Drinking lead can damage people’s brains, but Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach opposes a plan to remove lead water pipes.
…
In their letter, the attorneys general wrote, “[The plan] sets an almost impossible timeline, will cost billions and will infringe on the rights of the States and their residents – all for benefits that may be entirely speculative.”
Kobach repeated this nearly verbatim in a March 7 post on X (formerly Twitter).
Buttigieg responded by writing, “The benefit of not being lead poisoned is not speculative. It is enormous. And because lead poisoning leads to irreversible cognitive harm, massive economic loss, and even higher crime rates, this work represents one of the best returns on public investment ever observed.”
To be fair, it’s harder to understand the negative consequences of lead poisoning if you suffer from lead poisoning.
LMAO
“But if my constituents stop drinking lead, they will become woke and will stop believing the bullshit I’m pouring down their throats”
Not even that is true. The damage doesn’t revert on its own.
It’s true for the next generation.
Yeah but every election cycle they postpone removing lead, is another election cycle long in the future that they can expect a steady stream of lead poisoned voters.
So, Kobach et al’s complaint is that the plan to replace lead pipes is underfunded and so probably won’t cause enough of an impact on lead levels in drinking water to even bother, and yet the reason it’s underfunded is because Republicans specifically voted to not fund it properly. So instead of funding it 100% (or close to 100%), they chose to only fund about 1/3rd of what it would cost to replace all of the lead pipes.
It almost seems like Republicans want potential voters to imbibe neurotoxins that will negatively impact their IQ, harm their ability to concentrate, and make them more easily swayed by emotional appeals. I wonder why that could be?
Since they were only given 1/3 of the budget, they should announce that they’ll only be removing lead from low income districts (which the Republicans have red-lined into being largely black neighborhoods). See if fomo changes their minds.
It won’t change their minds, because they already think it’s not their problem. Their water doesn’t have lead, they presume.
It almost seems like Republicans want potential voters to imbibe neurotoxins that will negatively impact their IQ, harm their ability to concentrate, and make them more easily swayed by emotional appeals. I wonder why that could be?
This is my tin foil hat explanation. Also poor areas with more black and ethnic minority people are more likely to have lead pipes and it leads to increased crime and violence, thus further stoking racial tensions and increasing support for racist policy and therefore republicans
Recognizing that Republicans are monsters who will do literally anything for power doesn’t require any paranoia, just observation.
It almost seems like Republicans want potential voters to imbibe neurotoxins that will negatively impact their IQ, harm their ability to concentrate, and make them more easily swayed by emotional appeals.
It’s probably that they’re reaching for straws on anything they can complain about. Which works when their lower iq voters see that there is controversy.
One of the problems with lead poisoning is you end up too stupid to know what lead poisoning is
Which is the way the GOP likes it. Dumb people don’t question their authoritarian rule.
I love how they say it could cost 47 billion dollars and this was only for 15 billion so they fight to say replacing the pipes is highly underfunded. The request was for 45 billion and his party demanded lower amounts and only allotted 15 then went on to call it underfunded now to try to get it canceled.
They says it could take years to get inner city places like Chicago all taken care of… So let me guess, their plan is to wait longer and hurt us more, doesn’t that usually mean you would start immediately?
He makes a logical argument with sound reasoning, logical conclusions and a definitive solution. The facts are clear and there is no ambiguity.
No wonder they dont understand, because its not the immigrants, trans- or black-people at fault here.
Fitting how the average republican consistently behaves exactly like a person suffering from lead-poisoning…
Maybe he should have said that Lead is black, and illegally coming to our country and stealing our jobs.
Should have led with “lead is woke” and they’d be tripping over themselves to ban it
Of course they then argue “You’re not doing enough, so you shouldn’t do anything”
I was listening to Know Your Enemy’s recent podcast titled Why the Right Loves Foreign Dictators (would definitely recommend a listen), and I came to a realization:
American conservative beliefs are not based on reality. That seems obvious, especially to this crowd, but like, the conservative dispossession of reality-based beliefs goes deep. Their version of rationality is adherence to an ideology and that is how they interpret the beliefs of others.
In this case, it manifests as opposing the removal of lead water pipes in the honest belief that, regardless of their danger—which is speculative to this idiot—it’s too expensive and “infringes” on rights. The value of lead pipe removal derives from whether its economically beneficial and its comportment with his idea of what infringes on rights, rather than on…you know…the scientifically proven damaging effects of lead.
