There's also two healthy employees of the Flint Water Department that have turned up dead, all of this within the last few days. They're being investigated because having two witnesses in an AG investigation turn up dead within 24 hours is suspicious by default, but police said there were no signs of foul play, autopsies turned up no immediate cause of death, and toxicology reports take months and months in Michigan.
Well we already know someone is perfectly willing to break the law over this issue from when the Mayors offices were broken into and files on the problem were stolen.
I'm thinking that assassinating witnesses & lawsuit plaintiffs would be a good way to go from 'got away scot free because lol governor' to 'imprisoned for murder & racketeering'.
It's a weird set of coincidences, but sometimes that happens.
I mean, this IS the murder capitol of the US and it wasn't exactly a great neighborhood, but this is not a typical Flint murder. The attacker entered the home, killed the adults but left the children unharmed, and didn't steal anything.
Flint has a lot of murders, but the city's crime, just like here in Saginaw (or any other rotted out former industrial city), is driven by poverty and desperation. The killer is either doing something stupid in the heat of the moment, or they're trying to get something out of the encounter, or the victim is an unlucky bystander.
The water guys, now? If I had to guess, I'd say OD on the guy in my link. It's easier to get meth in Flint than clean water, and Michigan has some crazy prescription drug abuse. No sign of foul play and nothing in the autopsy probably means it'll turn up in the toxicology report in four or five months.
There's also two healthy employees of the Flint Water Department that have turned up dead, all of this within the last few days. They're being investigated because having two witnesses in an AG investigation turn up dead within 24 hours is suspicious by default, but police said there were no signs of foul play, autopsies turned up no immediate cause of death, and toxicology reports take months and months in Michigan.
Remember the Flint Police, along with all the local government facilities, were assured for over a year that tests showed the water wasn't just safe, it was safer than the state average, and were among the people asked to lead by example by drinking and using the water with no precautions.
They're going to do exactly fuck all to help Snyder.
Well of course the cops would say that. They're the ones that killed them.
...Are you kidding man?
Murdering those people doesn't make sense. Like, Snyder is all set to simply walk away with a big grin on his face; why the fuck would you start having people assassinated - a crime that is usually very easy to trace back to it's source? Even Al Capone didn't arrange hits on people who weren't either part of his organization or a rival gang, for exactly that reason.
I guess it's remotely possible that Snyder is so stupid, paranoid & sociopathic that he'd arrange contract killings despite it being a terrible idea, but there's no reason to believe that right now. Even intuitive oddities like the killer in the one clear murder case leaving the infant alive isn't that unusual; even murderers draw a line somewhere in how low they're willing to sink.
Well, that lasted all of what- three days? Governor Gateway is taking a trade mission trip to the EU and wouldn't you just know it- they wouldn't let him take the Flint water with him. Gee, I sure hope no intern does something to that water jug! Wouldn't it be a shame if it got dumped out and everything?
Ah, who are we kidding? That jug didn't even make it out of Flint.
Of course, this just proves Snyder has no clue of how the state looks to the world- who's going to want to bring jobs to a place where you can't even trust the government to keep the water safe to drink?
Obama also did the whole "drink the water stunt." It was probably filtered, but he actually drank it on site instead of taking it with him to lose on the way home like Snyder.
"I was actually thirsty, this isn't a stunt." Translation: "This is totally a stunt, but look, I'm actually doing it, huh? Other guy didn't do this, huh?"
Most of the sites for free water and filter supplies are being shut down. So now the city's down to 5 sites, with substantially reduced hours. More sites are supposed to be opening "within the month" but they said the same thing when they stopped distributing at schools, and that never happened.
Not at all because the mayor is being accused of redirecting funds into her unregistered PAC, Karenabout Flint. So of course, the mayor fired the whistleblower, then threatened the council to get their support after the fact (since only they could actually fire her). The council publicly said they were not informed of and do not approve of the firing, but of course in a closed meeting with the mayor they all changed their minds. Same story from the city attorney, who decided to drop the investigation after a private meeting with the mayor.
This is the same person who Snyder's staff called "a massive liability" in emails after she raised a fuss when $12 million in state money was reduced to $6 million in a closed legislature meeting, and then $2 million when the wire transfer "got lost."
How is it so hard for them to not be evil for like five minutes
Not just evil, stupid and evil. Not only are you a total goose for doing this, you're a freaking moron to look at a major health crisis that is getting national media attention, including the attention of the various presidential campaigns, and think "Yep, this is the exact right time to dial up the graft and corruption."
