corruption

RECENT POSTS

Midwest Memo: UAW Steps In On Right To Work, Recall News And Chicago’s Birthday

A new angle The head of the UAW says the union will try to get voters to approve an amendment to the Michigan constitution to ban Right to Work legislation. Right to Work bans employers from agreeing to mandatory union membership for their workers.

Taking them to task A new task force is declaring war on corruption in Detroit, according to the Detroit Free Press.  An FBI official says corruption in the city is “generational, systematic, part of the culture.”

Total recall Wisconsin election officials say recall votes will have to wait until at least June.

Some gain, still pain Illinois added jobs again last month, proof that the state is recovering – but at a “painfully slow rate,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

Hold the confetti CNNMoney takes a look at manufacturing in Ohio, and says the “good times are back (sort of).”

Movies move on Interest in Michigan as a movie-making destination continues to drop. The state dramatically cut back its film incentives last year.

Happy Birthday Chicago turns 175 years old on Sunday!

In Akron, Ohio, A TV News Team’s Plan B

The corruption trial of former Cuyahoga County commissioner Jimmy Dimora hasn’t gotten much mention outside of Ohio. But the subject of the trial in Akron does have a connection to the economic transformation of the Midwest.

Dimora was at the center of a number of construction projects in the Cleveland area. Those projects were sold as ways to help boost the local economy. Taxpayers invested tens of millions of dollars, but prosecutors allege the only ones who benefited in the end were Dimora and his friends.

WOIO TV

A puppet version of businessman Ferris Kleem pauses momentarily with his money, shortly before using that money to pay for a prostitute to visit former Cuyahoga County commissioner Jimmy Dimora in Las Vegas.

But this is all prologue to the real reason for mentioning the Dimora trial. One of the news organizations covering the trial. Cleveland’s WOIO-TV (19 Action News!) was not allowed to bring its cameras in to film the trial.

So the news team there made a courageous decision: they are re-enacting trial testimony with … puppets.

Yes, puppets.

We’ve talked before about people having to resort to Plan B. But this is something else entirely.