Cadence to Flint.

For most of 2016 the big story in American politics has been the water crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan. However technically it's not a problem with the water. It's a problem with the pipes.

Still feeling a little delicate I'm not going to give you a complete history of lead within the modern environmental movement. After all the only bit you really need to know is that even when ingested in small quantities lead does huge amounts of damage to various parts of the human body such as the brain, the nervous system, the circulatory system including the blood and the kidneys and even the bones.

In fact the origin of the phrase; "Mad as a hatter" comes from the neurological damage done to hat makers through their use of mercury - a heavy metal similar to lead.

Although different countries have set different rules at different times certainly since the 1970's there has been a concerted effort to phase out the use of lead in various everyday process such as house paint, an additive to gasoline and water pipes.

Unfortunately Flint has never been a particularly well managed city so has lagged behind in this effort to replace lead water pipes. I should point out though that it is the responsibility of individual householders to make sure that the lead pipes within their property are replaced.

The mismanagement of Flint came to a head in November 2012 when the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency with Flint being on the verge of bankruptcy. This saw the elected leaders of this traditionally Democrat run city being replaced with a non-partisan emergency manager - essentially an accountant.

One of the first things that emergency manager did was switch Flint's water supply from the nearby Great Lakes which Flint had to pay for to the local Flint River the water rights of which are owned by the City of Flint essentially meaning that it was free.

The only problem with the water from the Flint River is that it has a higher than average salt content making it very corrosive. As a result it corroded the cities lead water pipes leeching toxic lead into the water supply.

Highlighting the problem Flint actually switched back to the Great Lakes water supply back in October 2015 - some two months before the story blew up. However with the pipes now irreversibly damaged there is no way of keeping the lead out of the drinking water.

What is very alarming about this story is that almost immediately it was known that the corrosive water from the Flint River would damage the pipes increasing the risk of lead poisoning. However the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which the state and local authorities look to for for guidance conspired to cover the problems of Flint up for the best part of three years.

There is a strong suspicion that the EPA which is part of US President Obama's Democrat administration covered up what was going on in Flint to avoid exposing the mismanagement of the city and in the process embarrass the local Democrat administration.

What seems to have change is the death of Aylan Kurdi on September 2nd (2/9/15) which led to the plight of refugees to become hot, global topic.

One of the worst offenders when it comes to exploiting the plight of these refugees as a political football has been President Obama. If he cared a damn about the refugees he would dedicate himself to ending the 5 year war that has made refugees of them in the first place.

Instead though Obama has been more interested in setting up what I suppose you could describe as a "refugee pipeline" into the US so he can condemn as racist anyone who objects or even suggests that the US should screen these refugees for security purposes.

Even as far back as the adoption of the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees it has been accepted that people with malicious intent will try and pose as refugees. As such it is actually an obligation of the convention that nations screen potential refugees to make sure that they are not criminals. The November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the December 2nd (2/12/15) attack in San Bernardino demonstrates exactly why there needs to be screening of refugees.

Therefore the cover up in Flint seems to have been broken in order to provide a metaphor for the refugee issue. After all while a doctor would probably disagree you could say that those killed in Paris and in Riverside suffered an extreme form of lead poisoning.

As such the signing of an emergency declaration for Flint by President Obama on January 16th (16/1/16) was seen as a massive victory for the men in the shadows with Obama finally being forced to admit that his refugee policy is dangerous to the health of the American public.

Rather than taking that legitimate criticism in good grace the Democrats almost immediately went on the offensive. Led by Hillary Clinton in her January 19th (19/1/16) debate appearance the Democrats have attempted to portray the Flint crisis not as a failure of a Democrat led city but as a race issue caused by the Republican Governor of Michigan state.

On Friday (22/1/16) there was an interesting incident in Michigan's direct neighbour Canada. Here a boy killed his brothers with a shotgun at home and then killed two adults in a school in the Clearwater area of  La Loche which sits on the banks of La Loche Lake in Saskatchewan province.

Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is another particularly serious offender when it comes to exploiting refugees. The remaining members of the Kurdi family have been granted asylum in Canada and following Obama's example Trudeau frequently welcomes new arrivals of refugees and visits Mosques in an effort to show how caring he is. 

At the same time Trudeau has withdrawn Canadian forces from the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Obama's response to the San Bernardino attack was of course to call for greater gun control. Canada already has that tighter gun control with every firearm having to be licensed. However it clearly didn't stop this child from stealing a gun and carrying out this school shooting like Adam Lanza did in Newtown, US back in 2012.

The lesson from places like Israel and China where they have extremely tight gun controls but attacks still continue only with knives and cars is that it doesn't matter how tightly you control the weapons used in the attacks they will continue for as long as the violent intent is there.

Interestingly there is actually a lot of credible evidence suggesting that part of the reason why predominately black US cities such as Flint are so violent is that very mild brain damage caused by lead in water pipes and paint causes the people living in those areas to be more aggressive and prone to violence.

The Clearwater shooting of course happened in an Aboriginal or Indigenous Indian community. This is a reference to the ongoing protests at the Malheur Wildlife Refugee protests in Oregon, US. That of course is the US' big contribution to the post-COP21 discussions.

In order to highlight the complexity of Indigenous rights debates the ranchers at Malheur are claiming that they are indigenous to the area. However the Burns Paiute Tribe Native American tribe have opposed them instead claiming they are the truly indigenous group.

What makes Indigenous rights debates so complicated is that originally there was only one continent - Pangaea. Therefore technically everybody is indigenous to every where else.

This was rather neatly highlighted today with an earthquake between Spain and Morocco. With Africa and Europe being so close together this frequently comes up in European arguments over migration and refugees.

Native American tribes like the Burns Paiute Tribe aren't actually that native to the US. In fact they're originally from Russia having migrated into Canada and down into the US. Therefore if I was trying to stir up trouble I could legitimately accuse the Burns Paiute Tribe of being Russian Colonialists.

However rather than trying to de-legitimise anybody's claim I think the point the US trying to make in Malheur is just how complicated Indigenous rights debates are because ultimately there's not actually a correct answer.

15:55 on 25/1/16 (UK date).