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| Rick Synder faces a federal sandwich for allowing people to die from the poisons in the Flint River. |
BLACK LIVES MATTER
PROTECT BLACK WOMEN!
WEAR A DAMN MASK! SAVE A LIFE!
YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID!
GOOGLE'S BLOGGER IS TRASH!
With the Blogger interface, it is getting harder to make blog posts. I am not kidding.
The way they rolled this interface out maybe the death knell for the once beloved social media platform.
I am not going to lie, this is frustrating and I am going to make my postings shorter and quicker now.
The city of Flint, Michigan is approximately 60 miles from Detroit. It's major thoroughfares include Interstate 69 which is being developed to become a main line for shipping good from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Interstate 75 the second longest north-south freeway that connect from Upper Michigan near the Canadian border to the suburbs of Miami, Florida and U.S. 23 a main corridor highway into Appalachia. Interstate 475 is a main route into downtown Flint. It serves a majority of the city's travel while Interstate 75 bypasses the city. Interstate 69 diverts from north-south to east-west after it passes through the suburbs of Lansing. The city's population is 89,000 residents.
It is part of the Rust Belt communities that President Donald J. Trump left behind in his failed "Make America Great Again" promise.
Former Michigan governor Rick Snyder is under the state and feds radar. The ex-governor who served two terms from 2011 to 2019 was a controversial figure.
He was responsible for signing off a union busting law that made Michigan an at-work state.
He staunchly opposed then president Barack Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" and "high speed rail" funds.
He was a venture capitalist who looked at Michigan as a business and not a state.
Snyder became the most hated governor of all time. He allowed poison to seep into the water supply of the rust belt city of Flint.
Snyder was accused of mishandling the situation which lead to 15,000 children in Flint to be exposed to lead. This is an ongoing health crisis in the city besides the coronavirus pandemic.
It started in 2014 when the city of Flint changed its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department which was sourced water from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River.
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| The Flint River is still too dangerous to consume. |
The Flint River which as flowing along the abandoned GM and Ford plants seeped toxins into the ground and it eventually got into the wells. The lead from aging pipes also added fuel to the fire. The city exposed over 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
Snyder declared a state of emergency for Genesee County which included the city of Flint shortly after it was revealed the water was toxic. Then president Barack Obama ordered a national emergency to the city and three counties where the Flint River flowed.
It lead to 12 people being killed and 87 being severely affected by the lead levels.
Snyder pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to two counts of willful neglect of duty, before a judge set bond at $10,000.
The former governor was ordered to not leave the state ahead of his next date on Tuesday. He faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
And just before Snyder appeared in court, Michigan’s former health director, Nick Lyon, pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges in connection to the deaths of nine people who got Legionnaires’ disease during the Flint water crisis.
"We believe there is no evidence to support any criminal charges against Governor Snyder," the former governor's defense attorney Brian Lennon told The Associated Press on Wednesday night, adding that state prosecutors hadn't provided him with any details.
Requests for comment by NBC News from Lennon weren't immediately returned. The state attorney general's office had no comment.
Attorney General Dana Nessel and prosecutors are expected to discuss the case during a press conference Thursday morning.
The decision by Snyder's administration in 2014 to switch Flint from Detroit's water system to the Flint River led to the disaster, as the untreated river water resulted in pipe corrosion and lead contamination.
Criminal charges were filed in 2017 against a number of state officials, including Lyon, over the Legionnaires' disease outbreak at the same time as the contaminated water crisis. Lyon was accused of failing to inform the public for a year after he learned about the outbreak in 2015.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Lyon and seven other people in 2019.
Experts have said the city's contaminated water led to the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia caused by bacteria that thrive in warm water.
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| Flint, Michigan. |
Bryant Nolden, a member of the Genesee County Board of Commissioners who runs a historic recreation center in Flint, celebrated the news that those indicted would include Snyder.
"The buck stopped at Governor Snyder," he said. "He was the one that put the people in place that actually did this. We have to see how this all plays out, but I'm very happy to hear that some folks are going to be held accountable at the highest level."
Nolden said he and his neighbors in Flint were disappointed when earlier rounds of indictments stopped short of Snyder. "I was a little concerned that it wouldn't go all the way up the ladder to him."
Bringing Snyder to account, he said, won't repair the damage done in Flint — including skyrocketing rates of children who need special education services — but it will improve morale among residents.
"The residents here are very resilient," he said. "We've made it through, and we're dealing with it, but I think that this will help in some small way, letting them know that justice will be served because these people will be held accountable for the wrongs that they did here in this community."
Residents of Flint, a majority-Black city, have struggled for years to recover from the crisis as they relied for months on bottled water as their primary source of clean water and their property values suffered.
The state agreed to a $600 million settlement in August in a class-action lawsuit with Flint residents whose health was afflicted, establishing a fund from which residents can file for compensation.
I want to note that Snyder endorsed Joe Biden for president. I am expected to hear from the far-right that Snyder isn't a Republican. They'll say he's a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and a Biden "The residents here are very resilient," he said. "We've made it through, and we're dealing with it, but I think that this will help in some small way, letting them know that justice will be served because these people will be held accountable for the wrongs that they did here in this community."
Residents of Flint, a majority-Black city, have struggled for years to recover from the crisis as they relied for months on bottled water as their primary source of clean water and their property values suffered.
The state agreed to a $600 million settlement in August in a class-action lawsuit with Flint residents whose health was afflicted, establishing a fund from which residents can file for compensation.
It is noted that Snyder endorsed Joe Biden for president. I am expected that far-right will accuse Snyder of being a RINO (Republican in Name Only), a Biden sycophant and find a way to blame Obama for the failures of Snyder.
It's often the case when Republicans want to deflect responsibility. They always seem to blame the Democrats for their cuts to regulations.
The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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