They're not being selfish and evil because they can, they're doing it out of some twisted life principal that mandates kicking puppies.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The mayor might actually get in trouble. The shitty thing is, it'll be for running an unregistered PAC, not for stealing money from poisoned children. Because when idiots send money to the city, there's no actual legal onus for them to use it for the water crisis or pass it on to a charity, even the one the city itself runs.
She's also low enough on the totem pole (and of the correct political alignment) to make a very attractive scapegoat for the AG's next wave of charges, and she's in a position to cloak herself in an invincible shroud of victimhood if she could just stop stealing money from poisoned children for a few goddamn months. Which should be enough to tell any career politician to keep your nose clean, or at least cover your damn tracks and not go passing around memos about your theft.
'Among those named in the lawsuit are the State of Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder, Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental municipal water regulators Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch. Also named are two engineering firms: Houston-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. and Chicago-based Veolia North America, which the suit says were hired to review the city's water distribution system.'
This ought to liven things up as far as the digging up of evidence. Somehow I don't think an investigation by an outside source was something Snyder was counting on.
Don't awesome that too fast, they're DEQ and DHHS employees and at least one whistleblower. Schutte makes pretty clear where we're going and it's not anywhere near the governor's office.
Don't awesome that too fast, they're DEQ and DHHS employees and at least one whistleblower. Schutte makes pretty clear where we're going and it's not anywhere near the governor's office.
The man wants to become governor. After fighting against Michigan's medical marijuana law, abortion clinics, and same sex marriage went nowhere; he needs something that looks like he is doing his job.
Don't awesome that too fast, they're DEQ and DHHS employees and at least one whistleblower. Schutte makes pretty clear where we're going and it's not anywhere near the governor's office.
The man wants to become governor. After fighting against Michigan's medical marijuana law, abortion clinics, and same sex marriage went nowhere; he needs something that looks like he is doing his job.
Well, he's still backlogged on rape kits. After the big deal he made about them during his reelection (they were backlogged to literally the week he was elected, but vote for him again and he'll totally get on that this time), he completely failed to do shit about them until the feds and another fucking state entirely both threw millions of monies at his problem, at which point he got our backlog down from 11,000 to... Wait, over 15,000 now? Oh for fuck's sake.
Michigan repeatedly kicks the same man off of food stamps because his brother stole his identity while committing a felony 25 years ago. Among other delightful cases.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
WESTLAND, MI (WCMH) — A high school senior ran into trouble when she took a picture in her school’s bathroom.
When Hazel Juco saw discolored water coming from her school’s bathroom sink, she was concerned.
“I just took a picture of it. And then in my newspaper class I talked about it with them,” Juco told WXYZ. “I always hope that someone will see it and want to help us because our school obviously doesn’t have the money.”
Juco also posted the picture on social media along with her complaints. A short time later, she was suspended from school.
WESTLAND, MI (WCMH) — A high school senior ran into trouble when she took a picture in her school’s bathroom.
When Hazel Juco saw discolored water coming from her school’s bathroom sink, she was concerned.
“I just took a picture of it. And then in my newspaper class I talked about it with them,” Juco told WXYZ. “I always hope that someone will see it and want to help us because our school obviously doesn’t have the money.”
Juco also posted the picture on social media along with her complaints. A short time later, she was suspended from school.
Thankfully the suspension got expunged and the pipe was fixed.
Edit: oh okay they fixed the pipe and reversed her suspension. Glad cooler heads prevailed.
By the superintendent. That still doesn't speak well of the school's principals.
At a guess, I'd say she probably got hit by some zero tolerance policy that the school has regarding the use of cameras in the bathroom (and probably other spaces). Not that that sort of behavior reflects well on the principal, but there's a good chance that there wasn't some attempt to cover up the broken pipe. Just the more mundane sort of stupid.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Edit: oh okay they fixed the pipe and reversed her suspension. Glad cooler heads prevailed.
By the superintendent. That still doesn't speak well of the school's principals.
At a guess, I'd say she probably got hit by some zero tolerance policy that the school has regarding the use of cameras in the bathroom (and probably other spaces). Not that that sort of behavior reflects well on the principal, but there's a good chance that there wasn't some attempt to cover up the broken pipe. Just the more mundane sort of stupid.
You don't have to guess, it's right there in the article.
