Detroit Water Department shuts off water for 12,000 people.
Check out this LA TIMES piece: Thousands go without water as Detroit cuts service for nonpayment
*American Media has been INFILTRATED by RICH corporate SHILLS to attack the POOR.
Proof of Corporate paid MEDIA MEAT HEADS lying on American citizens. Why didn’t MSNBC have actual Detroit citizens on to tell their side of this shameful act by the city of Detroit? Where’s the proof of these folks spending money on CABLE.
Which by the way is code for “LAZY NEGROES don’t want to work. They want to stay home and watch TV and not pay their bills.”
Horrible Hank suggests citizens don’t want to pay their water bill. How about reporting on all those corporations that HIDE their money in OVERSEAS tax shelters, so they don’t have to pay AMERICAN TAXES, while the rest of us pay our share?
Activist Puts Detroit Water Department On Blast For Shutting Off 12,000 Residents’ Water System
Hank Winchester: “There are other people, and this is where it gets controversial, who simply don’t want to pay the water bill, who would rather spend money on cable. … A lot of these people are not willing to work out a deal.”
Maureen Taylor: “Let me say shame on Hank, shame on him for putting that lie and that mess and that disinformation out on the air. To suggest that people don’t want to pay for a water bill is scandalous,” Taylor said. “What is at stake here is that there are tens of thousands of low-income families who cannot pay rising water bill costs… and we’ve got these reporters out here like this guy that’s standing on the side of people who have money.”
Marueen Taylor: “You Can Tell He’s Lying, His Lips Are Moving!” No truer words were spoken, Ms. Taylor.
Kudos to you for not allowing this POS to bully you and the citizens of Detroit. Were talking H20, water, the juice of LIFE here.
And Hank here’s a Lil tip for YA:
MAUREEN OUT…
*waves at Adriane Farray*
So nice to see your fonts here.
Hey Southern Girl2. Thanks for the warm welcome. *Waves back*
You’re most welcomed. Don’t be a stranger. Drop in anytime. Love your tweets.
Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation Regarding Water Cut-offs in the City of Detroit, Michigan
June 18, 2014
Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project and Chair of Food & Water Watch, recently visited Detroit, Michigan in the United States and heard firsthand accounts from residents who were having their water services cut off by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). This report was produced from information gathered by Maude Barlow, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, and the Detroit People’s Water Board. The Detroit People’s Water Board is campaigning to have these essential services restored to the thousands of households currently without water service pursuant to a just and affordable rate structure, and to prevent future cut-offs.
Read the report…
http://www.blueplanetproject.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Detroit-HRTW-submission-June-18-2014.pdf
From the report above. No wonder Ms. Taylor wanted to smack that worthless know nothing into next week.
Context
The City of Detroit is facing a major water crisis as a result of decades of policies that have put corporate business and profit ahead of the public good and human rights. Social programs and investments in essential infrastructure have been slashed. According to the Detroit News, the City of Detroit’s water department runs a chronic deficit and, like many other public water infrastructure systems, needs more than $5 billion for urgently needed upgrades to the city’s water system.
In 2009, the DWSD asked the state regulatory authority, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), to modify its permit to eliminate the release of raw sewage into the Detroit and Rouge Rivers. The DWSD claimed economic hardship, contending that upgrades to its aging sewer system would place an undue financial burden on the system. MDEQ and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed, allowing the DWSD to cut costs by giving the department more time to comply with the Clean Water Act.
Until recently, every winter, hundreds of aging pipes spewed water from leaks as the water had not been turned off in thousands of abandoned houses and boarded-up businesses. While there have been efforts to address this recently, it continues to be an ongoing problem.
With globalization and the hollowing out of the once mighty auto industry, wealth and businesses fled to the suburbs in Detroit, draining the city of its tax base and the water department of its rev-enues. There are now 1 million fewer people living in Detroit than there were in the 1950s.
The case of water cut-offs in the City of Detroit speaks to the deep racial divides and intractable economic and social inequality in access to services within the United States. The burden of paying for city services has fallen onto the residents who have stayed within the economically depressed city, most of whom are African-American. These residents have seen water rates rise by 119 per cent within the last decade. With official, understated unemployment rates at a record high and the official, understated poverty rate at about 40 per cent, Detroit water bills are unaffordable to a significant portion of the population.