Because he interprets the beliefs of others as perceived adherence to some ideology (which he almost certainly doesn’t understand), he dismisses the solid scientific evidence as speculative. It’s ideology vs ideology for him. Scientific claims are just another ideology.
To generalize, that’s why the pro-life movement “helps” women, that’s why be against welfare “supports” the nation, that’s why opposing Putin “defends” liberty, and that’s why voting for Trump makes America “great”. It’s not about real results, it’s just pure ideological adherence from the bottom to the top. It’s fitting that Trump is their messiah. He’s the greatest bullshitter modern politics has ever seen.
that’s why opposing Putin “defends” liberty
You lost me here. Could you explain?
I’m guessing they meant to say supporting
Why do you help moderate the largest conservative Lemmy community then?
It seems you’re just helping legitimize their beliefs.
I came oh-so-close to moderating a conservative community and I am quite vocally opposed to conservatism.
I’m hoping that maybe some conservative communities on Lemmy are moderated by normal (non-conservative) people who can keep the conservatives within the bounds of their instance’s guidelines. Perhaps this is one such moderator. That would certainly be better than letting conservatives moderate a community. We’ve seen how that turns out.
I hear what you’re saying but I disagree.
I think that is the instance’s admins responsibility to deal with a community’s moderators.
I believe that moderating an extreme community’s view to make it more broadly accessible is not helping anything.
Moderating herein means kicking and banning people whose behavior is unacceptable or locking and removing individual posts and comments that are unacceptable. For instance a conservative sub may have threads on the virtues of tax cuts for the rich by relatively normal folks and threads calling for lynching black folks for imaginary crimes.
I believe the rich should pay their fair share but I sure hope someone normal is willing to allow the former and ban the latter even if the would be lynch mobs threads are couched in polite and indefinite language while they spread their lies and hate. I feel like a normal fellow might be better situated to make such a distinction than someone of a conservative bent who is looking to follow the bare letter of the law so to speak.
In theory that sounds great but if you visit the community they moderate you’ll see that they are the token leftist to legitimize them.
Their version of rationality is adherence to an ideology and that is how they interpret the
beliefsmotives of others.Motives is a better word than beliefs. Other than that I’ve come to the same conclusion.
Conservatives deeply depend on ideology. This is why they say everything is a slippery slope, because their own plan is to keep going with their ideology. They can’t understand that others want to do one action, without some secret grand plan to ____.
In other words, for those that tldr: Conservatives could be incredibly kind and might often actually do the right thing, if they weren’t total idiots. Problem is: They believe too hard literally all the time and base their self off an ideology built on narratives, true or false.
They could be decent people, but aren’t.
Got it.
Actions speak louder than words. If you say you love and support children, but vote to take away their rights to be who they are and read what they want, you’re a bad person. If you say you support women, but vote to take away their bodily autonomy and voice, you’re a bad person. If you say you support helping the poor, but vote to decrease or eliminate social programs meant to help the poor, you’re a bad person.
But they’ll never realize that.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. -Maya Angelou
The Brookings Institution, a social policy think tank, noted that the actual cost of replacing all of the nation’s lead pipes is closer to $47 billion. The Biden administration originally requested $45 billion for the project, but congressional Republicans negotiated the amount down to $15 billion. The institute also noted that replacing pipes in crowded urban cities like Chicago could take 40 to 50 years.
So it is underfunded, because Republicans didn’t want to fully fund the effort.
Also, when they talk about “homeowners” replacing their lead pipes, what they really mean is “landlords.” Homeowners have an interest in replacing lead pipes because there will be an ROI when they sell, and also the improved quality of life (not spending money on lead filters or bottled water, no cognitive impairment, etc).
The losers in this situation are the corportate slumlords for whom it will cost more to replace water pipes, and who will not see most of the benefit. They’ll have a hard time justifying raising the rent by saying “now the water is no longer toxic.”
Do you not understand that actual homeowners could get royally fucked? I can’t imagine how I would even begin to pay for replacing my home’s pipes.
No, explain to me how a law that does not mandate homeowners do anything at all can royally fuck those homeowners?
Sounds like a great project to get started on now.