“They told me I was being suspended, OSS (out of school suspension),” she said. “It is inappropriate use of electronics in the restroom.”
But it was apparently a special case because
Juco felt targeted by the suspension for exposing the discolored water, saying that girls take selfies in the bathroom all the time and no one else has gotten in trouble.
Edit: oh okay they fixed the pipe and reversed her suspension. Glad cooler heads prevailed.
By the superintendent. That still doesn't speak well of the school's principals.
At a guess, I'd say she probably got hit by some zero tolerance policy that the school has regarding the use of cameras in the bathroom (and probably other spaces). Not that that sort of behavior reflects well on the principal, but there's a good chance that there wasn't some attempt to cover up the broken pipe. Just the more mundane sort of stupid.
You don't have to guess, it's right there in the article.
“They told me I was being suspended, OSS (out of school suspension),” she said. “It is inappropriate use of electronics in the restroom.”
But it was apparently a special case because
Juco felt targeted by the suspension for exposing the discolored water, saying that girls take selfies in the bathroom all the time and no one else has gotten in trouble.
Read the article so I knew they had a policy against bathroom electronics, but the sticky bit that wasn't mentioned was zero tolerance, which is likely, but not definitely what got the suspension. The fact that other people post bathroom selfies (damn I feel old) and get away with it is that nobody is looking.
The principal is looking pretty stupid here, but it's possible that they didn't have a lot of wiggle room to work with. It's also possible that they're an autocratic git.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
So, a mid-Michigan sheriff well known for, "When in doubt seize it," policy that has given the department a fleet of luxury and muscle cars seized mostly from shoplifters and car thieves (that is, the cars were stolen and recovered, but not returned to their owners) is now being asked to explain why a car which was supposedly in storage racked up 56,000 miles while in the department's possession. Now the department is refusing to release information on the car despite a court order.
Spoiler alert in case I post a follow-up: A lot of people around town recognize the car, because Federspeil was using it as a personal vehicle after giving the Mustang he was doing the same with back to the department on court order. He keeps a magnetic light and siren in his personal car and does off duty stops, which tends to draw attention to whatever he happens to be driving.
Posts
First thought i had "is this related to Flint water crisis".
Second was "can't be".
Third "but...".
Most recent, I'll see if I can turn up the earlier one again:
http://www.wnem.com/story/31785899/flint-water-employee-found-dead-at-lapeer-county-home?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
It's a weird set of coincidences, but sometimes that happens.
Flint has a lot of murders, but the city's crime, just like here in Saginaw (or any other rotted out former industrial city), is driven by poverty and desperation. The killer is either doing something stupid in the heat of the moment, or they're trying to get something out of the encounter, or the victim is an unlucky bystander.
The water guys, now? If I had to guess, I'd say OD on the guy in my link. It's easier to get meth in Flint than clean water, and Michigan has some crazy prescription drug abuse. No sign of foul play and nothing in the autopsy probably means it'll turn up in the toxicology report in four or five months.
Well of course the cops would say that. They're the ones that killed them.
E:I'm a dumbass.
They're going to do exactly fuck all to help Snyder.
...Are you kidding man?
Murdering those people doesn't make sense. Like, Snyder is all set to simply walk away with a big grin on his face; why the fuck would you start having people assassinated - a crime that is usually very easy to trace back to it's source? Even Al Capone didn't arrange hits on people who weren't either part of his organization or a rival gang, for exactly that reason.
I guess it's remotely possible that Snyder is so stupid, paranoid & sociopathic that he'd arrange contract killings despite it being a terrible idea, but there's no reason to believe that right now. Even intuitive oddities like the killer in the one clear murder case leaving the infant alive isn't that unusual; even murderers draw a line somewhere in how low they're willing to sink.
Ah, who are we kidding? That jug didn't even make it out of Flint.
Of course, this just proves Snyder has no clue of how the state looks to the world- who's going to want to bring jobs to a place where you can't even trust the government to keep the water safe to drink?
I can has cheezburger, yes?
It may surprise you, but he was booed non-stop while on stage.
To shreds you say.
"I was actually thirsty, this isn't a stunt." Translation: "This is totally a stunt, but look, I'm actually doing it, huh? Other guy didn't do this, huh?"
