Obama cares about Flint votes...maybe water quality

[Travis]

When I'm not busy spending my time trying to get squirrels to reenact classic 90210 episodes I occasionally glance at the news and caught wind that something is foul in Flint, Michigan. Something is really foul. Also it is in the pipes. It's the water. The water was foul is kind of what I'm getting at.

Yes it seems that Michigan lawmakers were blindsided and shocked when the river water deemed toxic by literally ever scientist consulted on the matter turned out to actually be toxic. So while politicians do what they do best—lawyer up and protest that they could never have known that chemistry was like a real thing—people are kind of going nuts wanting something done.

Enter the feds. Obama has decided to get to the bottom of things. Since city and state level politicians have uniformly failed worse than a skater trying out a new sick move off a third floor balcony while stoned the feds have stepped in to try and fix their mistakes.

But, if Fox News is to be believed, not because they care. Check out the following quote from Heather Nauert that came at the conclusion of a piece on Obama meeting with distraught residents.

Well this is a way they could potentially get more black votes in the coming election.

That's right. This isn't a humanitarian thing. Or even a responsibility thing. It's just a cynical ploy to stir up some votes from black people.

Does this mean the actions of the politicians that created the crisis were a cynical ploy to drive away votes?

 

[bruto]

Not that I disagree over the basics here, but would point out that the alternatives are not quite so binary. The politicians who messed up need not have sought to drive away any votes. They might simply not have cared, or they might simply have surmised that those black votes would not come their way anyway, or they might have believed their own lies and presumed that the voters would too.

This does not in any way make them better. I would simply beware of attributing too much care or thought to their blunders.

Nor, of course, is there necessarily any conflict between Obama caring about the plight of a poisoned population and simultaneously considering them politically useful. Everything a politician does is done with politics in mind, and that includes difficult moral decisions he might make to his political disadvantage. He'd be a fool if he did not take such matters into account.

 

[Mumbles]

That seem to be thing mong the GOP. It's not that they act like a bunch of Batman villains towards black Americans, it's just some sort of amazing trick that those democrats have pulled on unusually gullible blacks.

 

[KwamiFabu]

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste." -- Rahm Emanuel
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." -- H. L. Mencken

When it comes to cynicism, I don't think there's a bar too low anymore.

 

[Newtons Bit]

The EPA administrator who covered up the corrosive water just resigned.

 

[NoahFence]

He should go to jail.

 

[pgwenthold]

He should go to jail.

Obama should claim that he's doing a 'heck of a job"

 

[TragicMonkey]

Isn't it a she, not a he? Only sexists assume evil EPA administrators must necessarily be male! Fight the patriarchy....but not with poisoned water.

 

[Giordano]

My own experience in life is that often the very people who are the most willing to denounce a given behavior in others do so because they are committing the behavior themselves. Obviously there are people who are pure themselves and are outraged by immoral behavior in others. But I have found it remarkable in my own life how often the person most vocal about the dangers of other people embezzling company money turned out to be a major embezzler himself. People of this nature are even willing to try to tar perfectly reasonable conduct as "immoral" only to be caught in it themselves, such as the rightwing Congressmen who sponsor ant-gay legislation but are arrested for attempting to engage in public, anonymous gay sex in the Salt Lake City airport.

I suspect it comes from the fact that engaging in a given behavior one's self makes one more likely to think, "Oh, virtually everyone else must be doing this too." Given how often the Republicans do public theater just to attract votes (how many times have they introduced attempts to overturn Obamacare knowing it will not happen, or passed legislation they know will be overturned by the courts?) I am not surprised that their first thought is that the same political-showmanship motivation must explain everything Obama does. I have seen many conservative blogs suggesting that Obama's tears must be fake when he recently discussing the many people killed in mass killings in the USA.

 

[Travis]

Maybe Republicans are just sociopaths that fake emotion and caring so much they assume everyone else is as well?

"Tulsa was blown up? I'm in the middle of coke and sex party so stop bothering me! What? Votes.....ah....oh well I'll make a statement or something, bah!"

 

[The Big Dog]

Maybe Republicans are just sociopaths that fake emotion and caring so much they assume everyone else is as well?

"Tulsa was blown up? I'm in the middle of coke and sex party so stop bothering me! What? Votes.....ah....oh well I'll make a statement or something, bah!"

I don't think you have all your facts straight. The bombing was in Oklahoma City, not Tulsa.

Slick Willy having a coke and sex party makes sense tho (although Monica did not arrive in the White House until a couple of months later, but I suspect Billy had plenty to choose from )

 

[Doubt]

Being a bit closer to Flint than those posting here so far, I can tell you the following:

Synder is best described as the accountant-in-chief. Very little leadership. Most of his time in office has been all about making the budget look good. This has happened at the expense of any and all services that could be cut. The greatest state-wide impact was canceling on state sales tax revenue sharing with lower levels of government. That was one of the factors that pushed Detroit into bankruptcy.

