Trump Derangement Syndrome - Orange man bad. Read the OP! (ᴛʜɪs ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴅ ɪs ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴋɪᴡɪ ғᴀʀᴍs ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡs ɴᴏᴡ) 🗿🗿🗿🗿

[Godzilla@1989]

Happy forth of July my dudes! Let’s celebrate 243 years of badass awesomeness by laughing at the lolcows sperging TDS nonsense all day!

 

[Jigglyjogglers]

Isn't it the state's job to fix Flint's water and not the federal level people?

That, and it's already been fixed. Has been for awhile, once the (mostly black and Democrat) people responsible for it got enough slaps on the wrist that they quit embezzling the funds and actually used them to fix the pipes. But Flint's just too valuable a buzzword for the left now, they'll still be bitching about it and claiming the pipes haven't been fixed twenty years from now.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Look at this shit. Basically written by a guy that says "ORANGE MAN MADE AMERICA PROBLEMATIC!"

The Declaration of Independence is sexist, racist and prejudiced

How we can embrace the underlying spirit of the Declaration of Independence — and also learn from its shortcomings

www.salon.com

It is painful to write about the shortcomings of the Declaration of Independence. The historic document was officially approved by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 — a mere two days after the Lee Resolution formally declared the American colonies to be independent of the British Empire. Because the American colonists ultimately prevailed in their revolution against King George III, the document has been immortalized as one of the opening salvos in the ongoing fight for human freedom that continues to this very day. Without this seminal text, every social justice movement that has followed would never have come to pass.

Yet despite its overwhelmingly positive impact on history, the Declaration of Independence was also a product of its time — and bears some of the shortcomings of its era, including sexism, racism and prejudice against Native Americans. Here is a look at the events leading up to the creation of that document, as well as involved in its actual signing, which one must inspect for a more rounded look at this period in history:

1. It did not condemn slavery.
In the original list of grievances against King George III, future President Thomas Jefferson — who co-authored the document along with future President John Adams, as well as Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Richard Sherman — wrote that "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."

These words were cruelly ironic coming from Jefferson, who was an unrepentant racist and a slave owner — more on that in a moment. Nevertheless, even he acknowledged that slavery was an "abominable crime" and ultimately wished to see it purged from the new country. However, since southern support for the American Revolution was critical to its success, Jefferson ultimately scrapped that passage in order to keep the colonies united against their common enemy.

Yet the story is not quite as simple as Jefferson succumbing to political expedience; he had selfish and bigoted motives for supporting slavery that, in the end, outweighed his moral and logical reasons for opposing it. In 1782, only six years after drafting the Declaration of Independence, he offered these thoughts on the differences between whites and African-Americans:

Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made ... will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. ... They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid: and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.

These views are not surprising coming from a man who, over the course of his life, enslaved more than 600 people.

2. It did not protect the rights of women.

Less than four months before the Declaration of Independence was ratified, Abigail Adams — the wife of future President John Adams and thus a future first lady — urged her husband to "Remember the Ladies" when contemplating the legal premises that should guide the nascent republic. Her argument deserves to be reprinted in full:

I long to hear that you have declared an independancy and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.
That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.

Adams' response was, to say the least, tone deaf and unsympathetic. From patronizingly saying, "I cannot but laugh" at his wife's suggestion — to sounding like a proto-MRA in arguing that "we have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat" — Adams' response would fit right in with the modern alt-right. (To be clear, Adams lived in 1776 and was a genuine hero with courage and principle, qualities which would never be found in a member of the alt-right.)

As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient -- that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent -- that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented. -- This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I wont blot it out.
Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight. I am sure every good Politician would plot, as long as he would against Despotism, Empire, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Ochlocracy. -- A fine Story indeed. I begin to think the Ministry as deep as they are wicked. After stirring up Tories, Landjobbers, Trimmers, Bigots, Canadians, Indians, Negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholicks, Scotch Renegadoes, at last they have stimulated the to demand new Priviledges and threaten to rebell.

