2016 Jan 22^nd

Washington D.C. is expected to get a near record snowfall over the next few days. The removal of snow from householder’s sidewalks and from sidewalks in front of businesses is the responsibility of the owners of these establishments. They each have 24 hours to clear their sidewalks or face fines; the householder a 25 dollar fine, the business owner a 150 dollar fine. Washington D.C. has a Democratic mayor and Democratic government generally. These people believe that property owners, and particularly business owners have a responsibility for the safety of pedestrians. In Michigan our Republican Supreme court has decided that no such responsibility is expected. Here the customer’s personal safety takes a backseat to the businessman’s profits. The difference in attitude toward public safety is built into the policies of these two parties.

In an interview this morning Governor Snyder asserted that the decision to divert Flint River water into Flint’s city water system was “approved” by the city council and by the county commissioners. Governor Snyder apparently believes that responsibility (guilt) is a finite package and the more of it that can be scattered about the less he has left as his share. The problem with this view is that there is a considerable difference between the knowledge the part–time officials had about the consequences of turning untreated river water into Flint’s water system and the information Governor Snyder received from various sources. Scientists from as far away as Virginia Tech had, by September 1^st sent 300 kits to Flint residents to let them determine if there was lead in their water supply. (Why would they think there might be lead in Flint’s water supply when no State of Michigan agency was at all concerned?) The EPA had informed Snyder of the problem but he took no action and instead blamed the EPA for not being forceful enough and going over his head directly to the citizens. As a result the regional EPA director has resigned. We do have that great 500 million dollar state surplus for this past year. Once more for Republicans, money comes first, people come second.

There are some lighter moments: Trump recently showed a photo of people he claimed were American veterans but these American veterans were wearing Russian medals. Now that will be harder to explain than Trump’s last gaffe when he showed Moroccans scrambling to get across a border while implying that they were Mexican scrambling to get into this country. Then we have the deadlock right here in Leelanau County where a new commissioner must be selected. At the moment there are three Republicans and three Democrats on the commission so of course we’ll have to wait until election time to replace the candidate who resigned.

Who knows, we might wind up with three Republican parties. One clearly despises Cruz and another hates Trump, and the third wants the party to select one of the insiders like Kasich, Rubio or Bush. All this while the Democrats find they are faced with a surging elderly socialist.We live in interesting times.