Emergency managers have been appointed but not provided any oversight from the State. They do what they want and are never overruled or questioned by Synder, who is the only elected official with any power over the local governments once the emergency manager is appointed. The short circuiting of local government checks and balances is a major contributing factor to the water crisis.

The other shoe that has not quite dropped yet is the many years of emergency management of the Detroit school district. This did not start under Synder, however. But after many years, the lack of tax revenue has never been countered by tight financial management. The news stories about the schools keep getting worse even as other aspects of the city start to recover. The current emergency manager of the Detroit school district is the same guy that was in Flint and made the decision about using Flint river water.

 

[fuelair]

When I'm not busy spending my time trying to get squirrels to reenact classic 90210 episodes I occasionally glance at the news and caught wind that something is foul in Flint, Michigan. Something is really foul. Also it is in the pipes. It's the water. The water was foul is kind of what I'm getting at.

Yes it seems that Michigan lawmakers were blindsided and shocked when the river water deemed toxic by literally ever scientist consulted on the matter turned out to actually be toxic. So while politicians do what they do best—lawyer up and protest that they could never have known that chemistry was like a real thing—people are kind of going nuts wanting something done.

Enter the feds. Obama has decided to get to the bottom of things. Since city and state level politicians have uniformly failed worse than a skater trying out a new sick move off a third floor balcony while stoned the feds have stepped in to try and fix their mistakes.

But, if Fox News is to be believed, not because they care. Check out the following quote from Heather Nauert that came at the conclusion of a piece on Obama meeting with distraught residents.



That's right. This isn't a humanitarian thing. Or even a responsibility thing. It's just a cynical ploy to stir up some votes from black people.

Does this mean the actions of the politicians that created the crisis were a cynical ploy to drive away votes?

Certainly possible!!They are republickers and could not care less about lives lost if it means more money in their pockets!!!!

 

[fuelair]

I don't think you have all your facts straight. The bombing was in Oklahoma City, not Tulsa.

Slick Willy having a coke and sex party makes sense tho (although Monica did not arrive in the White House until a couple of months later, but I suspect Billy had plenty to choose from )

I suspect Travis was not speaking of any real bombing. I suspect but can't prove you know/knew that.

 

[fuelair]

Obama should claim that he's doing a 'heck of a job"

!!!!! But, of course Obama won't. Bush on the other hand didn't give a ****.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

This isn't a humanitarian thing. Or even a responsibility thing. It's just a cynical ploy to stir up some votes from black people.

I agree.

 

[bruto]

I agree.

Maybe, but why is it so cynical? If supporting the poisoned population of Flint is a zero sum game in which such support deprives someone else, then yes, perhaps it's cynical, but if the support is appropriate in the first place, why is it cynical that the result will also be politically useful? Must we approve only of actions that contradict one's best interests? I don't think that leaves very many politicians un-sullied.

 

[twinstead]

Maybe, but why is it so cynical? If supporting the poisoned population of Flint is a zero sum game in which such support deprives someone else, then yes, perhaps it's cynical, but if the support is appropriate in the first place, why is it cynical that the result will also be politically useful? Must we approve only of actions that contradict one's best interests? I don't think that leaves very many politicians un-sullied.

Yea, the only alternative is to suggest that Obama should not do anything about Flint so people won't accuse him of being cynical and pandering to the Black vote. If it is cynicism it's pretty damned positive cynicism.

I mean it's not as if he's holding up a bible and declaring it's his favorite book or anything like that...

 

[cmikes]

That seem to be thing mong the GOP. It's not that they act like a bunch of Batman villains towards black Americans, it's just some sort of amazing trick that those democrats have pulled on unusually gullible blacks.

Some Democrats do have that attitude, though. Lyndon Johnson spent his entire Senate career killing every Civil Rights bill pushed by Republicans like President Eisenhower, but after becoming President and deciding to support Civil Rights himself, his famous quote on the matter was "I'll have those ******** voting Democrat for a hundred years!" The censored word is a very derogatory word for black people that Johnson was quite fond of. And yet with the connivance of the media, he's remembered as a Civil Rights icon.

 

[Mumbles]

Some Democrats do have that attitude, though. Lyndon Johnson spent his entire Senate career killing every Civil Rights bill pushed by Republicans like President Eisenhower, but after becoming President and deciding to support Civil Rights himself, his famous quote on the matter was "I'll have those ******** voting Democrat for a hundred years!" The censored word is a very derogatory word for black people that Johnson was quite fond of. And yet with the connivance of the media, he's remembered as a Civil Rights icon.

Lyndon Johnson's dead. I'm discussing modern-day republican arguments about how democrats get black people to vote for them. If they can't even be trusted to not poison the water, or to prosecute clearly violent or rapist police, then yeah, as long as Democrats actually make themselves useful, they're certainly the better option. And given the simple fact that Obama *does* seem to actually care about others, I have to wonder why, exactly, these people find such an idea that he honestly does care so impossible to comprehend.