WHY REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS ARE BAD FOR THE COUNTRY

Newly obtained internal emails show that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's staff knew last March about a spike in Legionnaires’ disease—which has since killed nine people—in Genesee County, home to Flint. But it wasn't until last month that the governor first informed the public about the surge in the deadly pneumonia-like disease, which corresponds to the switch of Flint's drinking water to the Flint River.¹

The internal emails show that the governor's staff stonewalled county officials who were trying to address the "significant and urgent public health issue.”²This scandal comes in addition to the entire city of Flint being poisoned by lead—a man-made crisis that the governor helped create, then also ignored and concealed.

Flint is a majority Black, majority low-income city, and race is at the heart of this crisis. As Bernie Sanders said during Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate, "One wonders if this were a white suburban community, what kind of response there would have been."³

Even now that it's in the media spotlight and the FBI has joined the criminal investigation, the governor still has yet to replace a single lead pipe in Flint.⁴

^{WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE POISONED WATER IN FLINT MI}