Needless to say, while some scholars have argued that the use of the term "men" instead of a gender neutral equivalent like "people" in phrases like "all men are created equal" was incidental, comments like those made by Adams suggest a more unfortunate explanation.

3. To the disadvantage of Native Americans, Jefferson replaced the phrase "property" with happiness when saying that human beings' basic rights include "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

In theory, it is a good thing for someone to say that our inalienable rights amount to more than the acquisition of material goods, such as land and currency. And to be fair, Jefferson was almost certainly inspired by the philosopher John Locke, who wrote the following in 1690:

The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

That said, there is another interpretation of why "happiness" was replaced with "property" — one that has less to do with Enlightenment philosophy and more with ensuring that specific marginalized groups could not assert their rights. As historian Peter Garnsey wrote in his book "Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution," Jefferson's excision of the word "property" might have been partially driven by a desire to avoid legitimizing the institution of slavery — which would have certainly been a good reason — but he might have also been motivated by a less seemly sentiment.

But there were also the 'Indians' (Native Americans). American leaders could not stop settlers from taking over Indian land, nor did they want to. Jefferson writing in 1801 as President to the Governor of Virginia spoke of his dream that white farmers would 'cover the whole northern if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, and by similar laws; nor can we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that surface.' Jefferson himself together with associates had been acquiring Indian from the 1760s. As for Indians who did not cede their land peacefully, they could be forced to do so in a 'just war.' Warfare was in progress on the frontiers of Virginia just when Jefferson was preparing his draft for the Declaration of Independence — fomented, he charged, by the British. At the same time Jefferson and many other leading politicians did not claim that the Indians, though primitive peoples, had no natural rights, including the 'right of soil.' However, if there was a natural right to property, virtually all property held by descendants of European settlers would have been under suspicion. Jefferson was as inconsistent over the Indians as he was over slavery.

Considering that one of the Declaration's complaints against King George III was that he "has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions," this anti-Native American theory is depressingly plausible.

Is any of this intended to suggest that we should not take pride in the Declaration of Independence? Not even remotely: It was — and continues to be — one of the most eloquent and morally moving political documents ever penned. That said, we must also remember that our Founding Fathers were not the living gods that many believe them to be. They were fallible human beings, and some of their flaws had terrible consequences for people who were not fortunate enough to be born into privileged groups. When we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, we should embrace its underlying spirit — as well as the courage of the men who were willing to risk "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" — and simultaneously learn from its shortcomings. This alone can make the spirit of 1776 relevant to the conditions of 2019 — or any other year, for that matter.

Okay it doesn't specifically bash Trump, but you get the idea.

 

[TowinKarz]

I have never seen such self defeating suicidal idiocy.

Has the Left ever been this suicidally stupid before?

Yes. But after decades of inching closer, one self-destructive social policy at a time, they finally fell off the cliff they've been walking towards in 2016. And now are flailing about trying to grab anything to stop a fall that has reached terminal velocity.

It shouldn't be a surprise that their brains don't work the best when their own doom is approaching that fast... they don't care who holds out a hand, they're just looking for one to grab.

A lot of this recent rage is just so impotently unfocused I don't even get mad about it anymore.

Oppose a Trump policy? BURN A FLAG IN PROTEST!

The opposition's approval is up? DEMAND FREE HEALTHCARE FOR NON-CITIZENS!

People tired of media censorship? THINK OF THE POOR OPPRESSED TRANNIES!

Young adults are finding it hard to get up the will to marry due to social hostility to the concept? DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH, AND IT'S THE FAULT OF CLIMATE CHANGE!

The left, right now, is not possessed of even bad policy, they HAVE no policy. They are like that famous math equation that, as Wolfgang Pauli upon review put it, "This is not only not right, but has so many mistakes in fundamental construction that it can't even be considered WRONG"

The left isn't even logically answering questions anymore with proposed solutions. They have devolved to just spouting platitudes at random from a bucket marked "random Dem candidate speech talking points" and come across as persuasive as a sheep wandering the streets with a loudspeaker and klaxon tied to it, endlessly blaring "ORANGEMAN BAD! ORANGEMAN BAD!""

