Jackson, Mississippi without safe drinking water "for an unknown period of time"

[Winehole23]

Jackson is the state capitol


Following a month without clean, drinkable water, Jackson has now mostly lost water pressure, with operational collapses at O.B. Curtis reducing the flow of water through the city’s distribution system to the degree that residences and businesses across the city have little or no water at all.


While the city highlighted the potential flooding of structures at O.B. Curtis due to the high crest of the Pearl River over the weekend, officials have yet to firmly establish the direct causes of the plant failures at the water treatment plant.


“The main pumps had recently been damaged severely,” Reeves said, “about the same time as the prolonged boil water notice began. The facility is now operating on smaller backup pumps.”
‹https://www.mississippifreepress.org/26768/do-not-drink-the-water-jackson-water-system-failing-for-180000-people


1564431427617406978

1564431752411713537

[boutons_deux]

MS racists systematically, governmentally screwing over blacks

AKA

CRT

[ducks]

Is boutons the most racist poster ?

[Winehole23]

Brandon comes through for Mississippi


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbdbUVlWYAU_2j-?format=jpg&name=small

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/26830/gov-reeves-asks-biden-for-federal-help-amid-critical-jackson-water-crisis/

[Ef-man]

Brandon comes through for Mississippi



https://www.mississippifreepress.org/26830/gov-reeves-asks-biden-for-federal-help-amid-critical-jackson-water-crisis/

Reeves bends the knee and begs ole Joe for help. :tu

[DMC]

Reeves bends the knee and begs ole Joe for help. :tu
Mississippi can easily defeat this water situation.

[hombre]

Republican rule in effect. Texas is not far behind if Abbott wins. Republicans would sell all our drinking water to the Saudis for campaign donations.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40742686/arizona-ground-water-saudi-arabia/

[MultiTroll]

Trump country.

More winning.

[leemajors]

Republican rule in effect. Texas is not far behind if Abbott wins. Republicans would sell all our drinking water to the Saudis for campaign donations.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40742686/arizona-ground-water-saudi-arabia/

hasn't nestle been doing this for years with other sources?

[Ef-man]

This is how Mississippi can pay for drinking water issue.

Mississippi Will Tax Forgiven Student Debt in a Departure From Other States

Several states are moving ahead to exempt residents from being taxed on forgiven student loan debt under President Joe Biden’s relief plan, while Mississippi has decided against the exemption.

New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Hawaii, and Idaho are the latest states to exempt their residents that qualify under Biden’s plan from state income tax. Others—Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, and South Carolina—are still reviewing whether debt forgiveness will be subject to taxation.

The canceled debt will be subject to income taxes in Mississippi, the state Department of Revenue confirmed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/mississippi-in-a-departure-to-tax-forgiven-student-debt

[DMC]

Mississippi doesn't have that many "students".

[MultiTroll]

Pathetic governance in Miss.

Jackson, MS water catastrophe lays bare state's failures of governance | Watch (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jackson-ms-water-catastrophe-lays-bare-state-s-failures-of-governance/vi-AA11l7wr?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d1961960eb6946ca8cd078aeadabd01f&category=foryou)

[Winehole23]

Did Biden skip the traditional step of blaming Reeves, threatening to withhold help, and then extorting him for political favors before signing off?https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1565536735706157057

[DMC]

In 2015 Mississippi had the lowest federal revenue per capita of any state in the US, ahead of only PR in territories even. They lack funding to do anything meaningful. While Texas isn't blowing the revenue doors off, they provide 3x what Mississippi provides. Mississippi is a welfare state, plain and simple. Governance without finance is a nuisance.

[Winehole23]

In 2015 Mississippi had the lowest federal revenue per capita of any state in the US, ahead of only PR in territories even. They lack funding to do anything meaningful. While Texas isn't blowing the revenue doors off, they provide 3x what Mississippi provides. Mississippi is a welfare state, plain and simple. Governance without finance is a nuisance.
What do you think of TANF for the rich, famous and politically well connected?

[Winehole23]

You were talking about welfare in MS, TANF is directly relevant to your post. Or do you just prefer airy generalities not relevant to the topic?

Do you consider municipal water works to be welfare?

[Ef-man]

Student Loan Debt in Mississippi

The total federal student loan debt balance in Mississippi is $16.4 billion.Footnote [1]

Mississippi federal student loan borrowers' average debt is $37,606.Footnote [1]

Mississippi ranks fourth in the prevalence of federal student loan debt. Roughly 14.8% of Mississippi's 2.9 million state residents hold federal student loan debt.Footnote [1], Footnote [2]

While Mississippi has some of the highest student debt levels in the country, it's the second least educated state. Less than 23% of Mississippi residents over 24 hold a bachelor's degree or higher.
8% of student loan borrowers are 90+ days past due on payments, including federal and private loans.Footnote [18]

It's estimated that 58% of students graduating from Mississippi schools in 2019-20 graduated with debt.Footnote [3]

On average, students graduated with $29,714 in federal and private student loan debt.Footnote [3]

https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/student-loan-debt-by-state/

[Blake]

Doesn't seem political, but crazy weather led to this:

CNN)A city in New Mexico has about 20 days of fresh water left, and officials there are scrambling to find another source to prevent cancer-causing particles from flowing out of faucets.

