a distraction at the upcoming Democratic National Convention, and he got his wish Thursday when a judge ordered the city executive to stay home. A Michigan spokesman for Obama, Brent Colburn, said in an e-mail Thursday that the focus of the convention in Denver this month should be on Obama and not on what Colburn called "the troubles of one individual," a reference to Kilpatrick and the two criminal cases he's facing. Kilpatrick, who would have gone to the convention as a superdelegate,...

Hours after being told to remove his electronic tether by one judge Thursday, embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was ordered by another judge to put it back on, a game of legal pingpong between his two separate criminal cases. Kilpatrick also gained, then quickly lost, a break in travel restrictions that could have allowed him to attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver this month. The point might have been moot anyway: The mayor is a superdelegate, but a spokesman for presumptive nominee Barack Obama said Kilpatrick isn't wanted there. The day began when a judge overseeing Kilpatrick's arraignment on perjury...

LANSING, Mich. – Democratic candidate Barack Obama doesn't want the embattled mayor of Detroit on hand when Obama accepts the party's presidential nomination in Denver.

I’m not sure which is more compelling in this news clip — the political tension between Barack Obama’s national and Michigan operations over what to do with Kwame Kilpatrick, or Jennifer Granholm’s resigned hypocrisy over tying a presidential candidate to their political allies. Hey, Governor, maybe you should read the news from time to time and learn more about the McSame Project at Team Obama:

DETROIT – A judge ruled Thursday that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will no longer have to wear an electronic tether ordered as part of his bond in his perjury case and may travel to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where he is a superdelegate.

Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick Hopes to be Untethered to Attend Dem Convention Detroit's embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, is holding out the possibility that he'll actually be able to go to Denver this month. In other words, the Hip-Hop mayor could get a new nickname: the Most Unwanted Man at the Convention. (Besides maybe John Edwards.) [T]he mayor was waiting to see what happens on Thursday, when he's scheduled to be arraigned on felony charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and on Friday, when he's due to appear in court on separate assault charges....

DETROIT -- With a picture of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's face next to it, "No More” read the headline of the well-respected African American Detroit newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle. "If (Kilpatrick's) love of Detroit is as strong as he professes, he will make the right decision, which we believe, is to step down," the paper wrote in Wednesday's morning edition.

Detroit (WWJ) -- There are new calls for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to resign amid the scandal that has the mayor facing ten criminal charges. Congressman John Dingell issued a statement Wednesday calling for the mayor to resign.

The predictable reaction’s ensuing as we speak, in fact, as Politico presses Tennessee GOP spokesman Bill Hobbs for an explanation. Hobbs should have consulted his rulebook. Verdict: Racist. Sentence: A prominent mention in Peter Beinart’s next column.

The Detroit City Council’s attorney William Goodman must provide the names of all witnesses he plans to call at the removal hearing of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick by August 15, according to an order Governor Jennifer Granholm issued today. Sharon McPhail, Kilpatrick’s General Counsel, must submit their list of witnesses on August 25.

Two percent. That's the percent of voters outside the "Motor City" that have a favorable impression of embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. You don't have to be a pollster to understand how strongly disliked Kilpatrick is throughout Michigan. Sit in any restaurant or bar, and all you hear is people talking about Kilpatrick's troubles. Indicted in March on eight felony counts for committing perjury during a whistleblower trial that eventually cost the city about $9 million, the Mayor spent one night in jail on August 7th for violating his bond and then was arraigned the next day for a new...

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was arraigned on assault and obstruction charges today in 36th District court.

(WXYZ) Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is expected to be arraigned on felony assault charges either later today or early tomorrow.

