Come Heller high water …
- Former Detroit Piston Rasheed Wallace’s angry screed about the Flint water crisis in The Players’ Tribune (a new Derek Jeter effort, by the way) should be required reading in Congress and our state Legislature. He writes: “When you woke up this morning, what’s the first thing you did? Took a piss and flushed the toilet? Brushed your teeth? Took a shower? Whatever you did, I’m guessing you used water.What’d you do after that? Made yourself some coffee or tea? Washed the pan you used to cook breakfast? More water. Now, how about when you got to the office? Did you wash your hands? Did you rinse off the apple you ate for a snack? You definitely used some water. That’s all normal, part of our everyday lives. Unless you live in Flint,
Michigan. You probably think that, because they’re not all over your TV anymore, the problems of Flint are in the past. Well, I’ve been visiting Flint for the past year, so let me tell you the truth. Some of the folks in Flint can’t take showers because their water is still poisoned with lead. They have to boil water, pour it into the sink and then wash in it. Yeah, a grown-ass man has to take a bird bath. That shit ain’t right. It’s still going on today. And it’s not going away anytime soon.” - Way to go, ‘Sheed. Well said. Long overdue, too. I’ve been asking for months: Where’s the anger over the slow-roll government response to Flint. More than a year after it was “officially” acknowledged, the problem lingers. That’s unacceptable. A nation’s response to a crisis shouldn’t expire once media interest over it does. This ain’t over and it won’t be over until – as Yogi Berra was said to have said – it’s over.
- Interesting how Creepy Clown sightings have evaporated. Score one for Angry Dads With Baseball Bats.
- CNN uses the term “breaking news” like little kids use ketchup. They slap it on everything. I tuned in the other day and they told me that Bill Clinton getting ready to speak at a campaign rally – more than a year into the campaign – was “breaking news,” which it most assuredly was not.
- Detroit Tigers GM Al Avila this week hinted the Tigers will cut payroll, shy away from big free agent signings and focus more on young players and the farm clubs. Translation: The team’s going to be no damned fun for years to come. Or at least that’s how I read it. Given the new direction, if I’m Avila, I’m trading away Cabrera for a boatload of young pitchers.
- Donald Trump says the election is rigged. My question: Will he still say that if he wins? Answer: Of course not. If he wins he says he overcame the rigging.
- And don’t you find it ironic that the party that actually DID steal a presidential election and the party that consistently creates laws to disenfranchise legitimate voters is the one claiming foul before the election even takes place? This election has made it clear that the Republican Party operates according to Bizarro World principles – up is down, black is white, in is out and what we do is what we say you do.
- I had to explain a Bizarro World reference recently to a millennial. The term comes from the Superman comics. The Bizarro World code is: “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!” But the term in current culture has come to mean, according to Wikipedia,” a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations.”
- Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is complaining that he’s not included in the White House security briefings along with Trump and Hillary. Why should he be? He’ll get 10 percent of the vote, max. At most he should get 10 percent of a briefing, right? Personally, I don’t think any candidate should get any security briefings until after the election. There’s plenty of time to get up to speed between the election and the inauguration.
- Apropos of nothing: I just realized I don’t know how a mirror works. I may have to reflect on that. (Get it? Reflect? Aw, never mind.)
- “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius
Image credit: Wystan
Your Bullets #6 and #7 relate to Mr. Trump. I included Trump in the Halloween display on my porch this year: Next to my brilliant giant spider web made from rope, I hung a scary ghost with a Donald Trump mask over the ghost face. I thought it was a great joke when I put it up, but now I think I will take the mask off and throw it away, even though it cost me twelve bucks. I hate seeing Trump’s ugly dour puss on my porch. I certainly never would put the darn ugly mask on my own face.
Please take note of my website, included here for the first time.
STOP repeating the tired old mantra that Republicans are disenfranchising voters.
Asking to have ID to vote is not an infringement on a person’s right as a voter. If the liberals care so much, then have the “community activators” (like Obama was) go around and help these people get ID.
They have to have an ID to get a drivers license, get food stamps, and even landlords sometimes require ID.
