RSN: Black Americans Defend Sanders Against Ta-Nehisi Coates' Biased and Baseless Attacks, Report: 'Every Major US City East of the Mississippi' Is Underreporting Heavy Metals in Its Water

January Fundraiser Not Closing Well

We are pretty badly stalled in the mid 15K range. Today so far has seen a bit of response from very small donors, but not much to move the progress bar.

Could use a little assistance.

Marc Ash 
Curator, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

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Robert Reich | Paul Krugman Doesn't Get It

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes: "New York Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday warned Bernie supporters that change doesn't happen with 'transformative rhetoric' but with 'political pragmatism' - 'accepting half loaves as being better than none.' He writes that it's dangerous to prefer 'happy dreams (by which he means Bernie) to hard thinking about means and ends (meaning Hillary).'"
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Hillary Clinton Laughs When Asked if She Will Release Transcripts of Her Goldman Sachs Speeches
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Fang writes: "After Hillary Clinton spoke at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, I asked her if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. She laughed and turned away."
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Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Exploring Possible Independent Presidential Run
Marcy Kreiter, International Business Times
Kreiter writes: "A poll conducted by Morning Consult indicated former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg draws 13 percent support overall among voters - even before making any moves in the 2016 presidential race. The same poll shows Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton within a point of each other, polling 37 percent and 36 percent, respectively."
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Black Americans Defend Sanders Against Ta-Nehisi Coates' Biased and Baseless Attacks
Michael Sainato, Observer
Sainato writes: "The African American community is lashing out at Ta-Nehisi Coates' scathing criticism of Bernie Sanders in a recent article for The Atlantic. In what seemed to be a means to strengthen the polarity between Dr. Cornel West, a Sanders supporter who made headlines last year for criticizing Mr. Coates, the article's bias was clear."
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Killer Mike (r.) takes pictures of Senator Bernie Sanders with supporters after the candidate and 
rapper had lunch at Busy Bee in Atlanta. (photo: David Goldman/AP)

Readers aren't falling for hypocritical 'Atlantic' puff-piece

he African American community is lashing out at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ scathing criticism of Bernie Sanders in a recent article for The Atlantic. In what seemed to be a means to strengthen the polarity between Dr. Cornel West, a Sanders supporter who made headlines last year for criticizing Mr. Coates, the article’s bias was clear. Mr. Coates attacked Mr. Sanders for something no presidential candidate—including Hillary Clinton or even President Barack Obama—has supported.

During Fusion’s Iowa Black & Brown Forum, Mr. Sanders was asked if  he favored reparations. “No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil,” he responded. “Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African-American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African-American community, we have a lot of work to do. So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African-American and Latino.”

Mr. Sanders’ response wasn’t a firm “no” to reparations—he believes investments should be allocated to African-American communities to redistribute wealth and resources, helping mitigate the inequalities incited by slavery and the subsequent decades of prejudicial government and social policies. Mr. Sanders’ response may have insufficiently addressed race issues today, but that isn’t an excuse for Mr. Coates to alienate Mr. Sanders in order to unleash his own rhetoric on reparations.

Ms. Clinton is mentioned only once in Mr. Coates’ article. “The calls for community policing, body cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored—all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with,” he writes. “And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.”

Mr. Coates’ bias is evident. To suggest Mr. Sanders sees African-Americans as “magically suffering from disproportionate poverty” is erroneous. At the same forum, Ms. Clinton fumbled a question on white privilege. And, once she finally addressed the issue, she made clear a distinction based on economic disparity between herself and Latino migrant workers. If Mr. Coates is serious about his beliefs on reparations and the misunderstanding Mr. Sanders allegedly has on white supremacy, instead of undermining the article with favoritism for Ms. Clinton (as all of his arguments do), he would have held her to the same expectations.

“To me, it became automatically disingenuous, and became a hit piece—a powder puff piece to support Hillary Clinton—because you are trying to make Bernie Sanders go through hoops you would not dare ask of Hillary Clinton,” said Benjamin Dixon, host of the Benjamin Dixon Show on YouTube. “Who has asked Hillary Clinton about reparations and wrote an intellectual thought piece from the pen of someone with such political influence in the black community? Nobody.”

