Obama attributes Flint visit to invitation from 8 year old Mari Copeny

I suspect that President Obama would have come to Flint anyway, but I think it’s kind of lovely that he’s attributing next week’s visit to the invitation he received from 8 year old Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, the daughter of Flint activist LuLu Brezzell… I know I’ve said it before, but I’m going to miss him when he’s gone.

ObalaFlint

As for what Obama will be doing in Flint, a White House official told the Detroit Free Press that he will “hear first-hand from Flint residents about the public health crisis, receive an in-person briefing on the federal efforts in place to help respond to the needs of the people of Flint, and deliver remarks to community members.

For what it’s worth, our Governor, who just last week promised to drink Flint water for an entire month and then promptly left for Europe without any, told the Free Press that he would not be in Flint to greet the President. “I’ve got a pretty full schedule next week,” he told them from Zurich, Switzerland. “That’s not currently a day I’m scheduled to be in Flint.”

Given that Snyder has probably spent less than 8 hours total in Flint since the news first broke that people were being poisoned, I find that last sentence particularly hilarious. “That’s not currently a day I’m scheduled to be in Flint,” makes it sound as though he’s got plans to be there on the 3rd and 5th, but not just on the 4th. A more appropriate response might have been, “Look, I was in Flint for an awkward, water-drinking photo op a week ago, and I don’t ever intend to return.”

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28 Comments

  1. Peter Larson
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 2:14 am | Permalink

    Many people hate Obama.

  2. Jcp2
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 6:36 am | Permalink

    Obama is trolling Snyder. I applaud this IDGAF move.

  3. Westside
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 7:26 am | Permalink

    I’ve never seen his signature before. Interesting.

  4. anonymous
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 8:18 am | Permalink

    Snyder does not give a single shit about the people of Flint. They’re just an inconvenience to him. If he really cared about them, he wouldn’t promise to drink their water and then promptly leave the country without a drop. He has no respect for them. That much is clear.

  5. Kristin
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 8:22 am | Permalink

    Seriously. Did Snyder pack up some water to go?

  6. anonymous
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 8:50 am | Permalink

    No, he said it wasn’t “feasible”.

  7. Dan Blakeney
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 9:41 am | Permalink

    The Governor of our State has no time for the President of our Country. Real nice.

  8. Kat
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 9:42 am | Permalink

    Does anyone know what’s on his schedule that day? I’d like to know what’s more important than meeting the President to discuss the health of your constituents.

  9. Taco Farts
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 10:25 am | Permalink

    http://www.readingthepictures.org/files/bagnews/images/bushatwindow1-1.jpg

    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/r9Y-iYtCeyg/hqdefault.jpg

  10. Lynne
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 10:27 am | Permalink

    Huh? We have a crisis that involves poisoning children (and adults). One which is going to take a lot to solve and also fortunately one that has the attention of the President of the United States, so much so that he is going to visit the city and our Governor is “too busy” too see him? WTF?!?

  11. John Galt
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 1:13 pm | Permalink

    Rick Snyder is too busy saving this sate to waste even a single minute kowtowing to your illegitimate, America-hating, foreign-born president, who, by they way, is only coming here to foment a communist uprising.

  12. Bob
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 1:16 pm | Permalink

    I thought Michael Moore’s statement regarding the Obama visit was pretty rough, and pretty valid.

  13. Meta
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 1:51 pm | Permalink

    Here’s what Michael Moore had to say.

    Dear President Obama —

    Finally, after months of us begging you to come to Flint, you’ve decided to visit next Wednesday. I know this will make many people happy and grateful. But, as one who voted for you twice and was thrilled beyond belief over your election, I’m sorry to tell you your visit is too little too late.

    You say you’re coming to “listen to the people of Flint.” Sir, they’ve been poisoned for two damn years. You’ve known about it since October. There’s nothing to listen to. Unless you’re bringing the entire U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dig up and replace the 75,000 lead pipes, plus the Attorney General to arrest Governor Rick Snyder, then this is just another photo-op and half-baked list of new promises we don’t need. If you’re coming to make one of those “we need to rebuild America’s infrastructure” speeches, don’t bother. This is NOT an infrastructure problem – it’s a hate crime and mass poisoning of Black and poor people that NEVER would happen if this were Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Pointe or any other white town. It was done in order to give a billion-dollar tax cut to the rich. Every child here now has some form of permanent brain damage. There is NOTHING you can do to reverse that for them. There is no cure. Again, they are Black, they are poor. Do you have a cure for that? Because THAT’s the only reason why this has happened. Flint’s infrastructure was just fine (or what passes for fine these days in the USA). This poisoning happened because the governor said “Cut services!” — and so one of the first services he cut was to seal off the clean drinking water pipeline from the Great Lakes and make the poor and the Black of Flint drink dirty water from the drainage ditch you and others call “the Flint River.” We haven’t called it that for years. I’d drink my own piss before I’d drink out of that sewer.

    We don’t need any more visits from politicians, even one as beloved as you. We don’t need any more promises of testing. We don’t need any more token digging up of pipes made rancid by the Flint River water that flowed through them (of the 75,000 pipes that need replacing, a total of 39 – 39!! – have been dug up and removed since you met with the mayor in the White House back in January). Meanwhile the poisoning continues on daily basis, even with the Lake Huron water that has been restored because it’s flowing through lead-damaged pipes with a new chemical that now burns people’s skin.

    So unless you’re bringing the U.S. Army with you to save 100,000 of your fellow Americans, and unless you’re going to arrest the governor of Michigan who has now killed more Americans than ISIS, you might as well stay home. The riots here, I’m certain, will begin sometime soon. That’s what you or I would do if someone was poisoning OUR kids and the government refused to stop it, right?