<p>The mayor of Detroit went to jail Thursday. August 08, 2008. DETROIT (AP) — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick spent the night in a one-man jail cell with no TV and a phone only for collect calls, the consequence of violating his bond in a criminal case that has dogged him for months.</p>

A palate-cleansing flashback for you from June 2007 to salute Detroit’s mayor of unknown party affiliation being sent to jail. The requisite sadness having been duly expressed, all that’s left is to clear a little space in the background of this image and perform the obligatory P-shop coup de grace. You might be seeing this clip turn up in a McCain ad in Michigan circa mid-October. Click the image to watch.

The Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, was sent to jail today for violating travel restrictions that are a condition of his being free on bond as he awaits trial on eight counts of perjury and other felonies. The travel restrictions were tightened after Mayor Kilpatrick was accused of assaulting a sheriff's deputy who served a subpoena on him. Mayor Kilpatrick is a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention. In May 2007, Kilpatrick received this glowing endorsement from Barack Obama, who called him a "great mayor" who is doing an "outstanding job." My favorite part is where Obama says that Kilpatrick...

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) - The mayor of Detroit, Michigan, embroiled for months in a torrid sex scandal, was placed under arrest Thursday for violating a provision of his bond forbidding him from leaving the country. A Detroit judge ordered embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick jailed for a recent unauthorized trip he made to nearby Windsor, Canada, violating the terms of his bond. His jailing seemed certain to ramp up efforts to force his resignation, which he so far has stubbornly resisted. "I thought I made it clear to you that this court comes first in everything," Wayne County District Court Judge...

Judge Revokes Bond, Suspends Travel DETROIT -- Judge Ronald Giles sent Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to Wayne County Jail for failing to notify the court of his trip to Canada and violating the terms of his bond. Despite Kilpatrick's humble apologies to the court beforehand, Giles said he needed to treat Kilpatrick as an ordinary citizen and sent him immediately to jail. Giles revoked Kilpatrick's bond and suspended all travel. "What matters to me though is how the court overall is perceived and how if it was not Kwame Kilpatrick sitting in that seat, if it was John Six-Pack sitting...

Judge Ronald Giles has ordered Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick into Wayne County Jail for violating his bond. The 36th District Court judge stressed that he was treating Detroit's mayor in the same way he would "John Sixpack." Judge Giles also revoked the mayor's ability to travel. Additionally, he ended the drug testing that had been imposed on Kilpatrick, saying that all 4 of the previous tests had come back negative.

The Mayor has been jailed do to violating the terms of his bond. He went to Windsor without permission and the Judge Giles had him sent to jail

http://www.kwamekilpatrick.com/messageboard.html

Wayne County Judge Ronald Giles has revoked Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's previous bond and ordered random drug screening on Friday based on testimony from two detectives in the accusations that Kilpatrick assaulted Detective Brian White.

The mayor today denied any involvement in the Detroit City Council scandal involving a multimillion dollar waste contract before he has been accused of anything. Kilpatrick, through one of his lawyers, sent a letter to WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) Monday threatening to sue if the station aired reports saying the mayor was a proponent of a sludge recycling contract with Synagro Technologies Inc. "Mayor Kilpatrick had no involvement whatsoever in this contract,” Attorney Jim Parkman III wrote in the letter to WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) that was obtained today by the Free Press. “Mayor Kilpatrick has never been questioned by the FBI...

DETROIT (AP/WXYZ) - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will be conspicuously absent when Barack Obama makes his first campaign stop in the city since effectively wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination. The embattled mayor, facing criminal charges and public scrutiny in an embarrassing text-messaging sex scandal, has decided not to attend Monday night's rally at Joe Louis Arena.

LANSING, Mich. - After his preacher problems, Barack Obama doesn't need another association with a charismatic, radioactive public figure. Still, Kwame Kilpatrick, the tarnished mayor of Detroit, is a hard man to avoid completely. That places the Democratic presidential candidate in a bit of a dilemma when he campaigns in Michigan this week and later in the race. Obama meets voters Monday in Troy, a Detroit suburb, just when his party needs to ease wounds from its internal fight over the renegade Michigan primary. The party's rules committee decided Saturday to seat the state's delegates at the convention but hold...