 

[CheezzyMach]

Yes. But after decades of inching closer, one self-destructive social policy at a time, they finally fell off the cliff they've been walking towards in 2016. And now are flailing about trying to grab anything to stop a fall that has reached terminal velocity.

It shouldn't be a surprise that their brains don't work the best when their own doom is approaching that fast... they don't care who holds out a hand, they're just looking for one to grab.

A lot of this recent rage is just so impotently unfocused I don't even get mad about it anymore.

Oppose a policy? BURN A FLAG!

The opposition's approval is up? DEMAND FREE HEALTHCARE FOR NON-CITIZENS!

People tired of media censorship? BLAME IT ON CLIMATE CHANGE!

The left, right now, is not possessed of even bad policy, they HAVE no policy. The titular math equation that, as Wolfgang Pauli put it, "Is not only not right, but has so many mistakes in fundamental construction that it can't even be considered WRONG"

How much longer do you think it'll be before they reach the bottom and admit defeat and return to sanity?

 

[CWCissey]

How much longer do you think it'll be before they reach the bottom and admit defeat and return to sanity?

About the same time as Chris hits rock bottom.

 

[TowinKarz]

Only Republican to call for impeachment suddenly decides to leave the party? Wasn't there a term for that? Oh yeah, RINO.

Talk about taking your ball and going home...... someone didn't notice the last of the hardline Bush neocons died with McCain. You can get on the Trump train, or you can be left behind because its tearing up the tracks behind it.

Of course, since a R defection lines up with the narrative, it will be spun as a brave and selfless act of defiance. Naturally, if the roles were reversed and a lone Democrat was breaking ranks for personal reasons it would be... wait, we don't have to imagine that, Joe Manchin can tell you all about it because he didn't back the Kavanaugh witch hunt and felt the wrath of what those "moral" people do when you defy them.

 

[Ruin]

How much longer do you think it'll be before they reach the bottom and admit defeat and return to sanity?

It won't totally defeat them but a significant percentage of the authoritarian left will die when the leaders that enable them like Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi do. Similar to how neoconservatism largely collapsed with the death of John McCain and the Bushes.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Isn't it the state's job to fix Flint's water and not the federal level people?

It should be noted that Obama could have ordered the US Army's Engineer Corps to go in and replace ALL of the pipes causing the lead poisoning, had he wanted to do so at ANY TIME. Instead he made one single appearance where he was condecending as hell to the people of Flint) and promptly used the town, with zero warning, for the military to practice urban war military manuevers.

Part of this is due to the fact that Obama was just fucking cowardly to confront the GOP machine that took over Michigan. But mostly, because Flint Michigan is the whipping boy of the United States in terms of places where bad shit happens and no one lifts a finger to help. As Michael Moore demonstrates in his various films; Flint is our nation's "Portrait of Dorian Grey" which degrades and de-evolves into an ugly mess while the rest of the nation continues with the charade that the country is doing good good, economically and socially. If they fix Flint, the worst of the worst hurt cities in the US, then the Democrats would have to fix ALL of the struggling small and medium towns everywhere.

Also the problem with the water isn't fixed; they just juked the stats to make it look like they fixed the water and got caught doing so, when several doctors started getting pressured to lie to parents about permanent and irreversible brain damage from lead poisoning their kids suffered and went to the press about it.

Holy shit. I'm just impressed someone used Napoleon for Trump instead of one of the WW2 asshats. I was beginning to think nobody remembered him or he was rehabilitated like Genghis Khan.

I wouldn't say Napoleon was "redeemed" so much as he was turned into a figure of derision and mockery and a symbol of mental illness (in terms of the cliche that crazy people think they are Napoleon).

The only reason Napoleon doesn't get the full Hitler treatment is that France was in such dire straits when he took over, that Napoleon brought about a return of a level of stability that survived his defeat.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

Talk about taking your ball and going home...... someone didn't notice the last of the hardline Bush neocons died with McCain. You can get on the Trump train, or you can be left behind because its tearing up the tracks behind it.

