Author Archives: CarleyHannan

Officials face criminal charges for the first time in Flint water crisis

by CarleyHannan Posted on April 20, 2016

Officials face criminal charges for the first time in Flint water crisis

By on Apr 20, 2016commentsShare

Three city and state officials are now facing felony and misdemeanor charges in the wake of the Flint water crisis, almost two years to the date after the drinking water catastrophe began.

The employees in question, according to the Detroit Free Press, include Michael Glasgow, the city’s laboratory and water quality supervisor. Glasgow faces multiple charges, including tampering with evidence to hide tests that showed dangerous levels of lead in the water supply. The other two officials, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official Michael Prysby and Steven Busch, a district coordinator for the DEQ’s Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, face charges of misconduct in office, tampering with evidence, and violating the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, among others.

In an effort to save an estimated $5 million over two years, in 2014 the city began supplying its water from the contaminated Flint River instead of Detroit’s municipal water system, which it had used for the past half-century. Flint leaders continued to claim that the water was safe to drink, despite residents’ complaints about the smell and taste. In September 2015, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) publicly acknowledged the problem for the first time, promising to take action in response to the higher-than-average lead levels seen in children’s blood.

Gov. Snyder is not facing any charges, criminal or otherwise. He will be drinking Flint’s tap water, though, in a show of solidarity for a month — well, when it’s convenient.

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link to article:  

Officials face criminal charges for the first time in Flint water crisis

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, Free Press, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Officials face criminal charges for the first time in Flint water crisis

Does Congress Ever Turn Down a Request for War?

by CarleyHannan Posted on September 24, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Plenty of people think Congress should be called back into session to conduct a vote on the bombing campaign in Syria. John Boehner disagrees:

Boehner’s office deferred to the White House when asked about the issue.

“As the Speaker has said, he thinks it would be good for the country to have a new authorization for the use of military force covering our actions against ISIL, but traditionally such an authorization is requested and written by the commander-in-chief — and President Obama has not done that,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said via email.

One of these days Boehner is going to have to make up his mind whether President Obama does too much or too little. It’s getting a little hard to keep up with him.

But this raises a question. Has Congress ever turned down a president who asked for authorization to use military force? Sure, there was Ford’s last-ditch aid request for Vietnam in 1975, but that was for the end of a war, not the start of one. Anything else? Do the fights over funding for the contras count? I feel like I’m going to be embarrassed when someone points out some famous congressional refusal that I’ve forgotten about, but I sure can’t dredge anything up.

Obviously Obama has philosophical reasons for insisting that he can go to war on his own, and he also has political reasons for not forcing fellow Democrats to take a tough vote. But does he have even the slightest chance of Congress actually turning him down?

UPDATE: OK, I’m already embarrassed. I guess you could count the non-vote on Syria last year, couldn’t you? After all, Obama did ask for permission to bomb Syria, and Congress did let it die without any real debate. On the other hand, I’d say that Obama mostly asked for authorization in the hopes of being turned down. He didn’t exactly put on a full-court press, did he?

Any other examples?

UPDATE 2: There have been a few other suggestions. (1) Congressional hindrance of FDR before Pearl Harbor. That was a mixed bag, and anyway, I guess I was thinking of more recent (postwar) history. (2) Kosovo and Libya. Interesting cases, but more of a muddle than an outright loss for the president. Congress approved some funding bills and denied others.

Still, there’s enough here to suggest that presidents often have to fight with Congress over military action. Especially Democratic presidents.

Link:  

Does Congress Ever Turn Down a Request for War?

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Does Congress Ever Turn Down a Request for War?

The United States Is a Data Wonk’s Dream

by CarleyHannan Posted on March 14, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Via Emily Badger, here’s an interesting chart showing which countries are most open with national data. Obviously rich countries do best at this kind of statistical recordkeeping, but some rich countries do better than others, and the US is one of the best. In fact, it would be the best if not for the fact that corporate registration is a state function, and the US therefore scores approximately zero for its lack of a national corporate registry database. Full data for all countries is here. Enjoy.

More here: 

The United States Is a Data Wonk’s Dream

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The United States Is a Data Wonk’s Dream