[Sixstrings]

Something I can't figure out..

Why is Hillary Clinton giving speeches and complaining about the lead water in Flint Michigan every day..

And then Bernie Sanders is too..

And people are having marches and protests and complaining and complaining and it's all a bunch of back and forth.

But the federal government doesn't just fix the darn thing. So what's up with that. Hillary Clinton is demagoguing on this issue every day, but nobody is mentioning the Democratic president in the white house right this very moment. I heaven't heard Obama say anything about Flint, and it's been months now.

Where is the EPA? Where is Obama, on this?

Obama could have got FEMA involved and got water filters out, etc. This should be Obama's katrina, but it's odd to me that Democrats just don't mention Obama at all, and rather they just campaign on this thing every day as if the lead has to stay in the water until one of them can take office in 2017.

It's like the issue is getting milked or something.

I mean goodness, Clinton's on tv right now in Flint, PRAISING Obama's overall record.. right after talking about all the lead in the water for the last thirty minutes.. so why hasn't she been criticizing Obama for having not done anything about Flint for all these months?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'S')omething I can't figure out..

Why is Hillary Clinton giving speeches and complaining about the lead water in Flint Michigan every day..

And then Bernie Sanders is too..

And people are having marches and protests and complaining and complaining and it's all a bunch of back and forth.

But the federal government doesn't just fix the darn thing. So what's up with that. Hillary Clinton is demagoguing on this issue every day, but nobody is mentioning the Democratic president in the white house right this very moment. I heaven't heard Obama say anything about Flint, and it's been months now.

Where is the EPA? Where is Obama, on this?

Obama could have got FEMA involved and got water filters out, etc. This should be Obama's katrina, but it's odd to me that Democrats just don't mention Obama at all, and rather they just campaign on this thing every day as if the lead has to stay in the water until one of them can take office in 2017.

It's like the issue is getting milked or something.

I mean goodness, Clinton's on tv right now in Flint, PRAISING Obama's overall record.. right after talking about all the lead in the water for the last thirty minutes.. so why hasn't she been criticizing Obama for having not done anything about Flint for all these months?

[Lore]

Because it was a problem initiated by the state's Republican Governor.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'B')ecause it was a problem initiated by the state's Republican Governor.

[ROCKMAN]

I have to go with my pal Lore on this one. It never was a fed problem and shouldn't be one now. IOW this is not another f*cking Katrina. LOL.

It is not a natural catastrophe: it's a local problem caused by piss poor local and state administrators. This is their problem to fix and to PAY FOR. IMO this isn't a problem US tax payers need to cover. No different the to ask the feds to pay for fixing pot holes in Houston. There is no health issue now because no one in Flint is drinking leader water today. The city of Flint is responsible for providing it's citizens with drinking water...always has been and always will be. The folks in Houston pay for their drinking water...not the US tax payer. Flint can pay to clean the pipes and filter the water. Or they can perpetually supply its citizens with bottle water. It's choice and its RESPONSIBILITY.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I') have to go with my pal Lore on this one. It never was a fed problem and shouldn't be one now. IOW this is not another f*cking Katrina. LOL.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I') have to go with my pal Lore on this one. It never was a fed problem and shouldn't be one now. IOW this is not another f*cking Katrina. LOL.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'R')ight! Because the EPA should NEVER have ANY responsibility for the quality of water. They just make spread sheets, and get $billions in funding to have everyone self monitor.

[GHung]

Sixstrings, the guy who politicises every comment and post he makes, accusing others of politicising things. That's rich, Six.

Wanna get political?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Republicans Who Cut and Tried To Defund EPA Now Attack It For Not Preventing Colorado Mine Spill
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/11 ... Mine-Spill

[KaiserJeep]

I have to speak in Six's defense this time. The answer to your questions would be:

1) Infrastructure is the responsibility of first Local and secondly State governments. The Federal infrastructure is limited to nationwide items like the Interstate Highway System or the locks/canals in the Great Lakes, or the various Army Corps of Engineers projects. Note that a candidate for POTUS is already a power-mad authoritarian at the very least. Some go far beyond the "least" and advocate using the powers of the Federal government to force people to behave differently than they otherwise would choose. In other words, they are Fascists - such as anyone who advocates expanding the powers or responsibilities of the Federal Government into the purview of Local and State governments.

2) The people of Flint have elected Democrats since WW2, thanks mainly to the dominance of the Democratic-leaning labor unions such as the UAW, also known as the Democratic political machine. The UAW succeeded so well in advocating for it's members that it killed the automobile industry that really was the largest employer in Flint, in Detroit, and in fact the entire MidWest. (In my first home in Elgin, Illinois my next door neighbor was a 27-year employee of a company called Chicago Rawhide - which actually made engine oil seals for GM, Ford, and Chrysler. He was also next on the bubble to be laid off when I moved to Virginia in 1982.)