Of course, since a R defection lines up with the narrative, it will be spun as a brave and selfless act of defiance. Naturally, if the roles were reversed and a lone Democrat was breaking ranks for personal reasons it would be... wait, we don't have to imagine that, Joe Manchin can tell you all about it because he didn't back the Kavanaugh witch hunt and felt the wrath of what those "moral" people do when you defy them.

In general putting personal values ahead of party loyalty is a good thing imo. Loyalty to political parties has been a terrible thing for the country, and nobody’s owed loyalty just because they have an R or a D next to their name. Neither party has done a damn thing to actually be worthy of any loyalty.

That said, if he didn’t defect from the republicans over Trump in 16, why do it now? I can see not liking the direction the party was going at the time and wanting out, but riding it through that then having an issue now seems strange.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

That's neat and all but he already gave them $100 million back at the very start of his presidency, and the water's pretty much been completely dealt with at this point, I don't understand why so many people keep bitching about it as if Trump didn't assign a bunch of funding to the repairs years ago. I realize that the news cycle is a little slow but Jesus Christ people try to keep it within the same year at least.

That, and it's already been fixed. Has been for awhile, once the (mostly black and Democrat) people responsible for it got enough slaps on the wrist that they quit embezzling the funds and actually used them to fix the pipes. But Flint's just too valuable a buzzword for the left now, they'll still be bitching about it and claiming the pipes haven't been fixed twenty years from now.

Well... it doesn't look like it's really fixed yet.

For the second time, the city of Flint, Michigan, is poised to reject the results of its contract bidding process after an experienced local firm provided the lowest offer.

“This is unethical, it is bid rigging, and I certainly won’t be a part of this,” city Councilwoman Eva Worthing said during a Tuesday meeting. “Does council and the city want to deal with a lawsuit over unfair bidding practices by this city? This is favoritism, cronyism … This is basically a sham, it’s unethical, and if council votes [to rescind this contract we signed], we’re in trouble.”


Residents may have to wait six months longer for repairs because WT Stevens — the company owned by the wife of a former NBA player and which Worthing suspects may have a corrupt relationship with Flint politicos — is still months behind schedule on finishing the last water contract the city gave it, the low-bidding company, Goyette Mechanical, said.

“The mayor wants us to take away Goyette’s bid and just give it to WT Stevens,” Worthing said during the meeting.

On Monday, Mayor Karen Weaver’s administration abruptly said it would rescind the $12 million contract from Goyette Mechanical, a local firm with 90 years of experience that specializes specifically in municipal water. On Tuesday, it asked the city council to approve the move, but uproar from multiple factions of the city council led to discussions being tabled until July 8.

The city of less than 100,000 has collected more than $647 million in state and federal aid for what is often described as a public health emergency. But when the money reaches City Hall, officials have repeatedly made decisions that have severely slowed the progress of fixing the water pipes, decisions that have had the side effect of sending more money to WT Stevens’ coffers.

​

Mayor Karen Weaver and city Councilman Eric Mays have bragged that WT Stevens is black-owned, with Mays saying Flint “broke records for giving black folks money.” Goyette is white-owned.

A majority of the city council members joined against Mays and the mayor to vote against abruptly reversing the decision to strip Goyette of the contract.

“It is with sincere regret I am informing you Goyette Mechanical is not the lowest responsive bidder,” Flint’s purchasing manager Joyce McClane wrote in a July 1 letter to Goyette. “Therefore, pursuant to the City’s procurement process, the bid award must be rescinded.”


“On June 27, 2019, unbeknownst to the City, the State of Michigan discovered a discrepancy in the calculations with this product,” he continued. “The Department of Public Works mistakenly used different criteria to calculate your contract amount.”

Worthing said during Tuesday’s meeting: “You’re saying oh, oops, they’re no longer the lowest bidder, our mistake … and ‘guess who we have right here everyone, for council to give the [$12 million] restoration now to WT Stevens … this is not how contract bidding is done.”