The City of Detroit declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2013. A high-priced bankruptcy lawyer was named its Emergency Manager with a mandate to get the city back on its feet financially by imposing a savage austerity regime. Nothing is off the chopping block, including water utilities, which are being considered for regionalization, sale, lease, and/or a public-private partnership and are currently subject to mediation by a federal district judge. The Detroit People’s Water Board fears that authorities see people’s unpaid water bills as a “bad debt” and want to sweeten the pot for a private investor by imposing even more of the costs of the system on those least able to bear them. The service cut-offs for anyone more than two months behind in payments appear to be the city’s last-ditch attempt to make up for lost revenues. A contract with a private operator seeking prof¬its will only lead to greater hikes in service fees and even less affordable, more unjust barriers equitable access to vital water. That this massive human rights atrocity is occurring near the largest group of freshwater lakes on the planet, with very little media attention, is a foreboding sign of the times.
The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) argues that these water cut-offs to poor Detroit households need to be understood within a broader context of Detroit’s appeal in the real estate market. With its proximity to the Great Lakes and the Canadian border, the city is considered prime real estate, and is available at fire sale prices. People’s overdue water bills are being transferred to their property taxes and people are losing their homes as a result. Given the utility’s lack of interest in cutting costs or generating revenues by collecting on the arrears of business users, fixing leaking pipes, and cutting off services to abandoned homes, the organization sees the crackdown as a ploy to drive poor people of color out of the city to facilitate gentrification – what the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization refers to as a “land-grab.”
Liza, Maureen Taylor knows exactly what the city of DEATH-ROIT and Hanky Panky are up to.
Hey Ametia. You’re absolutely right, despite his initial disclaimer, he’s totally on the side of the utility company. He made the stupid mistake of trying to slip that cable TV dog whistle past Maureen Taylor. I’ll tell you what, I’ll take a thousand Maureen Taylors over one Blackademic. She knows how to get stuff done.
Whoops, disregard that double post. Sorry guys.
Adriane, here we go
Obama absent
By Jennifer Rubin July 10 at 12:28 PM
It is puzzling that less than two years into his second term President Obama can’t be bothered to do his job. It’s not just one topic, but a whole array of them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/07/10/obama-absent/
Shorter Jennifer Rubin: Barack Obama is nothing but a shiftless Negro.
BINGO! And heaven forbid he call out the shiftless, lazy, good for nothing GOP.
Rubin’s a rightwing HACK.
Hank Winchester was just making stuff up, in total alignment with what is accepted on today’s “news” shows. Truth isn’t even an issue.
Also, pay attention to those big accounts, golf courses, the stadium, etc…that owe a large percentage of the money due the water dept. They aren’t getting threatened and they never do, not just in Detroit. It’s always some person barely able to make ends meet and is two months behind who is getting threatened and shut off. And that idiot Hank Winchester said he heard those big accounts are getting paid off. Hank heard it so it must be true, right?
The City of Detroit is creating a humanitarian crisis. People cannot live without clean water. So they’ve got twelve thousand without water, are they out of their damn minds?
Heads better start rolling over there. This is wrong. We’re talking about water.
Hanky PANKY was TOTALLY the SPOKESPERSON for the water company.
The corporations will eventually buy up all our water supply and start charging $$$$$$$$$$$$$HITLOADS for it.
Liza, he couldn’t report any FACTS. asking Maureen, ” You don’t believe people don’t pay their bills? And you do, Hank?
Of course Hanky Panky believes exactly what he’s BEEN TOLD.
Hey Ametia, you’re absolutely right Hank is nothing but a hack, He’s clearly on the side of the utility company despite his initial disclaimer. He just made the huge mistake of inserting a dog whistle in front of Ms. Taylor. She reminds me of my late grandmother, warm, kindhearted and real, but if you got of line she would put you in your place. I’ll tell you what, I will take a thousand Maureen Taylors over one Blackademic.
