Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Maryland, April 28, 1788. Maryland was the seventh state to do so. Maryland’s ratification message was very short and to the point. The following text is taken from the Library of Congress’s copy of Elliot’s Debates.
for more: usconstitution.net
On the heels of the January 6 insurrection, corporations like AT&T, Home Depot, Valero Energy Corp, Publix, and Walgreens pledged to suspend donations to the Sedition Caucus – the 147 GOP members of Congress who objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election and supported Trump’s Big Lie.
However, many of those same corporations have now abandoned those pledges and resumed their financial support of the Sedition Caucus.
Over the last two years, the Sedition Caucus received over $40 million from corporate donors, some of whom previously pledged to suspend donations.
Corporations are claiming to support democracy while privately supporting pro-insurrectionists who want it destroyed. They continue to pander to consumers while donating to anti-democracy campaigns in the shadows. We see them, and we demand these corporations stop funding insurrectionists immediately.Sign and send the petition to corporations: Keep your pledge. Stop donations to pro-insurrectionist members of Congress.
Participating Organizations
Crazy Eight PAC
CREDO Mobile
Daily Kos
DemCast USA
Democracy for America Advocacy Fund
Democratic Values
Forward Blue
Future Coalition
Inequality Media Civic Action
Greenpeace
March On
OD Action
Patriotic Millionaires
People Power United
Progressive Reform Network
Real Populists
TakeItBack.Org
Voters First Victory Fund
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In response to a letter from 8-year-old Flint resident Mari Copeny, known as “Little Miss Flint”, President Obama announced that he will visit Flint, Michigan tomorrow to convey his support to residents affected by the city’s water crisis. The President’s visit refocuses the national spotlight on Flint, which made national headlines earlier this year after it was revealed that the Michigan state government failed to provide safe and clean drinking water to the residents of Flint for more than a year.
The crisis began in April 2014, when government officials, under pressure to cut the budget, chose to switch the city’s water source to the polluted Flint River, without adequately preventing corrosive chemicals from entering the water flow. Not long after the switch, many residents began complaining about the dirty and smelly tap water and experiencing health side effects such as hair loss and rashes – but the local government waited nearly a year before admitting to the public that there was a problem.
While Flint officials turned a blind eye, a serious public health crisis unfolded as thousands of mostly black and low-income residents and children were poisoned by elevated levels of lead in the water, which can produce a host of long term health effects including high blood pressure, memory loss, and neurological disorders. Research suggests that young children are especially vulnerable to lead exposure, as it affects children’s growth, behavior, and intelligence over time. It is estimated that between 6,000- 12,000 Flint kids have been exposed to lead, and for children, the effects of lead poisoning can be especially damaging: children with lead poisoning are seven times more likely to drop out of school and six times more likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system than those not exposed to lead. And although the availability of early intervention and education services like high-quality childcare and pre-k could help determine how well these children fare down the line, these programs are currently scarce in Flint.
The water crisis in Flint – a city in which 56 percent of the population is African American and more the 40 percent of residents live below the federal poverty line – also serves as a stark reminder of how the failures of government accountability, infrastructure investment, and environmental quality can disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities in an area. In addition to Flint, there are cities across the country struggling with lead poisoning. For example, fourteen percent of children in Cleveland have elevated lead levels, mainly due to the persistence of lead paint in old buildings.
A recent CAP column and report illustrate how the crisis provides just one window into widespread environmental injustices faced by communities of color across the country: in fact, these communities tend to face a higher risk of exposure to lead-poisoning, water contamination, and air pollution and are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than whiter, more affluent communities.
As reports of the crisis began to surface earlier this year, and it became clear that the state of Michigan itself was primarily responsible for the crisis, President Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint and directed millions in federal aid to Flint, and soon after the Michigan House of Representatives approved millions more to the city. But to really solve this problem and prevent future ones, Congress, which has failed to secure any aid package for Flint, must work past gridlock to pass legislation to increase funding for water infrastructure, improve testing and monitoring, and reform regulatory oversight to make sure that no community suffers from the environmental injustices that Flint has.
BOTTOM LINE: President Obama’s trip to Flint reminds us of the troubles facing Flint and similar cities across the country. Whether it’s lead in the water, more extreme weather, or air pollution, Flint is just a particularly egregious example of the environmental injustices faced by communities of color across America. There are concrete solutions that Congress can enact to prevent problems like the ones faced by Flint, but lawmakers first have to be willing to make them.
Do you know what’s in that glass of water you’re drinking? Depending on where you live, what you don’t know could harm you.
Just ask the residents of Flint, Michigan, where what initially appeared to be simply a bad call on the part of government officials may result in an estimated $400 million in health care costs.
While those responsible for hiding reports showing high levels of toxic lead in Flint’s water now face criminal charges, the health crisis there has raised the alarm about everyone else’s water.
But before switching to bottled water for all your hydration needs, get the facts.
Americans actually enjoy the world’s safest drinking water supply. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which sets enforceable health standards regarding the contaminants in drinking water, reports that 90 percent of municipal water systems are in compliance with safety regulations.