What is the big deal? If people can’t do that then they should not be treated with the right to vote. Sorry, no one is keeping them from voting!
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. My mother was born in 1921, rural Iowa at home. Apparently never registered with state. After 9/11 we had a time trying to get her “legitimate” paperwork tho she was a citizen, worked for years in a high security
job and was collecting social security. Airline tickets, opening a new credit union acct, VISA. All a hassle
A friend was born in Italy. His records were destroyed during the war. Has citizenship papers but a state clerk demanded birth records to register for vote when he moved to another town. Another hassle and several calls, documentation to educate this clerk. Nobody needed food stamps
First, many people don’t have ID cards or driver’s licenses. In 2012, for instance, federal lawyers estimated South Carolina population of registered voters who didn’t have “a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS could range from 603,892 to 795,955.”
I’m referring to more than that. Michigan’s emergency manager law effectively negates the votes of entire cities. The Supreme Court just struck down Michigan’s ban on straight ticket voting. Let’s see, there’s redistricting, voter ID laws, attempts to referendum-proof laws.
C’mon. Get real. (And by the way, yes, Dems are guilty of some of this as well.)
My husband is an ordained deacon in the Catholic chuch. In July he baptized our new grandson in Flint. He was left instructions to bless bottled water. Flint’s water isn’t even good enough for God!! Deplorable.
Best comment ever!
Now Many of us are nearing the end of our poison water credits,which means next month we will be paying for poisoned water again!!.as a low income senior,I am going to have that big bill very month again..We pay the highest in the country,and it’s a damn shame we are being charged for this mess,,whilst the Govenour?? receives tax payer paid legal fee’s..Something’s not right folks!!
The voter Laws were put in Place ot make it harder for people to vote..We have a poll tax here in Michigan,,it’s called a drivers license,or state ID card,pay that money and you can vote.I am waiting for them to bring back challenging a person to demonstrate reading and writing skills,,at the Polls Is that next?.
Does Ann b not realize that we have certain “inalienable” rights, one of which is to vote? Never anywhere does it state “If only someone has a voter’s I.D. For that matter, if everyone is so uptight about having people get a voter I.D. why do they fight against having to provide an I.D. for buying guns? You are right, it is a Bizzaro World. It’s getting scary every day. Now Congress is threatening to never vote on any of Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees if she gets elected. There’s a great idea. Heaven forbid that the Supreme Court should be representative of various views. If they are not the Republican view, they are not the right ones (or the left’s). This is the freakiest, scariest, and craziest “election season” I remember.
Apparently, many children nowadays are afraid of whiteface clowns. And no aduts remember Bozo and Ronald McDonald?????
OK, all you folks wanting to compare this to old times. We live in a different time now than when the Constitution was written or when we didn’t need to have drivers’ licenses. The FACT is that we do need ID’s now, even for our own protection sometimes.
Anyone who doesn’t want to pursue getting and ID does not want to vote very badly!
Sorry, that’s the truth.
Annie B. Toklas: Here is an example. My mom age 91 does not drive anymore, so that she has no driver’s license. Somewhere, probably, she has a birth certificate, but she never would be able to find it. She might be able to find her expired passport, but the right wing states never would accept that as valid ID. I got her a Michigan state ID card, so that she can vote, but she herself never would have done so, would not have understood how to make an appointment on line at the Secretary of State’s Office, could not have gotten there to actually get the ID.
Great Americans need to vote. Voter fraud never happens.
I have heard that Donald Trump was born in the Bizarro World, not the USA. Have we ever seen Trump’s birth certificate?
And, Andrew, maybe you can settle a 55-year-old dispute:Back in the comic book days of the mid-twentieth century, my friend Geoff and I always pronounced Bizarro as BIZ-ar-oh. But most of our friends said, Biz-AR-oh. Which is it?
Shouldn’t a social security card be enough ID? I have one I signed in the ’60s and since I was there when my sister replaced hers I got another I signed in the ’70s. It required a birth certificate to get a new SS card but since my signature is little changed in 50 years it should be proof of ID.
Too many people already don’t bother to vote, it’s not very democratic to make them even more reluctant to bother while you gather your party to make national decisions everyone has a right to have say about.