Chutzpah Parade

Some people have shown an incredible amount of chutzpah in response to Rick Snyder and his "emergency manager" poisoning the citizens of Flint, Michigan, killing at least 10.


First up:
Governor Rick Snyder, the man responsible for poisoning the citizens of Flint, Michigan, actually had the unmitigated gall to say these words as part of his pseudo-apology for poisoning the residents of a city under his control:

"We are praying for you."

Seriously - we are praying for you.

That's the sort of thing you say when a) the situation was not your fault and b) there's nothing that you can do about it, other than appealing to a higher power.

The balls it takes to say "we're praying for you" when you caused this disaster, you knew about it and allowed it to continue, and you could easily fix the problem (not that it would undo any of the damage done, but at least you could prevent future poisonings)!

You could just put the city back on the Detroit Water & Sewage System. The system you took them off of in order to give them toxic sludge instead. You could do that right now instead of wringing your hands and "praying" like "it's out of the hands of us mere mortals, only The Lord can save us now."

Now, to be fair,  he did say more than that he was "praying" for the people he poisoned. He also told some obvious lies:

"we are working hard for you and we are absolutely committed to taking the right steps to effectively solve this crisis," he said in his State of the State address. "To you, the people of Flint, I say tonight as I have before: I am sorry, and I will fix it."

You're not sorry, and you're not gonna fix it. You know how I know? Because of this:

 His aides pledged that, by the end of the week, officials would visit every household in Flint to ensure they have water filters.

Water filters.
You expect them to run this:

 

 through water filters.

And then drink it.

You have no intention of providing the people of Flint with drinkable, non-toxic water. But you're going to see to it that they have filters through which to run the deadly sewage which will continue to be delivered to their taps.

But you're "praying" for them.

Where do you get the balls?


 A close second goes to Jeb! (the smart one) for shifting the blame away from Governor Snyder aka the man who is to blame, onto government regulations (?)

On ABC’s This Week, co-host Martha Raddatz asked Bush who is to blame for the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the fact that the city of more than 100,000 Americans had been “drinking, eating, brushing their teeth in lead-contaminated water, while the government was telling them repeatedly ‘it’s safe to use.'”

 His response?

“We’ve created this complex, no responsibility regulatory system, where the federal government, the state government, a regional government, local and county governments are all pointing fingers at one another.” He proposed simply having a “21st century system of rules: Whenever you see a problem, it should become public, there should be transparency instead of trying to cover it up.”

How does that even make sense?
The governor would have liked to have not poisoned a bunch of people, but the rules were just too darn complicated!

So whenever you see a problem, it should become public. . . instead of trying to cover it up? I agree. I think every sane person agrees. But here's the thing. The governor, and his hand-picked viceroy, did see a problem. And there was nothing stopping them from making that information public. But they chose to cover it up. They made a conscious decision to lie and tell people that their water was safe and just because it looks like chemical plant run-off doesn't mean it isn't good healthy H2O, and lead? What's lead? That sounds made up!

They chose to cover up the truth. Which complicated regulation is to blame for that? Which governmental rules stood in the way of Snyder and his tin-pot dictator having the basic human decency to, at the very least, tell people "stop drinking your tap water, it's poison!"

He then praised Synder for having “taken responsibility” and for “rolling up his sleeves and trying to deal with it.” Bush said he should not resign, as he “needs to do what he’s doing, which is to accept responsibility and began to solve the problem,” adding that Snyder has “been a great governor for Michigan.”

 "Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job," he did not add.