To find out about your own city’s tap water, check out your water system’s Annual Water Quality Report. After July 1 of each year, water systems are required to provide this report by including it with your water bill or via a link. The report lists common contaminants and the levels at which they are found and are generally available online: Do a web search of your city’s name and “annual quality report.”
And you can go one step further by using a filter. Look for filters certified by the NSF International, which developed the national standards for reducing contaminants.
Read More: 12 Dangerous Chemicals to Avoid in Everyday Products
The crisis in Flint has brought widespread attention to the potential for lead contamination in our water supplies.
“There is no level of lead that is safe,” says Mary Grant, director of Public Water for All at nongovernmental organization and consumer rights group Food and Water Watch. “Cities like Jackson, Mississippi, and Sebring, Ohio, with older systems have lead service lines. We really shouldn’t have lead lines.”
According to a study by the National Resources Defense Council, 18 million people were served by water systems with lead violations in 2015. In addition to Flint, cities like Cleveland and Newark, New Jersey, have high levels of lead in their water systems as well, according to the New York Times.
“Each year in America there are roughly 90,000 low-level exposures (5–9 micrograms per deciliter), which commonly result from sources such as drinking water,” says Peter Muennig, an associate professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, in a letter to the journal Health Affairs. “These exposures rob children of IQ points, leading to lower economic productivity, higher welfare use, and additional criminal justice system costs.”
Read More: The 21 Most Lethal Places in America
Muennig goes on to note that because of the effort to save $5 million by switching water sources, Flint will suffer costs of $395 million, as well as “1,760 quality-adjusted life-years lost.”
In addition to water system safety concerns, lead can also be present closer to home. Older houses may have lead plumbing, in which case, your options include replacing your plumbing system ― a prohibitively expensive proposition for most homeowners ― buying a filter that can reduce lead or packing it in and moving to a newer house.
A short-term solution to avoid consuming lead from tap water is to use only water from the cold tap for drinking and cooking and to let the water run for 60 seconds before using it.
There can be other contaminants in your water too: microorganisms like bacteria and parasites, chemicals from industrial waste or from spraying crops and nitrates used in fertilizers from runoff.
The EPA ensures that the amounts of these contaminants are below hazardous levels, but they can still be evident.
Then there are the contaminants the EPA doesn’t regulate, like drugs and hormones.
“These unregulated contaminants are a big concern,” Grant says. “Hormones have been found in surface waters. We’re not sure what the levels are.”
A recent Harvard study found that another class of contaminant — an obscure industrial pollutant associated with cancer and other severe health consequences — was found in unsafe levels in the drinking water of 6 million Americans.
This could be changing, though. The EPA is looking for new contaminants and ways to better regulate them. The agency currently has an unregulated contaminant list that it’s testing for in large cities, but it’s still in the review process.
Read More: 8 Amazing Advancements That Will Fulfill Your Cyborg Fantasies
Many of us are fortunate enough to live in cities that test water systems thousands of times a year and exceed the safety levels required by the EPA. A few cities with the best water are New York, San Francisco and New Orleans.
“New York has the champagne of tap water,” Grant says. “It’s a model of source protection. They make sure the contaminants don’t enter in the first place.”
Going further, the American Water Works Association has annual tap water taste tests. The 2016 winner for best-tasting tap water is Bloomington, Minnesota.
On the other end of the spectrum, problematic water systems abound in underserved communities.
“The worst water is found in systems that serve Native American populations,” Grant says. “And small, private systems have bad water quality.”
Concerned about your tap water quality? You can call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791 to find out about your drinking water, or you can use its Consumer Confidence Reports search tool to find reports or to connect to your local water supplier to get a copy of the report.
Read More: 10 Things to Know in Case of a Health Emergency
Lead: On its way to your faucet, water may pass through corroded plumbing that can allow lead to leach into it. Lead-related health risks include neurological damage, kidney and liver problems and developmental delays in children.
Chlorine: Chlorine is added to water to kill bacteria and viruses, but it can react with other materials in the water and form byproducts that have been linked to increased cancer risk.
Fluoride: Added to water in some areas to promote dental health, fluoride in excess may result in bone disease.
Pharmaceuticals: These compounds are increasingly appearing in trace amounts in drinking water, and there’s growing concern that certain drugs or combinations of drugs may harm humans over time. While no known effects on humans have been reported (yet), exposure to estrogen-like substances in the Potomac River have produced fish with both male and female characteristics, with some fish having both testes and ovaries.
Nitrates: Farm runoff can introduce nitrates from fertilizer into a water source. Nitrates interfere with the oxygen-carrying capacity of newborns’ blood.
Polyfluoroalkyl and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAs): These chemicals are used in a range of commercial products. Some are linked to health problems, including high cholesterol, immune deficiency, hormone disruption and kidney and testicular cancers.
Read More: 10 of the Most Deadly States for Cancer
Do you have concerns about your own communities tap water? Have your local officials been forthcoming about how safe your water is? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
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