3) Generations of Democrats have prioritized what I will simply call "social issues" as being higher budgetary priorities than infrastructure maintenance on water supplies, streets, etc. In actual fact, graft has stolen most tax monies before the lower priority items such as water systems ever get addressed.

4) When the automobile industry contracted due to effective foreign competition from smaller, higher quality, more fuel-efficient vehicles, the budgets in Flint, Detroit, and pretty much every large MidWestern city contracted due to the loss of tax revenues. Budgetary priorities shifted repeatedly until essential services were slowly being starved, and infrastructure systems like the water supplies were minimally budgeted for literally decades. All remaining funds for water system maintenance were devoted to simply keeping water pressure in the pipes, so that water service was functional. (Hey, remember that in cities in South America, they can't manage even that much.)

5) The yellowish cast to the water above is not lead, it is rust - most of the piping from the water main at the street to the tap in the house is steel pipe, vintage WW2 when American steel was king. In anything built in the 1980's onwards, copper pipe was used instead, and in anything from about 2005 onwards, various forms of plastic piping - these newer pipes do not rust, but are also largely found in the toney white suburbs, not the inner city black ghettos. The suburbs have also quietly invested in individual residence water filters, water softeners, and water distillers, the suburban kids do not face the same health risks as the urban ghetto kids.

6) This process continued for decades - until the inner city budgets were squeezed down to the two highest priorities that those Democratic administrations had: Essential Services and Graft.

That is where we are today. Only idiots would allow a Democrat to campaign on issues created by earlier generations of Democrats - but amazingly, aided and abetted by the MSM, that is happening today.

Believe it or not, this is a politically impartial analysis. From time to time, Republicans have been elected to the positions of Governor in MidWestern states such as Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. When in disgust of the reeking Democratic politics they have attempted to reform the corrupt city governments of the largest cities in their respective states, the MSM has shrilly and loudly condemned such efforts - most recently those of Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, but going all the way back to a series of Republican Governors of Illinois, when I lived there as a teenager in the 1960s.

That would be where we are today. If you want to dispute my analysis, I stand ready with the facts.

[Satori]

this problem was the DIRECT result of actions taken by the state
let the state pay for the fix
aren't the Rethugs all about taking personal responsibility ?
LOL !!!

Snyder knew about this problem for close to a year
and did NOTHING
and now he's crying crocodile tears ???

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Satori', 't')his problem was the DIRECT result of actions taken by the state
let the state pay for the fix
aren't the Rethugs all about taking personal responsibility ?
LOL !!!

Snyder knew about this problem for close to a year
and did NOTHING
and now he's crying crocodile tears ???

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'B')ecause it was a problem initiated by the state's Republican Governor.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', ' ')It never was a fed problem and shouldn't be one now..... The city of Flint is responsible for providing it's citizens with drinking water...always has been and always will be. The folks in Houston pay for their drinking water...not the US tax payer. Flint can pay to clean the pipes and filter the water. Or they can perpetually supply its citizens with bottle water. It's choice and its RESPONSIBILITY.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', ' ')It never was a fed problem and shouldn't be one now..... The city of Flint is responsible for providing it's citizens with drinking water...always has been and always will be. The folks in Houston pay for their drinking water...not the US tax payer. Flint can pay to clean the pipes and filter the water. Or they can perpetually supply its citizens with bottle water. It's choice and its RESPONSIBILITY.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', ' ')My wife is from Flint

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')By any chance do you drink the water there on your visits to the in-laws? Is that the problem??? HAHAHAHAH (just kidding).

[KaiserJeep]

To be fair: the EPA responsibility is to notify the water utility officials and the city government that provides oversight of the water utility of a problem with water quality. Their further responsibility is to arrest and prosecute those utility officials and city politicians that do not act to protect the public.

If the (Democrat) politicians who oversee the Federal EPA choose to publicise the existence of lead contamination in drinking water in an election year - because they believe they can successfully smear Rick Snyder or anybody else - that goes above and beyond their responsibility. Note however that the pictures of rusty water are irrelevant - the visible iron is an essential element of human nutrition, whereas the lead contamination is invisible, has been present for decades, and inevitably would have worsened (at a reduced rate) even had the substitution of river water for lake water never occurred.

In any case, I think it was largely the MSM smearing Snyder on this. Doubtless somebody on Obama's EPA admin staff or in the DNC put them up to it, but likely that can never be proved.

I have not noticed any prominent Democrats in Flint being prosecuted for this problem.

In all, BAU in an election year.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '
')So, you're blaming the EPA .... Sounds like deflection.

[Satori]

hmm
it certainly does appear that the EPA was aware of problems,at least back into 2015

however
the state and the governor were also made aware of these issues
and as I said
the governor did nothing
and what is really suspicious is that the Republicans on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
have done everything they could to keep Governor Snyder from appearing to testify
gee
wonder why they don't want him there ?

and it is the EPA's contention
that they were met "with resistance" from day 1 by state officials

however
it certainly seems that government on EVERY level failed in this matter