It is hypocritical for Mr. Coates and the black community to push expectations on Mr. Sanders while none are imposed on Ms. Clinton, Mr. Dixon notes, citing that when ‘Black Lives Matter’ activists began disrupting Mr. Sanders’ campaign events, he took their criticism into consideration, bringing on National Press Secretary Symone Sanders and releasing a comprehensive campaign platform on racial justice. Ms. Clinton has yet to issue one on hers, and had Black Lives Matter activists removed from a campaign event.

In 1989, Congressman John Conyers began pushing for legislative measures to establish a national commission for studying reparations. Mr. Conyers gained support from the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, Coretta Scott King, Rev. Jesse Jackson, but was opposed by Bill Clinton. Recently, the National African-American Reparations Commission called upon President Obama to use executive action to establish a slavery reparations task force, to no avail.

Rapper Killer Mike took to Twitter in defense of Mr. Sanders, making similar arguments that he is being targeted while Ms. Clinton receives unwarranted immunity.

IMAGES ON LINK

Mr. Coates denigrates Mr. Sanders as a socialist, a term that has been used pejoratively against the Democratic presidential candidate since he announced his campaign. Mr. Sanders is a Democratic Socialist.Socialism is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.” Bernie Sanders doesn’t advocate for the confiscation of private corporations by the government.

In a speech to Georgetown University in November 2015, Mr. Sanders provided his own explanation of Democratic Socialism. “So let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me. It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans. And it builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1968 when he stated that ‘This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.’ It builds on the success of many other countries around the world that have done a far better job than we have in protecting the needs of their working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor.”

Mr. Coates concludes by noting that he tried to contact Mr. Sanders, but received no response. I don’t blame him.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34777-black-americans-defend-sanders-against-ta-nehisi-coates-biased-and-baseless-attacks

How the Flint Water Crisis Is Impacting Undocumented Immigrants 

Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, ThinkProgress 

Lee writes: "Undocumented immigrants facing the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan may be too scared to go to the water distribution centers because they may not be able to produce proper identification, according to a local ABC affiliate." 

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An Interview With Survivor of the Attack Which Disappeared 43 Mexican Students
Nick MacWilliam, teleSUR
MacWilliam writes: "'Omar. La policia nos estan disparando.' The police are shooting at us. The words came to Omar Garcia Velazquez down the telephone line. While several of his classmates had headed into Iguala to attend a government protest, Omar had remained in the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero, southern Mexico."
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Report: 'Every Major US City East of the Mississippi' Is Underreporting Heavy Metals in Its Water
Alissa Walker, Gizmodo
Walker writes: "Just when the news about lead poisoning the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, couldn't get any worse. A report from The Guardian says many US cities are systemically and purposely downplaying the amounts of lead and copper in municipal water systems."
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A container filled with contaminated drinking water. (photo: Gizmodo)


ust when the news about lead poisoning the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, couldn’t get any worse. A report from The Guardian says many US cities are systemically and purposely downplaying the amounts of lead and copper in municipal water systems.

A scientist who was part of an Environmental Protection Agency taskforce disclosed documents toThe Guardian which shows how water boards are distorting tests to make their water appear safer, a practice confirmed by an anonymous source:

The controversial approach to water testing is so widespread that it occurs in “every major US city east of the Mississippi” according to an anonymous source with extensive knowledge of the lead and copper regulations. “By word of mouth, this has become the thing to do in the water industry. The logical conclusion is that millions of people’s drinking water is potentially unsafe,” he said.

Specific cities named included Detroit and Philadelphia, and the entire state of Rhode Island.

The documents in question were obtained via FOIA by Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou, who sat on the Environment Protection Agency taskforce that recently proposed revisions on the federal rules for lead. Lambrinidou told The Guardian that more rigorous oversight will reveal more offenders: “There is no way that Flint is a one-off.”

This does not mean the Environment Protection Agency is being lax in its regulations, necessarily—rather it’s the agency’s guidelines that are being ignored by those who are contracted to administer the tests. For example, in Philadelphia and Michigan, testers were instructed by local water boards to run the water for two minutes or until cold before testing for lead, a practice called “pre-flushing,” which is seen as controversial.

Even if the incidences of lead and copper are not as high as the anonymous source claims, Lambrinidou’s assertion that Flint is not an isolated case is probably right. With corroded pipes to blame, there are many American cities suffering from similar infrastructural neglect. Pair that with a testing system that’s so easily gamed, and it may take years for some cities to figure out if their water is truly safe.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34774-report-every-major-us-city-east-of-the-mississippi-is-underreporting-heavy-metals-in-its-water