As we talked about on our podcast this week, there have been two major developments in the Flint Water Crisis since in the past couple of months. First, in November, there was a major settlement between Flint plaintiffs and the City of Flint, McLaren Regional Medical Center and Rowe Professional Services Co., a city contractor. The settlement was for $641.2 […]

A couple of years ago, I wrote this: I have been saying for years (since 2011, precisely) that Emergency Management is a model that will not work to solve the intractable problems that have led to financial crises in our state’s former urban manufacturing hubs. Emergency Managers are armed only with tools of DEstruction, not with tools of CONstruction. They […]

During the time when the Flint water crisis was unfolding, right wing conservatives spent a lot of time trying to convince the country and the world that it was all the fault of the local government. They portrayed these local leaders as incompetent buffoons who poisoned themselves, countering the reality that the local government officials had literally NO POWER to […]

Don’t honor Snyder for poisoning one of America’s great cities UPDATE: Rick Snyder has decided that he will not poison Harvard, certainly because there are too many white people there. On Wednesday, he informed the Kennedy School that he’s “turning down” the fellowship he’d been offered. Finally, an appointment that’s more toxic than putting Betsy DeVos in charge of the […]

Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards at an MSNBC Town Hall in Flint with Rachel Maddow | Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog It was, perhaps, one of the most unexpected stories to spring out the tragedy of the Flint Water Crisis. Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, once hailed as one of the true heroes of the story, began […]

Testimony during a preliminary exam of several people indicted on charges related to the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s drinking water with the powerful neurotoxin lead this week revealed that officials in the Snyder administration called the shots on how the water treatment plant would be run. The plant was taken out of mothballs in order to treat Flint River water […]

The big story in the ongoing saga of the Flint Water Crisis this week is a concerted effort by those on the right (along with complicity from some in the medical community) to make the world believe that the Flint Water Crisis never happened. It started with an op-ed in The New York Times by Drs. Hernán Gómez and Kim […]

“Recent water tests at elementary schools in Flint have found an increase in samples showing lead levels above the federal action limit.” That’s the opening line in an article in The Detroit News less than one month ago. Despite this, the state of Michigan, just days after turning control over the city back to local elected officials, declared the Flint […]

For the past seven years, the city of Flint has been under the control of the state of Michigan. All government decisions made there were made by an unelected Emergency Manager or, later, a Receivership Transition Advisory Board. In the meantime, the city had its water poisoned with the powerful neurotoxin lead, saw 12 people die from an Legionnaire’s Disease […]

In what can only be described as a Hail Mary attempt to use the Jedi Mind Trick on three judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals, Attorney General Bill Schuette’s Assistant Attorney General Nathan Gambill is arguing that Emergency Managers appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder are not “state officials”: The Michigan Court of Appeals is weighing legal arguments which may […]

The health of nine million children is at risk, with even more at stake in hard-hit Flint. It’s bad enough that if Congress does not act to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), nine million lower-income children will lose the health insurance that allows them to see a doctor or go to the dentist. The problem is even worse […]