    With respect, admiration and profound disappointment,
    Michael Moore
    Flint native
    Michigan resident
    Obama supporter

    Source:
    https://www.facebook.com/mmflint/posts/10153460597166857

  14. Meta
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 1:54 pm | Permalink

    After posting that to Facebook, he then said the following on Twitter.

    “Obama’s visit to Flint next week is either a sham or the saving of a hundred thousand people.”

    https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/725415624013451264

  15. Lynne
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    LOL. I like Moore but he does tend to be overly dramatic. Still, I hope people can look past his hyperbole to see that there are good points there especially about the systemic nature of the problem.

  16. Taco Farts
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 3:22 pm | Permalink

    If that 39 number is true, it’s appalling. I think an interview with the local union plumbers bigwig said a team of four could do 2/day, and that he could get hundreds of plumbers in town the next day if someone gave the order.

    Nestle stock’s up about 8% since April 2014 if I did my math right.

  17. EOS
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 3:49 pm | Permalink

    The city of Madison, Wisconsin has removed all their lead water pipes. It took them 8 years. They replaced all the supply lines and paid half the cost of the pipes in private homes and businesses. Now they no longer have to add phosphate buffers to their water and this is helping to prevent the eutrification of their surface waters. It cost them money in the short term, but will save money and the health of their residents in the long run. Every community should do the same.

  18. EOS
    Posted April 28, 2016 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

    My mistake – it took them 11 years and cost 15.5 million dollars. No one in Madison will ever again have to worry about the water lines poisoning their children with lead toxicities. And the water discharges won’t contribute to algal blooms leading to eutrophication of inland lakes. They don’t spend money on the purchase of phosphate buffers or on the manpower to treat the water to prevent the corrosion of any lead pipes.

  19. Demetrius
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 4:32 am | Permalink

    @ EOS

    So if your local government proposed a tax increase or bond issue to help pay to replace lead service lines, would you support it?

    Or – instead, would you complain about “big government,” taxes, socialism, etc.?

  20. EOS
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 7:37 am | Permalink

    No, I think the taxes they collect are sufficient to pay for this – that is if they didn’t spend it on non-essential items. It’s cheaper than Water Street and has an outcome that will improve everybody’s life. It’s a better way to spend tax dollars than a clock in the middle of the street, a parking lot on the wrong side of the tracks, a train station for an overpriced train whose schedule won’t facilitate commutes to work, a bus system that keeps expanding even when ridership declines, a public school system that chooses to indoctrinate at the expense of an education, a median in the middle of Michigan Avenue, streetscapes on Washtenaw avenue, salaries for public officials who fail to show up for a single meeting in over 18 months, lifelong pensions for a few years of work from term limited elected representatives. Would you rather have you tax dollars (county level) contribute to the killing of babies at Planned Parenthood or preserve the health and mental abilities of our children? It’s a matter of priorities.

  21. jcp2
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 9:28 am | Permalink

    “Would you rather have you tax dollars (county level) contribute to the killing of babies at Planned Parenthood or preserve the health and mental abilities of our children?”

    I’m going to go with the anti-Solomon’s choice and choose both.

  22. EOS
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 10:03 am | Permalink

    If you can’t prioritize, then taxes will climb to the level where no one has any disposable income and we’ll all feel the burn/Bern. Socialism is where you get the level of services that the government deems acceptable, regardless of your personal preference, until they run out of other people’s money.

  23. Lynne
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    Hasn’t YUCA already been working on removing lead pipes?

    I agree a little with EOS in that pipes are the kind of issue that doesnt get prioritized but should. I disagree on the fundamental role of gov’t though and love high progressive taxes.

  24. EOS
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 11:05 am | Permalink

    YUCA has an inventory of lead supply lines, but isn’t in the process of replacing any. No governmental agency has an inventory of what is in private homes and businesses.

  25. EOS
    Posted April 29, 2016 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

    I was talking with a man from Ireland recently on an online game. Someone made a comment about how they could pay their entire water bill each month for less than others spend on the game. The Irish man said he didn’t pay anything for water. His government provides it for free.

    Free? The middle class in Ireland pay 48% of their income in taxes. Then they pay additional sales tax 23%, a 4% social security tax, excise taxes, and other additional taxes. More than 75% of the money they earn is taken by the government. Yet, the government recently tried to make them pay for their water and the people revolted.

    Personally, I prefer to spend my own money and not have a bloated government mismanage it for me.

  26. Meta
    Posted May 2, 2016 at 2:34 pm | Permalink

    The Tough Nerd’s calendar miraculously opened up.

    Gov. Rick Snyder said today he wants to meet with President Barack Obama when the president visits Flint on Wednesday and he’s requested a private meeting with Obama and Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.

    A spokesman for Obama said he’s glad Snyder’s schedule has opened up, after initial reports that he would be too busy to meet with the president. But he could not immediately confirm a meeting other than a handshake on the airport tarmac.

    “It’s really a question of how we can work together,” Snyder told reporters in Flint Monday morning about his requested meeting with Obama.

    “How can we all work together to make Flint a stronger, better community and address the water issues as much as possible?”

    There were initial indications that Snyder might be too busy to participate in Obama’s visit, but Snyder said Monday that was an incorrect conclusion some journalists drew from his refusal to confirm the president was visiting before the White House announced it. Snyder said his initial response was that he had a “full schedule” because he did not want to confirm that the president was visiting Flint.

    Read more:
    http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/05/02/snyder-wants-to-meet-with-obama-in-flint/83815034/

  27. Taco Farts
    Posted May 2, 2016 at 4:42 pm | Permalink

    “How can we all work together to make Flint a stronger, better community and address the water issues as much as possible?”

    This man is a sociopath.

  28. Peter Larson
    Posted May 3, 2016 at 6:24 am | Permalink

    They know him as the Comeback Kid.

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