“With all of the controversies surrounding WT Stevens, the poor work they’ve done, they are not even qualified for pipe replacements in the first place,” she continued. “So, basically Goyette is going to sue and I wouldn’t blame them.”

Joe Parks of Goyette Mechanical said in an open letter to the city “the proposed award for Phase 6 Restorations to WT Stevens smacks of favoritism and unethical contracting” and pointed out that the “‘mistake’ … is entirely the city’s fault.”

“In spite of the fact that WT Stevens has not completed their work on-time on previous contracts and they will obviously not complete the current Phase 6 replacement on time (we estimate they will not complete the Phase 6 replacements by December) the City is now intending to give them the award to complete 15,000 restorations by December of 2019,” he continued.

“The likelihood of WT Stevens completing both the Replacements and the Restorations by year-end is Zero,” Parks wrote. “In fact, they will most likely not be able to complete all of the work in 2 years. Goyette GUARANTEES that they will be complete the 15,000 addresses by 12-31-19 as long as the work gets awarded in July ’19.”

After a question from the state, the city took the bids and decided that the necessary work was different than what it originally asked for. It discarded line-items that it said it would no longer use and recalculated the bids using the new quantities and types of work.

A state official said that nothing in the state’s request required it to do so, the Flint Journal reported.

Deja vu
WT Stevens was initially ineligible to do any work for the city’s water lines because it allegedly had no relevant experience, as required under the bid specs. Mays arranged to get around that requirement by attaching a Detroit-based engineer with water-main skills, Ellis Monk, as a subcontractor, Monk told the DCNF. Monk said the workaround did little to actually help Flint residents.

WT Stevens “hired people [with] no experience, some of them seemed like they were fresh out of jail,” he said. “They’re drilling every which way, junk flying everywhere.”

Then, in 2017, phase four of work was bid out, and Goyette was the lowest bidder for all 10 zones. But the city council threw out the winning bid and started over. Councilwoman Kate Fields said the rationale was vague and that “my opinion is that this … has been corrupted once again.”

It turned out that Goyette’s mistake was offering not only the lowest bid per linear foot of pipe as requested, but also as a bonus, giving the option to perform the work at a flat, per-home rate.

Goyette and WT Stevens wound up splitting the work. But Goyette was finishing much faster, poising it to gobble up most of the addresses and therefore more money than WT Stevens. So Weaver’s chief advisor, Aonie Gilchrest, leveled the playing field by barring Goyette from using specialized digging equipment known as “hydrovac,” minutes show. The action dramatically slowed the pace of restoring clean water to Flint residents while driving up the cost, observers told the DCNF.

Art Woodson, a political activist and critic of corruption within Weaver’s administration, said “Aonie Gilchrest and Mayor Weaver are bid-rigging. It’s just that simple.”

According to October 2018 minutes, Gilcreast ordered that engineering supervisor AECOM “should not wait until WT Stevens was finished with the replacements that they have been issued before giving them more addresses. He stated that AECOM would have trouble out of him if they didn’t issue WT Stevens more addresses.”

In May 2018, AECOM said “The issue is that there is more copper-to-copper [i.e. safe pipes, as opposed to lead] than we originally thought there would be … which is bad for the [service line replacement] contractors but good for the residents of Flint.” Mayor Weaver ordered the contractors to dig up every yard instead of just those that had lead pipes, according to a map with 94 percent accuracy.

The result was spending vast quantities of taxpayer money tearing up streets and yards that did not need to be torn up, while those who actually had the toxic heavy metal in their pipes waited far longer for repairs. On June 27, the Flint Journal reported that in 2018, contractors dug up 10,531 yards when only 1,567 had lead pipes.

Council members, engineers and activists said this was as good for WT Stevens as it was bad for residents, since WT Stevens did not have the skills to actually replace lead pipes, but could use backhoes to dig simple holes and look for them.