Most of the sites for free water and filter supplies are being shut down. So now the city's down to 5 sites, with substantially reduced hours. More sites are supposed to be opening "within the month" but they said the same thing when they stopped distributing at schools, and that never happened.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/05/former_city_administrator_fire.html
Not at all because the mayor is being accused of redirecting funds into her unregistered PAC, Karenabout Flint. So of course, the mayor fired the whistleblower, then threatened the council to get their support after the fact (since only they could actually fire her). The council publicly said they were not informed of and do not approve of the firing, but of course in a closed meeting with the mayor they all changed their minds. Same story from the city attorney, who decided to drop the investigation after a private meeting with the mayor.
This is the same person who Snyder's staff called "a massive liability" in emails after she raised a fuss when $12 million in state money was reduced to $6 million in a closed legislature meeting, and then $2 million when the wire transfer "got lost."
Snyder is the Mirror Universe Kermit the Frog. There is no such thing as goodness in his heart.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Not just evil, stupid and evil. Not only are you a total goose for doing this, you're a freaking moron to look at a major health crisis that is getting national media attention, including the attention of the various presidential campaigns, and think "Yep, this is the exact right time to dial up the graft and corruption."
They're not being selfish and evil because they can, they're doing it out of some twisted life principal that mandates kicking puppies.
She's also low enough on the totem pole (and of the correct political alignment) to make a very attractive scapegoat for the AG's next wave of charges, and she's in a position to cloak herself in an invincible shroud of victimhood if she could just stop stealing money from poisoned children for a few goddamn months. Which should be enough to tell any career politician to keep your nose clean, or at least cover your damn tracks and not go passing around memos about your theft.
The NAACP has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state over the Flint water crisis.
To quote the article,
'Among those named in the lawsuit are the State of Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder, Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental municipal water regulators Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch. Also named are two engineering firms: Houston-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. and Chicago-based Veolia North America, which the suit says were hired to review the city's water distribution system.'
This ought to liven things up as far as the digging up of evidence. Somehow I don't think an investigation by an outside source was something Snyder was counting on.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
It's not time to get all negative and blame the people who are only trying to "fix" the criminal mess they made in the first place.
What would that solve? Except, maybe you know, bringing justice?
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
The man wants to become governor. After fighting against Michigan's medical marijuana law, abortion clinics, and same sex marriage went nowhere; he needs something that looks like he is doing his job.
Well, he's still backlogged on rape kits. After the big deal he made about them during his reelection (they were backlogged to literally the week he was elected, but vote for him again and he'll totally get on that this time), he completely failed to do shit about them until the feds and another fucking state entirely both threw millions of monies at his problem, at which point he got our backlog down from 11,000 to... Wait, over 15,000 now? Oh for fuck's sake.
Michigan repeatedly kicks the same man off of food stamps because his brother stole his identity while committing a felony 25 years ago. Among other delightful cases.
Edit: oh okay they fixed the pipe and reversed her suspension. Glad cooler heads prevailed.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Thankfully the suspension got expunged and the pipe was fixed.
By the superintendent. That still doesn't speak well of the school's principals.
At a guess, I'd say she probably got hit by some zero tolerance policy that the school has regarding the use of cameras in the bathroom (and probably other spaces). Not that that sort of behavior reflects well on the principal, but there's a good chance that there wasn't some attempt to cover up the broken pipe. Just the more mundane sort of stupid.
You don't have to guess, it's right there in the article. But it was apparently a special case because
Schools need Principals, not principles.
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Read the article so I knew they had a policy against bathroom electronics, but the sticky bit that wasn't mentioned was zero tolerance, which is likely, but not definitely what got the suspension. The fact that other people post bathroom selfies (damn I feel old) and get away with it is that nobody is looking.
The principal is looking pretty stupid here, but it's possible that they didn't have a lot of wiggle room to work with. It's also possible that they're an autocratic git.
So, a mid-Michigan sheriff well known for, "When in doubt seize it," policy that has given the department a fleet of luxury and muscle cars seized mostly from shoplifters and car thieves (that is, the cars were stolen and recovered, but not returned to their owners) is now being asked to explain why a car which was supposedly in storage racked up 56,000 miles while in the department's possession. Now the department is refusing to release information on the car despite a court order.
Spoiler alert in case I post a follow-up: A lot of people around town recognize the car, because Federspeil was using it as a personal vehicle after giving the Mustang he was doing the same with back to the department on court order. He keeps a magnetic light and siren in his personal car and does off duty stops, which tends to draw attention to whatever he happens to be driving.