The married mayor also signed off on a confidentiality agreement that hid from the Detroit City Council the role those text messages played in an exorbitant $8.4 million settlement of a whistle-blowers' lawsuit by former police officers. The scandal has led the City Council to ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a fellow Democrat, to remove Kilpatrick from office for misconduct. The council accuses the mayor of violating provisions in the city charter as part of the whistle-blowers' settlement. The nine-member council also is expected to begin forfeiture of office proceedings against the mayor in about two weeks.

A day after a judge lashed out upon learning Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had skipped a court hearing and taken a trip to Texas, the mayor tells WXYZ the uproar "had nothing to do with me."

DETROIT- Attorneys for Kwame Kilpatrick are catching a judge's anger after the Detroit mayor missed a hearing in 36th District Court. Judge Ronald Giles complained Tuesday about Kilpatrick's absence and the short notice given of a weekend trip to Texas. Tuesday's hearing was on a motion filed by defense attorneys. Kilpatrick informed the court Saturday that he was flying to Texas on city business that night. His bond allows travel outside the state, but Giles has said the mayor is to attend hearings. Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty face a Sept. 22 preliminary examination on perjury and...

Lansing, Mich. (AP) -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm's office will review a City Council request to remove Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office, the governor's staff said Tuesday. Kilpatrick already faces perjury and other criminal charges involving a whistle-blowers' lawsuit settlement, and Granholm has said she wants the criminal process to play out. But that could last months, leading the council to ask the governor to remove Kilpatrick. State law allows the governor to remove an elected official from office for a number of reasons, including when an officeholder has been guilty of official misconduct. The 10-page petition and the supporting...

The Detroit City Council Tuesday will officially ask Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office. Last week, council members voted 5-4 to begin forfeiture of office proceedings against Kilpatrick. On a separate 5-4 vote, they approved asking Granholm to terminate Kilpatrick's hold on the mayor's office. A third vote -- to censure the mayor -- passed on a 7-2 vote.

Detroit City Council Votes to Begin Removal Process of Mayor Kilpatrick. In a 5 to 4 vote, however one Council Women thinks the Mayor may be making overtures in regards to resigning

The Detroit City Council has taken the first step toward removing Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick over a scandal involving explicit text messages to his former aide. The council's 5-4 vote Tuesday begins a process aimed at removing Kilpatrick. Council members also voted to ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove the mayor and voted to publicly censure him. . . . The mayor's office has said the council's actions are politically motivated. . . . Prosecutors have charged the two with perjury and obstruction of justice.

DETROIT- Kwame Kilpatrick is adding "talk show host" to his mayoral duties. The Detroit mayor on Monday taped the first installment of his new cable public access television show. WWJ-AM and WXYZ-TV report Kilpatrick's first two guests were city Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings and City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers. Kilpatrick says he liked doing the show. He'll have a two-minute commentary at the end of each new show. "Real Talk with Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick" debuts on Comcast Channel 10 on Monday, May 5. The show repeats on Wednesday and Friday.

A judge on Tuesday allowed the release of raunchy text messages that a lawyer allegedly used to get Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to shell out $8 million in city money to make a police whistle-blower lawsuit go away.

Racism in the pulpit has been an ugly reality in the black community for some 40 years. Yet, it took the mad rantings of Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to bring it to our national consciousness. For the sake of the future of our great country, it is time we spoke frankly about this insidious cancer.

Just when the party needs them most, the Dems super-delegates are dropping like flies. First there was William Jefferson, followed by Eliot Spitzer, then Kwame Kilpatrick, and today, Anibal Acevedo-Vila. This morning’s announcement of the indictment of Puerto Rico’s governor along with twelve others, including prominent Philadelphia democratic fundraiser Robert Feldman, worries party faithful for more reasons than one. Governor Acevedo-Vila , “a Harvard educated attorney and politician,” who according to AP, “was elected governor in 2004 after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform,” just last month endorsed Senator Obama for president.But as WaPo’s the Trail points out: " The reach...

Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is picking up financial support from some high profile national business and political leaders to help mount a defense against charges of perjury and other felonies. On Tuesday, Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty were arraigned on multiple perjury, conspiracy, misconduct and obstruction of justice charges. They face a June 9 preliminary examination in Detroit's 36th District Court. The charges stem from statements Kilpatrick and Beatty gave under oath last summer during a whistle-blowers' trial. Both denied having a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003. Supporters of Kilpatrick’s Detroit Justice Fund include...

It's hard to imagine how Detroit's liberal populace can charge hip-hop Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for perjury. After all, doesn't everyone lie about sex? I'm not certain that Kilpatrick should be charged or convicted either. Those of us who live in cities like Detroit or Los Angeles accepted that kind of political double standard long ago. Detroit clearly needs to loosen up a little -- maybe create its own ethics commission. That's what works for us. In LA, our Ethics Commission makes it unnecessary for police to investigate messy corruption scandals or other embarrassing felonies. Our Commission would issue a warning...

Oh, no, this Negro didn’t. Somebody please tell me that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick did not play the race card in his recent state of the city address. Please tell me that he did not compare himself to Dr. Ossian Sweet, the famous Detroiter who, in 1925, held off, by force of arms, a riotous white mob threatening to drive him and his family from their home. Kilpatrick’s problems are nothing like Sweet’s, and Kilpatrick brought them all on himself. Sweet was exercising his right as an American citizen to live where he wanted free from harassment and violence. Kilpatrick’s...

Mathis: I Do Not Support Mayor Judge Mathis Denies Heading Up Defense FundPOSTED: 12:57 pm EDT March 27, 2008 UPDATED: 1:11 pm EDT March 27, 2008 DETROIT -- Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is establishing a legal defense fund called The Detroit Justice Fund to pay his mounting legal bills. "Of course, all fundraising requirements will be met," said an official from the Mayor's office. "There will be no set donation amounts." One of the names tied to heading up this defense fund committee was Detroit native Judge Greg Mathis. On Thursday, Mathis sent out a statement denying his involvement....

DETROIT (AP) - Legal experts say that the heart of the perjury case against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick—steamy text messages that seem to contradict his sworn denials of an affair with an aide—might be less open-and-shut than many believe. Kilpatrick's attorneys want to keep the intimate and sexually explicit text messages out of a trial, and at least one outside defense lawyer says the admissibility of such high-tech communications is an unsettled legal question. Even if they are admitted, experts say the defense will exploit any ambiguity in the messages, in the questions the mayor and former Chief of Staff Christine...

DETROIT - Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former top aide have pleaded not guilty to charges they lied under oath about having an affair. The mayor and former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty were arraigned Tuesday. Not guilty pleas were entered for them on charges of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office. Both are accused of lying under oath about an affair and their roles in the firing of a top police official. Steamy text messages first reported by the Detroit Free Press revealed a flirty, sometimes explicit, dialogue between the two. Attorneys for both say...

Detroit's sex-scandal Democrat mayor---married father of three---was charged with perjury after steamy text messages undercut his sworn testimony that he didn't have an affair with a top aide. Kwame Kilpatrick, 37, was also charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office...... His former COS, Christine Beatty, 37, had denied under oath that she and her boss had a fling, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. The probe began after the Detroit Free Press published excerpts of text messages going back to 2002. "I'm madly in love with you," Kilpatrick texted. "I hope you feel that way...

Two weeks since the ABC and NBC evening shows took multiple days before getting around to informing viewers that disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer belonged to the Democratic Party -- after every ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news program last year immediately highlighted the party of Republican Senators David Vitter and Larry Craig -- Monday's broadcast network evening newscasts all failed to note, verbally or on-screen, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's party. ABC anchor Charles Gibson announced on World News: “Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged today with felonies that could cost him his job and 15 years...