Washington beltway Republicans have linked arms with Governor Snyder and Michigan Republicans.

Lump everything into a Supreme Court hearing and tie up the funding for Louisiana flooding FOREVER! The City of Flint can join the lawsuit and bring it all under scrutiny.

September 21, 2016
By Kelsey Snell

Democrats believe (click here) they have finally found the leverage they need to force Republicans to approve funding to address the water crisis in Flint, Mich.: historic flooding in Louisiana.

Democrats are pushing for a Senate-passed aid package for Flint to be linked to flood relief funds in a stop-gap spending bill that would prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month. Republicans say they want to give the House more time to consider passing funding for Flint, but Democrats have refused to sign off on the spending bill until the issue is resolved.

“We have been trying to fund Flint for I think it’s eight months now,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday. “People in Flint are still drinking water out of bottles. They still have children who are sick with lead poisoning. And the Republicans have refused to do anything.”

Flint aid has emerged as one of the final sticking points as negotiators continue to bicker over the remaining details of the stop-gap spending bill, which would keep the government funded through Dec. 9 and also provide more than $1 billion to combat the Zika virus. Party leaders also continue to clash over whether the United States should give up control of a non-profit that governs the internet domain system and make it easier for the Export-Import Bank to approve more deals. But the stand-off over aid for Flint is proving to be among the hardest issues to resolve....

Put a Democrat into office and receive justice in the way of actual help. Sometimes voting your best self-interest means looking to the Democratic Party for REAL and SUSTAINABLE change.

This is not a joke or a campaign issue so much as one of survival and justice. We live in a country that is suppose to solve problems through a democratic process. Lately, that democratic process is stalled for everything from Flint Clean Water to Supreme Court Nominees. When are the American people going to wake up to a day when the work of the government actually gets done?

Every pipe in Flint needs to be replaced. Let me state that again.

Every pipe in Flint, Michigan needs to be replaced. Why? Because of Governor Snyder. There is no other reason. Before he turned the Flint River into a drinking water source there were no problems with the pipes in Flint, Michigan. EVERY PIPE including those in homes. EVERY PIPE. 

I don't want this happening to me or my family. I don't want government to find purpose in denying judicial review of a lawsuit filed by a mayor responsible for lives in her town and I don't want a Congress that doesn't know it's job! It is time to realize the Democrats get the job done while Republicans deny they have a job to do.

September 22, 2016
By Editorial Staff of the Detroit News

All that stands between Flint (click here) and the federal funds it needs to push ahead the rebuilding of its tainted water system is approval by the House of an aid bill that has already sailed through the Senate. That chamber should move the package quickly, and help Flint put its water crisis in the past.
The legislation would send $100 million to Flint for its water infrastructure. While that’s not enough money to fully replace all of the city’s water lines, it would certainly help remove those most responsible for leeching lead into the water supply and complete other needed upgrades of the system.
The key piece of the package, negotiated by Michigan’s Democratic Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, provides an additional $100 million to the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
As written, the money is only available to communities that have received a federal emergency declaration from the president due to high levels of lead in their water supply. Currently, only Flint meets that requirement....

Amazing. Let's get the criminal cases going and end the pain of the State of Michigan with an incompetent governor.

September 20, 2016
By Monique Judge

The city of Flint, Mich., (click here) will not be able to file a lawsuit against the state of Michigan over the drinking-water crisis unless the state says it’s OK.

The Detroit Free Press reports that the five-member Receivership Transition Advisory Board, appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, changed the rules under which Flint is governed so that the city cannot file a lawsuit without first getting approval from the state-appointed board.

Stated plainly, Flint will be unable to sue the state unless the state of Michigan approves the lawsuit first.

In March, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver filed a notice of intent to sue the state of Michigan in the Court of Claims in case the city decided to sue the state over lead contamination in the city’s water supply. Weaver and other city officials had no actual plans to file the suit, but because of a court rule that allows only 180 days to file the notice or lose the right to sue, city officials filed the notice on March 24, which was the 180th day.

State officials were upset about the notice and called for Flint to withdraw it. When that didn’t happen, the state used the Receivership Transition Advisory Board to put a stop to the threat....

Tesla is not a threat to the car industry in Michigan or anywhere else. It is a speciality market.

September 22, 2016
By Brent Snavely and Frank Witsil

Electric automaker Tesla (click here) filed a lawsuit today against state officials, escalating its multi-year battle to sell vehicles directly to consumers in Michigan.
The California automaker named Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, and Gov. Rick Snyder in its lawsuit filed in in federal court.
Tesla's action is part of an escalating conflict that is playing out nationwide – through legislatures, regulatory agencies and the courts – between the upstart The Palo Alto, Calif.-based automaker and dealers associations as states to sort out whether Tesla should be allowed to sell directly to customers....

They are killed if they don't carry a gun and they are killed when they do. That is the issue.

African American men are not safe in the USA. If they carry a gun they are automatic targets. If they don't carry a gun they are targets anyway. What do you suppose comes next?

African American men can carry a gun legally no different than their white men. But. Do they dare?

The issue is real. Denial of the dilemma African American men find themselves in is only adding to the problem.

September 23, 2016
By Michael Mathers

The loud crack of a gunshot (click here) startled protesters as they hurled objects and clashed with riot police in Charlotte, North Carolina, where racial tensions soared a day after a black man was killed by officers.

By the end of the day, Governor Pat McCrory had declared a state of emergency in the city, saying he was activating the National Guard and Highway Patrol officers to assist local law enforcement.

One man near the centre of yesterday's confrontation was on life support after being shot by another civilian, the city said in a tweet, reversing an earlier statement that the man had died....

I hope the civilian was apprehended for attempted murder of an unarmed demonstrator.

The unrest turned violent after a peaceful vigil to mark the previous day's shooting death of African-American Keith Scott at the hands of Charlotte police.
It was the latest in a long series of controversial police killings of black men - including that of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday - which have inflamed tensions in several United States cities, and sparked a national debate about race and whether Americans can come together to reduce police brutality....

Ice is Earth's thermostat. I never underestimated it.

September 23, 2016

Rapidly melting Greenland (click here) may be shedding its ice even faster than anyone suspected, new research suggests.
A study just out in the journal Science Advances finds that previous studies may have underestimated the current rate of mass loss on the Greenland ice sheet by about 18 billion tonnes per year.
Generally, scientists estimate ice loss in Greenland (and elsewhere around the world) using data from satellites. But the new study suggests these satellite studies may have included some incorrect assumptions, causing them to miscalculate the amount of mass actually disappearing from the ice sheet each year.
The assertion revolves around a concept known as "glacial isostatic adjustment", or the tendency of land to bounce back after a large weight of ice has been removed from it. Over the past 25,000 years, since the last great Ice Age, the planet's surface has been slowly springing back into place....

Ice is ice is ice is ice. It melts at below 0 degrees Celsius or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

Melting ice is like peeling back an onion. When one layer is gone the next layer is exposed to heat. And before you know it the ice is no more.

This is very bad news. American farmers are losing their pollinators.

By Reuters

...Named (click here) for the conspicuous reddish blotch on its abdomen, the rusty patched bumble bee — or Bombus affinis, as it is known to scientists — has plunged in abundance and distribution by more than 90 percent since the late 1990s, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The agency attributes the decline to a number of factors, including disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss.

Bumble bees, as distinguished from domesticated honey bees, are essential pollinators of wildflowers and about a third of U.S. crops, from blueberries to tomatoes, said Sarina Jepsen of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which petitioned the government for protection of the insect.

Bumble bees’ annual economic value to farms is estimated at $3.5 billion, according to experts....