The hillsides around Las Vegas, New Mexico, were scorched by the state's largest wildfire on record this spring, which burned more than 340,000 acres. Then, an unusually wet monsoon season brought significant summer rainfall -- something that would typically be celebrated in the drought-stricken West, but instead has led to disaster-upon-disaster as rainfall washed the charred debris into the region's water system.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/03/us/las-vegas-new-mexico-water-crisis-climate/index.html

[Winehole23]

A spirited Michael Harriot polemic, well studded with factual support in the embedded links.

tl;dr

Jackson, Mississippi subsidizes water infrastructure for poor whites.


But Mississippi also has the seventh-highest white poverty rate in the country and compared to the rest of the state, Jackson isn’t that poor. Jackson has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, and residents tend to be more educated and less impoverished than the average Mississippian. In fact, in 2020, people who lived in the county where Jackson is located earned a higher per capita income than the state average, which begs the question:

Why does everyone else in Mississippi have water?

To answer this question, you need to know three facts:

The people who control the money are white: While Mississippi is about 58 percent white and 38 percent Black, its legislature is 71 percent white and 29 percent Black. Despite the state having the highest Black voter registration and participation rates in America, a Black person has not been elected to statewide office in the 140 years since Reconstruction.

They pay more money: The average Black taxpayer pays higher property taxes while contributing larger shares of their income to state and federal taxes and in Jackson, things are no different. The city’s residents make up about 5.6 percent of the state’s population but generated 7.7 percent of the state’s 2019 sales tax revenue—a figure that increased in 2020. By the way, sales tax is Mississippi’s largest source of income.

They can’t get their money. In 2022, Mississippi’s revenue from sales tax and income tax increased by 9.5 percent, leaving the state with $1.46 billion in revenue. The increase came after it collected $643 million in revenue in 2020. However, when Jackson applied for an extra $42 million—about 2 percent of the money it contributes to the state—legislators killed the bill. Don’t bet on Jackson receiving its proper share of the $429 billion in forgivable loans and grants that Mississippi is set to receive from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or the $450 million the state received through the COVID relief packages because both funds are set aside for *checks notes*…water and infrastructure funding.

As you can see, Jackson produces a disproportionate share of the state’s income but gets less in return. The same is true for Baltimore, a city that represents 9.3 percent of Maryland’s population but only received 6.6 percent of state-administered dollars in 2021 and 8.88 percent of federal spending in the state. And while Jackson and Baltimore aren’t the most impoverished cities in their respective states, those other poorer cities are majority white with clean drinking water and no worries about how they will wash their legs or wet their bath cloths (OK, maybe this is a bad example).

[https://thegrio.com/2022/09/08/white-water-welfare-jackson-baltimore-and-the-other-racial-wealth-gap/

[Winehole23]

In fact, a national data analysis by the US Water Alliance and Dig Deep reports that poverty and municipal infrastructure is not the most important factor in determining which communities have access to the most important natural resource, noting that “race is the strongest predictor of water and sanitation access.” In Chicago, people who live in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods pay more to use less water than whites. The NAACP Legal Defense fund found that most water liens placed on homes in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, are located in majority-Black neighborhoods

[Winehole23]

Mississippi has elected zero AA statewide officials since Reconstruction.

38% of Mississippians are AA.


A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.

If House Bill 1020 (http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2023/pdf/history/HB/HB1020.xml) becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.

The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.



Democratic members of the House said if they wanted to help with the crime problem, the Legislature could increase the number of elected judges in Hinds County. Blackmon said Hinds County was provided four judges in 1992 when a major redistricting occurred, and that number has not increased since then even as the caseload for the four judges has exploded.

In addition, Blackmon said the number of assistant prosecuting attorneys could be increased within Hinds County. In Lamar’s bill, the prosecuting of cases within the district would be conducted by attorneys in the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is white.
https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/07/jackson-court-system-house-bill-1020/

[Winehole23]

In 1890, as white politicians across the South cracked down on the black population with Jim Crow laws, Mississippi inserted into its constitution an unusually high bar for getting elected governor or winning any other statewide office.


The provision, which remains in force to this day, says candidates must win not only a majority of the popular vote — that is, more than 50% — but also a majority of the state’s 122 House districts.



Under the Mississippi provision (https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf) , if no candidate wins the required majorities, the election is decided by the Mississippi House.https://apnews.com/article/ga-state-wire-lawsuits-us-news-ap-top-news-elections-3ad297610e314e4a863ebb521b98efd0

[Winehole23]

Local rule is fine and all -- if you're white.


The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.

https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/07/jackson-court-system-house-bill-1020/

[Winehole23]

1629556906099458049

[SnakeBoy]

:tu

[ChumpDumper]

:tu

Why the thumbs up?

Explain.

[Winehole23]

Why the thumbs up?

Explain.thumbs up to everything; a global yes, presumably.

to racist Mississippi, to black folks getting shafted and not having reliable running water.

to pet judges and the state taking over local policing.

