Chris Christie has a problem with a bridge, and over 300,ooo residents of West Virginia have toxic water. Welcome to Monday!
I think Christie’s troubles are just beginning… pop some popcorn and settle in, because this one will last a while. Stay tuned!
Although the NY Times and Washington Post both have been covering the sickening story out of West Virginia, apparently none of the Sunday talk shows thought it was a big enough story to compete with Christie’s troubles, a baby panda’s debut or the three-year anniversary (later this week) of Sully Sullenberger landing his plane on the Hudson River.
So, I went to someone with first-hand knowledge of what’s going on in Appalachia to join us. Bob Kincaid of the Head On Radio Network not only lives in West Virginia (as has his family, for generations), but he reports regularly on the problems of everyone in the region emanating from the heinous practice of mountaintop removal mining.
In fact, Bob is a co-founder of the A.C.H.E. campaign (standing for Appalachian Community Health Emergency), which helped get the ACHE Act introduced. I urge you to click the link and watch this video for more information..
The Washington Post is today reporting that the “Don’t Drink the Water” edict has been lifted. But, as Bob asked me on the show today, after knowing that those highly poisonous chemicals were sitting in your pipes for over a week, would you feel safe after an all-clear? I know I wouldn’t.
BTW, for a little more background on the toxic shit in the water, read this Wired piece.
Nicole Belle and her Crooks and Liars colleagues really deserve hazard pay for watching the Sunday talking head shows each week, which seem to get more and more irrelevant with each successive show. Today, she brought us this:
You knew that even after a 108 minute press conference, we hadn’t heard the last about Chris Christie. And true to form, conservatives came out to insist that thug tactics that the Christie gubernatorial office practiced were not so bad…
Karl Rove thinks that those petty thug tactics are exactly ‘what we want’ in a president.
Rudy Giuliani says that sure, Bridgegate is bad, but it’s no Benghazi or IRS scandal.
Reince Priebus tried the Benghazi spin too, and even superhack David Gregory had to call it a ‘deflection’.
Speaking of deflections, John “If it’s Sunday, it must be” McCain thinks all this talk of extending UI and raising the minimum wage isObama’s ‘clever strategy’ to not talk about Obamacare.
And David Gregory has Maria Shriver on to talk about a report her new foundation has created talking about the devastating impact of our economic policies on women. It’s an abomination in the wealthiest nation in the world that one in three women are so economically insecure that they are one catastrophe from ruin. That 70 percent of those earning minimum wage are women and that more than 40 percent of families are headed by single women, the majority of whom feel they cannot get out of their financial difficulties. But as should be expected, Gregory missed the point entirely, and really wanted Shriver to say that this impacts male caregivers too. (9 minute clip, relevant portion at about 5:05) Um, Dave, your white male privilege is showing. A serious discussion of economic instability for American women does not need to include millionaire Lebron James and male caregivers.
And… Brit Hume blames the feminized atmosphere in the modern media for the perception that ‘masculine,’ ‘muscular’ Chris Christie is a bully. I tell you, Freud could have spent a lot of time analyzing that particular statement.
Tomorrow on the show: Just what did the Obama administration try to push through Congress while we were all fixated on Bridge-Gate? Hint: It has to do with the TPP! Plus @GottaLaff too!
