Montana Is the Next New Jersey Is the Next Flint Is the Next...
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as you know, the real work of governmentin' gets done and where it's dark, too dark to see.
We begin in Montana, where we get to combine two of our regular tin drums here in the shebeen—the quasi-competence of state government and bad water. From KTVH TV:
Yellowstone County health officials said Tuesday that all customers using the Worden-Ballantine water system are not to drink or cook with water from the tap. Boiling tap water only serves to make it more dangerous. Only bottled water is safe. The problem started in May, when high nitrate levels prompted a warning for infants to avoid to consuming tap water. Worden-Ballantine water district board spokesman Gary Fredericks said a solution can't be found overnight. "Could we get lucky? Yeah," Fredericks said Tuesday. "Do I think we will? Probably not. We’ve got an unknown quantity coming from an unknown source in a long system of infiltration that ultimately ends up as our water supply."
Unlike a lot of similar stories around the country, the source of the contamination here seems to have baffled everyone.
The usual solution for residents would be to boil tap water before consumption. Boiling kills any harmful pathogens or microorganisms found in the water. But there is no telling when nitrate levels may spike again. And Fredericks said boiling water only serves to concentrate nitrates to a higher level. "This is a dangerous problem because we don’t know when and if other microbes might find their way into the system because we don’t know where it’s coming from. " Fredericks said.
And the crisis is immediate.
The water district only has about one pallet of bottled water to give away to residents in the area. That pallet is only being given to parents of infants aged up to six months. "We’ve got to give it to the most acute risk we can find which are those children."
It's always the stuff to which you never give a second thought that, when it's gone, you hurt the most.
We move along to Tennesssee, where we may well have to buy a house just to keep up. People are trying to expel a state representative named David Byrd because several women have accused him of sexually assaulting them when they were in high school and he was their coach. This has been going on for a year now. A motion to expel Byrd will face a vote this week, and the folks at the Tennessee Holler have obtained a tape of Byrd talking to one of the women.
Byrd has been re-elected since these allegations surfaced, and former Speaker of the Tennessee House, Glen Casada, only has taken away Byrd's chairmanship of a subcommittee. (To make things more complicated, Democratic representatives argued that Byrd lost his chairmanship because he'd gone against Casada on a school voucher bill.) Meanwhile, Casada is the subject of a probe into whether he lived high off several hogs with campaign money. And then there's this, from the Tennessean:
A group of Republican lawmakers are squabbling over who ran an anonymous Twitter account, creating intraparty beef that will now be a matter of business at Thursday's House GOP Caucus meeting. The Twitter account in question largely attacked Republican state House members and staff, branding itself as a source of building gossip for legislative insiders.
The discussion comes months after those scorned by the account launched an amateur investigation to identify which Republican lawmakers were behind it — and after one of their suspects found himself with a urine-soaked office chair...Hall on Tuesday confirmed his interest, referring to himself as a "candidate for majority whip," even though there is currently no opening for the position until next fall. Amid veiled tweets by Holt and Republican staffers this spring concerning who was behind @chbmole, a chair in Tillis' legislative office was urinated on, according to one lawmaker familiar with the matter.
Maybe they should call in a handwriting expert. But, seriously, Tennessee, you're making a first-class run at Florida these days.
And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Fry Cook Friedman of the Plains can't get enough of that funky stuff. From the Tulsa World:
Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper said Officer Jeffrey Shane Statum was treated differently from how an ordinary person would have been under the same circumstances when he was not arrested the night police say he was carrying a gun at a bar. Statum, 34, was charged Friday with one count of carrying a weapon where alcohol is served after an Aug. 3 incident at Club Majestic, 124 N. Boston Ave...Police officers responded late Aug. 3 to a 911 call reporting that a drunken man with a gun and badge — later alleged to be Statum — had told employees of the club he was an undercover officer named Jason Brown.
The call also indicated that there were reports of the man grabbing women in the club, according to a probable cause affidavit filed Friday. Statum, who was off duty, was handcuffed and taken to a patrol car but wasn’t arrested that night, according to the affidavit. “If (a non-officer) had been in a bar, funky drunk, with a gun, groping women, his ass would have been arrested,” she said.
To paraphrase that great American philosopher, George Clinton, arrest your adolescence and your ass will follow.
This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
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