[Winehole23]

Thumbs up to no statewide representation of AAs.

[SnakeBoy]

Why the thumbs up?

Explain.

More law enforcement is good, especially for black communities

[ChumpDumper]

More law enforcement is good, especially for black communities

Do you need law enforced more in your neighborhood?

Which laws?

[SnakeBoy]

Do you need law enforced more in your neighborhood?

Which laws?

:sleep

[ChumpDumper]

:sleep

:lol WhiteBoy shut up real quick

[Winehole23]

rhymes

1630171561800892416

[Winehole23]

same old shit


Mississippi radically remade its Constitution in 1890 with the goal of disenfranchising black voters, implementing a system of Jim Crow laws that included literacy tests and poll taxes, seeking to kill off reforms the North had insisted on in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

In a convention hall where state officials plotted out the new constitution that September, one state lawmaker, J.H. McGehee from Franklin County, ” gave a rousing speech to his fellow lawmakers’ delight.

“I will agree that this is a government by the people and for the people, but what people? When this declaration was made by our forefathers, it was for the Anglo-Saxon people. That is what we are here for today—to secure the supremacy of the white race,” he said.

To guarantee black disenfranchisement, McGehee said, he was willing to risk disenfranchising some white people, too, noting proposals that would have required people to own property or have a certain level of education before they could vote.


“I will vote for an educational or property qualification if necessary, even if it does sacrifice some of my white children, or my white neighbors or their children,” the lawmaker said. “Too many are trying to whip the devil ’round the stump.”

McGehee then sought to shame his colleagues for not showing more willingness to sacrifice some white people’s rights in the name of white supremacy. He highlighted the sacrifices of a veteran in the room.

“The gentleman from Webster, Mr. (John E.) Gore, was willing to risk his life for four long years—was willing to fight for his country, for property and all that, and yet he and men who had no property were not willing to sacrifice a single vote to save this country from negro domination,” McGehee said.

“Thousands of the gallant sons of the South had no property in slaves or otherwise, and yet they offered their lives to protect their neighbor’s property, and the same noble spirit is now ready for any concession or sacrifice that will secure and perpetuate white supremacy in Mississippi.”

The lawmaker’s speech drew “great and long continued applause” from his colleagues, The Clarion-Ledger wrote then.

Ten years later, the future governor James Kimble Vardaman would bluntly offer his own assessment of the 1890 Constitution’s purpose: “There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi’s constitutional convention was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n*gger from politics; not the ignorant—but the n*gger,” said Vardaman, who was known as “The Great White Chief” for his steadfast defense of white supremacy.https://www.mississippifreepress.org/3710/you-white-people-dont-get-it-mississippis-long-ugly-road-to-changing-its-state-flag

[Winehole23]

Local rule is fine and all -- if you're white.



https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/07/jackson-court-system-house-bill-1020/


Mississippi Republicans this week advanced (https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/07/jackson-court-system-house-bill-1020/) a bill that would carve out a new judicial district within the capital city of Jackson. It would wall off predominantly white sections of the majority-Black city from the control of its elected Black leaders and create a new court system with prosecutors, judges, and police appointed by the state’s white leaders.https://boltsmag.org/mississippi-jackson-new-district-and-prosecutor-elections/

[Winehole23]

less power to the people


Mississippi voters could soon regain a more limited, citizen-led ballot initiative process under Senate Joint Resolution 533 (http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2023/html/ham/SC0533_H_Amend_01.htm), but with a catch: They could not use it to “propose any new law or amend or repeal any existing law relating to abortion.” The House Constitution Committee added the prohibition on abortion-related initiatives as it advanced the bill on Tuesday.


Though Mississippi is the state that led the successful effort to overturn Roe v. Wade at the U.S. Supreme Court, polls show that a majority of Mississippi voters disagree with the decision (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/25784/poll-most-mississippi-voters-oppose-dobbs-ruling-want-some-abortion-access) and do not support broad abortion bans like the one in effect now. After anti-abortion activists put a wide-ranging “Personhood” abortion ban on the ballot in 2011 (https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/search/vertical/news.story/?q=personhood&author=Valerie%20Wells), which also could have outlawed some forms of contraception and in-vitro fertilization (https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2011/nov/02/personhood-a-pandoras-box/), voters rejected it by a 58%-42% vote (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/18093/10-years-after-mississippians-rejected-personhood-new-national-efforts-target-abortion).


After voters approved a medical-marijuana program by ballot initiative in 2020 (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/12260/in-blow-to-voters-mississippi-supreme-court-kills-medical-marijuana-and-all-ballot-initiatives), the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative process on a technicality in 2021 (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/12703/democracy-dies-blow-by-blow-voters-ask-supreme-court-for-initiative-65-rehearing), which killed efforts to use it to expand Medicaid and implement an early voting system. The old system allowed voters to use the ballot initiative system to make changes to the state constitution; the new system would only allow voters to make changes to general law. While petitioners previously had to gather a little over 100,000 verified signatures to put an issue on the ballot, they would need to gather about 240,000 under the new system.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/31631/alive-at-msleg-prohibiting-ballot-initiatives-for-abortion-jackson-takeover