Only a court order signed by a judge on March 26 forced Flint to start using the maps that told it where the dangerous pipes were. Since then, 238 of the 337 yards it dug up actually had pipes that needed to be replaced.

Political connections
When the Daily Caller News Foundation previously called to ask city hall spokeswoman Candice Mushatt about WT Stevens, a second person secretly listened into the call, eventually unleashed an outburst, and said his name was “Jesse Jesse” and “I don’t have a job title.”

The voice sounded distinctly like Gilcreast.

Mushatt did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

At the city council meeting Tuesday, Woodson said Goyette should have been “afforded the same opportunity as the people who bid again … It was all a farce, man.”

“The [state official] didn’t ever say you have to redo the bid … he just asked for the criteria,” he continued. “He didn’t tell you all to redo the bid and get a different person as the lowest bidder. They went in and changed it themselves and then rebid it. This is the second time.”

Mays advocated for approving the mayor’s request, but the other council members weren’t so sure. He jumped out of his seat, arms outstretched, and repeatedly cut off others. “Remove yourself, you causing chaos,” Mays said to committee chair Monica Galloway.

“Fine, Mr. Mays. You win,” she replied.

“I’m married. I don’t go with you. You single. Go with yourself,” he said.

In November 2017, Mays was sentenced to a week of community service for pawning his city-issued laptop nine times. As part of the plea deal, his sentencing was delayed until after the election, which he won with nearly 70% of the vote.

In June 2016, Weaver pushed the city council to approve a deal with Rizzo Trash that raised eyebrows on the rest of the city council, while Mays vociferously pushed it. Rizzo’s executive later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe.

City councilman Allan Griggs called the WT Stevens move “more favoritism of the unqualified by the Administration.”

The contract move came as Weaver was in Hawaii for a conference. Taxpayers paid for her stay even though the city has laid off firefighters and there is an hour-long wait for police emergency response.

In March, the city council gave Weaver a $37,000 raise to seven times the city’s average income.

Just another day in a Democrat-held city...

 

[TowinKarz]

I don't know if any of the linked vids mention it, but, I came across the best explanation of what happened on a YouTube channel concerned with chemistry, and basically the city of Flint started using local river water instead of piping it in from a water service in Detroit.

That water company had put phosphate into the water that was specifically there to react with lead-lined pipes and chemically create a thin layer of material between the water and the lead so that the piping could still be safely used (as safely as you can use lead pipes any way) until it was replaced. Lots of cities still have legacy lead pipes in their water systems and just can't afford to dig it all up so they use that as a workaround.

For cost-saving reasons, Flint didn't add the phosphate when they started pumping directly from the river, so the protective layer started to break and flake off allowing lead into the water.

Now, river water has a LOT of natural bacteria in it. So to make it safe to use, it was also treated with chlorine.

Guess what? Chlorine dissolves lead, and steel, and in the process turns into other compounds that do NOT kill bacteria.. so that's how ecoli got into the mix as well, the chlorine chose to eat the rusty bare sides of the pipes instead of the bacteria.

Also, being a city that sees snow in winter, they'd salt the roads.

Salt runoff washed into the river.

Yep, road salt contains sodium, which, dissolves lead......

They basically added two caustic lead-dissolving substances to the water, one of which is not only corrosive, but makes by-products that speed up the rate of pipe corrosion and neutralize the antibacterial effect which was the only reason to add it in the first place while simultaneously removing the additive developed to stop all that from happening. Why? I have no idea.



And somehow, all of this, was the fault of racism and Republican politicians in DC who never even MADE those decisions. Not the ones who MADE the decision and apparently are so bad at governance that they routinely pawn their own supplies.

 

[Marchesa of the Vast]

I don't know if any of the linked vids mention it, but, I came across the best explanation of what happened on a YouTube channel concerned with chemistry, and basically the city of Flint started using local river water instead of piping it in from a water service in Detroit.