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My conspiracy theory is on some level, conservatives are aware that their worldview is at least in part a symptom of lead poisoning induced brain damage, so they rely on lead poisoning for votes.
Those people coming to read you water meter, nope, that’s just a cover! They’re actually putting lead pellets into a secret chamber to contaminate your water so all the tests upstream of you show its safe!
I don’t think it’s exactly a conspiracy, but I have little doubt that a whole lot of Republican politicians are thinking exactly that.
Rhymes with “I love the poorly educated”
“I love victims of lead poisoning”
Cue the lead truthers.
Having a nice buildup of lead in your body actually blocks the 5G signals that your COVID vaccine nanobots would otherwise be receiving from the government, actually!
Just like those lead bags you put film in at the airport
I mean… isn’t that technically kinda the truth a tiny bit??? Or is that just X-rays?
Even Superman can’t see through lead. Which means we should all be ingesting as much lead as possible to stop the guvmnt from tracking us.
To be fair, it’s poisonous to anyone.
Lead paint was banned in the U.S. in 1978 because of its toxicity. This stuff can and will kill you.
Conservatives need to stop treating every deadly poison like a “who can chug the most beer contest.” This isn’t a game (unless you’re a company seeking to bypass lead restrictions, in which case it’s totally a game to YOU).
Did no one read the article? All of his complaints are correct! Replacing old city pipes, that are almost assuredly covered in years of internal layers to mitigate lead leaking, will have a negligible to possibly even negative effect on lead at the tap. Even Brookings said so in their study! Buttigieg is getting a total pass here ignoring the real issues raised by just rebutting about how lead is bad, when they’re both saying that. So tired of people scoring cheap political points on soundbites, and Buttigieg doesn’t usually fall prey to that sort of thing.
Yes, the funding should have been higher, but if we’ve only got 15 million to work with, it might actually make more sense to do targeted fixes in low income communities in old residential buildings, where you’re most likely to have lead effects actually being felt at the tap from (relatively) newer lead pipe still in walls. But that would be expensive and much harder than just replacing water mains, so they’re doing the easy less-important work first, rather than getting the biggest bang for their buck.
Kobach later responded to Buttigieg, writing, “What’s speculative is that the admin’s EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] rule will have ANY EFFECT AT ALL on lead in tap water. It doesn’t touch the pipes in buildings where most lead pipes are. You’d know that had you bothered to click the link [to Kobach’s February 9 statement against the plan].”
Yeah, he’s not questioning the toxicity of lead, he’s questioning whether this effort would make a difference in lead content.
I’m out. Y’all continue the circle jerk.
Astroturfing rightwing bot says what?
The KS AG has a point; if it’s expected to cost $47B, but the actual funding amount is $15B (…which is the fault of Republicans), then the plan may not have a significant effect for the families that are most at-risk, e.g., poor families in old, poorly maintained homes. The obvious solution is to increase the appropriation.
From what I have heard the inside of old lead water pipes is usually covered in several layers of calcium carbonate, at least in areas with hard water, these layers prevent the water from getting in contact with the lead. So if you live in an old house with lead pipes you do not need to panic. New lead pipes that lack this calcium carbonate layer are what is in fact dangerous to health and therefore should not be installed anymore.
Edit: Downvotes for stating facts that do not fit the popular narrative, really? Reddit moment …
Can you promise that every internal surface is covered? Completely? And will remain so?
Replacing all poisonous, permanently brain damaging lead pipes should be a no brainer (insert joke here about the no brains resisting it).
Can you promise that every internal surface is covered? Completely? And will remain so?
I guess that is a rhetorical question? The obvious thing to do would be sending a water sample to a lab and get it tested for lead, which is much cheaper than replacing all lead pipes based on just a suspicion. If you got old lead pipes and the test comes back negative you know for sure that all surfaces are covered in calcium carbonate.
Replacing all poisonous, permanently brain damaging lead pipes should be a no brainer
Only if the water in fact has lead in it, which often is not the case with old pipes, as I explained.
And what happens when an uninformed homeowner does a quicky repair themselves? Swap a coupling or maybe get a new faucet and disturb the calcium carbonate?
With full recognition that not everyone can afford the swap, if you can do so, you should for the safety of everyone that enters the home and uses the water.
Sure, why not.