NPR
Detroit Shuts Off Water As It Tries To Collect Millions Owed
by Sarah Cwiek
July 10, 2014 5:01 AM ET
AUDIO
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=330325100&m=330325101
Like Adriane said. Folks should look no further than any media in print, TV or radio to witness and hear how white folks vs. blacks and other POC are reported on.
Pick up any newspaper and even when there’s a story about white criminals, the headlines are skewed, unclear. i.e., they don’t provide the name or photo, he/she is deemed an “alleged” criminal.
Some of the papers lede’s have photos of POC either above or below or to the side of the article, which sends an immediate signal to the white brain, that the article is about a black criminal.
I could go on and on. And will post more examples, going forward.
I kid you not, a few weeks ago an elderly man was thrown of his wheelchair onto the ground by a group of thugs. The kicked, beat and robbed him. The twisted part is, the victim himself described his attackers as ‘gentlemen’. I knew right then that they must have been white. You can just imaging what he would have said if they had been black.
Even when the some of the victims white and the perp’s white, the victim covers for them. They’d rather die at the hands of their brethren, than call them out for their crimes.
You know, folks like this make me sick. These are thousands of people just trying to survive, and water bills are ridiculous. The city has declared bankruptcy, and they just want to pile on and insult these folks. I’m so glad Ms. Taylor called his ass out – he more than deseved it.
I love the way she took on that lying fool. We need about ten million more of her.
Tweet this:
#HANKSPANKSDETROITCITIZENSFORWATERSHUTOFF
Hank has also appeared on Dateline NBC and The Today Show offering insight on high profile cases including the murder investigations of Tara Grant, Jane Bashara and Christine and Ronald Jabalee.
He’s been honored with 3 Emmy awards and has been recognized by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and the Associated Press.
Seriously? 3 Emmy awards, for that piss poor reporting of water shutoff, where he attacks people for not paying water bills.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/station/newsteam/Local-4-Reporter-HankLocal4/4697088
Channel 4 reporter Hank Winchester vs Big Mama
LOL Hank was sitting there all smug, thinking “I got me 3 Emmy awards; who are folks gonna believe, me or Maureen, the welfare activist queen?”
She BEAT that ASS.
Maureen Taylor wasn’t going for the dog whistles being sent by Hank Winchester @HankLocal4. I mean really. We know the dog whistle when we hear it.
Did you hear Maureen tell Horrible Hank that she’ll see him out there on the streets?
BWA HA HA HA
hollering!!!!!!!!!!!
Girrrrl, you know BIG MAMA don’t play.
SG2, Big Mama DOES.NOT.PLAY.
Ladies & Gents, when you hear reporters like Hank Winchester @HankLocal4 saying poor people would rather pay the cable bill than water bill, it’s a dog whistle!
Tell.IT. Where’s all this proof of paying cable bills vs. water bill nonsense? What a fucking tool, Hank W., you couldn’t hide your lies and disdain for poor people who are struggling to make ends meet.
That fake reporting was SOOOOO LOPSIDED!
What we just saw in that exchange is how the MSM operates. Radio, television, print, and the so-called new media all function to uphold white supremacy at all costs. Faced, with clear evidence of massive wrongdoing on the part of the City of Detroit, alleged reporter Winchester attempted to shift the blame onto the impoverished residents. What evidence does he present, of people paying cable bills over water bills? None, he doesn’t have a scintilla of evidence to support his claim. Although, I’ll bet all the money I have we can find plenty of evidence of white fecklessness and profligacy in Detroit’s surrounding suburbs. From morning until night you will find black people depicted as the scum of the earth and our suffering exploited for profit, while rampant white criminality and dysfunction is ignored. Read Ishmael Reed sometime, he argues that the media are bound in a conspiracy of silence about white pathology. This wasn’t the first time Hank Winchester or whatever his name is defamed the black community but it was the first time he was called out. Kudos to Maureen Taylor.
Hi Adriane. Spot on. Hank Winchester’s a shill for the rich and MSNBC
And pray tell, how did this Hank dude get 3 Emmy awards for his reporting? White privilege, high profile, sensationalized white crimes, and backdoor, dog whistling smearing of impoverished black folks!