That water company had put phosphate into the water that was specifically there to react with lead-lined pipes and chemically create a thin layer of material between the water and the lead so that the piping could still be safely used (as safely as you can use lead pipes any way) until it was replaced. Lots of cities still have legacy lead pipes in their water systems and just can't afford to dig it all up so they use that as a workaround.

For cost-saving reasons, Flint didn't add the phosphate when they started pumping directly from the river, so the protective layer started to break and flake off allowing lead into the water.

Now, river water has a LOT of natural bacteria in it. So to make it safe to use, it was also treated with chlorine.

Guess what? Chlorine dissolves lead, and steel, and in the process turns into other compounds that do NOT kill bacteria.. so that's how ecoli got into the mix as well, the chlorine chose to eat the rusty bare sides of the pipes instead of the bacteria.

Also, being a city that sees snow in winter, they'd salt the roads.

Salt runoff washed into the river.

Yep, road salt contains sodium, which, dissolves lead......

They basically added two caustic lead-dissolving substances to the water, one of which is not only corrosive, but makes by-products that speed up the rate of pipe corrosion and neutralize the antibacterial effect which was the only reason to add it in the first place while simultaneously removing the additive developed to stop all that from happening. Why? I have no idea.



And somehow, all of this, was the fault of racism and Republican politicians in DC who never even MADE those decisions. Not the ones who MADE the decision and apparently are so bad at governance that they routinely pawn their own supplies.

You think you can find the video?
Seems fascinating from just a "all the ways we can fuck up our infrastructure perspective".

Also I've discovered a new layer of hell. People hate watching protrump media so they can bitch about how childish Trump is. I guess the race shaming on CNN wasn't good enough or something.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

My dad last night wrote a "go fuck yourself and the censorship horse you rode in on" message to NBC last night over their boycotting of airing "Salute to America", but I wish I asked him to show me it to me. It's hysterical that so many networks are boycotting "Salute to America" when I thought they got reamed over their refusal to air his SOTUs. But they don't care that they're going down in flames, I suppose.

Thus far, YouTube streams like C-SPAN still seem to be happening, right? Or has YouTube blocked that as well?

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Speaking of flint there was a lawsuit against the mayor

 

[It's HK-47]

My dad last night wrote a "go fuck yourself and the censorship horse you rode in on" message to NBC last night over their boycotting of airing "Salute to America", but I wish I asked him to show me it to me. It's hysterical that so many networks are boycotting "Salute to America" when I thought they got reamed over their refusal to air his SOTUs. But they don't care that they're going down in flames, I suppose.

Thus far, YouTube streams like C-SPAN still seem to be happening, right? Or has YouTube blocked that as well?

I intend to cut out all of the middle men and just watch the stream straight from the White House. If every news/media outlet wants to dork off and play politics, that's fine. I'd rather get it from somewhere that isn't going to jam commercials up my ass all night and harass me with talking heads taking a break every two seconds to "fact check."

 

[ProgKing of the North]

Is there anything to gain from watching it live that can't be gleaned from reading the transcript (and watching the video, if necessary) later?

 

[It's HK-47]

Is there anything to gain from watching it live that can't be gleaned from reading the transcript (and watching the video, if necessary) later?

Apart from some kind of internet sped-cred on /r/The_Donald, not really. Not that /r/The_Donald has to worry about that anymore.

In other news: Local window-licker Jeff Guterman links to a parody article without realizing that it's a fucking parody article even though it's clearly labeled satire. Normally I'd give Guterman the benefit of the doubt, but he's long since proven that he's a sack of meat containing no humour whatsoever.

 

[The Great Citracett]

Trump Derangement Syndrome: The Unmistakable Drift Toward the Unimaginable.

 

[TowinKarz]

You think you can find the video?

Well, it would appear that I can..... on the first Google too!



Oh, and let THIS sink in, Mr aptly-named Blowhard. The camps are because people keep illegally BREAKING IN despite being told not to, and the tanks are for show, probably aren't carrying ordinance and if some yahoo ran in front of them, the drivers would simply stop and wait for the DC police to remove them..... these leaps of illogic aren't even ENTERTAINING anymore.