Clinton on Flint, Michigan: ‘No acceptable’ level of lead for kids

On Sunday, she planned a quick visit to Flint, Michigan, an unusual detour for a candidate trailing in polls in New Hampshire, the first primary state.

Clinton, who stepped away from the campaign trail in New Hampshire to visit Flint, called on Congress to pass a $200 million bill to replace the city’s water infrastructure.

Aides say she was invited by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, and that Clinton plans a town hall meeting with Flint residents before returning to New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

“This is not merely unacceptable or wrong”, she said. Flint has been at the center of the national spotlight as the city deals with a contaminated water crisis. I’ll tell you what: “if the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would have been action”.

The cake took 30 hours to design, bake and decorate, and might have been appreciated more by the people of MI if it hadn’t come at the end of a week when the governor told the 100,000 residents of Flint that the state can’t afford to replace the water pipes that are leaching lead into their drinking water and poisoning their children, even though MI has a surplus sitting in a “rainy day” fund. She later met with a group of mostly government officials to thank them and discuss solutions. U.S. Rep. Candice Miller proposed an emergency $1-billion grant to be authorized through the Environmental Protection Agency and two Democratic U.S. senators and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, proposed up to $400 million in dollar-for-dollar matching funds from the state to do much the same thing. Last Monday, Clinton narrowly beat Sanders in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses. Sanders’ strength with younger voters only heightens the threat he poses to what was once Clinton’s decisive national lead.

The Republican governor says in a release that water testing teams need more people to get the job done, and “no one is better suited to help the city bounce back.”. African-Americans begin voting in large numbers in several southern states later this month and in early March, and the timing of Clinton’s trip is also a signal that she is looking past her likely loss in heavily white New Hampshire.

But the field is still crowded, and the electorates that await the candidates in SC and Nevada are markedly more diverse.

“I was just heartsick”, she said.

Thomas reported from Manchester, New Hampshire. “But if you look at Sanders he has been solid as concrete with regards to his passion for racial, social and economic justice”.