A Trump-appointed judge also said Americans have no “constitutional right to truthful information” during a public health crisis.
On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water.
The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said.
“Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”
When some rights you should have aren’t given to you, you need to do something to make sure you take them.
Elections have consequences, everyone who stayed home and allowed Trump to be elected to two terms has enabled this.
I honestly don’t know if the US will actually be able to recover from those 6 (and counting) years, as an Aussie it feels like we’re watching the equivalent of the Fall of Rome in real time.
That bastard has managed to isolate you from your allies, line his pockets with billions of dollars, nearly bankrupt your country, destroy your military credibility, pollute your water, air & food, roll back your rights, and so much more.
It will take at least a generation to undo this damage, and I don’t think there’s enough political will to do what would need to be done to arrest this decline.
You will likely fall into oligarchy, to become another Russia in my lifetime. Just another regional brute, living off the fear and intimidation you were able to impose on your glory years.
I think it depends on how you define “recover”. America will never be what it was.
America will never be what it was.
What it was isn’t as “great” as the stories Americans tell themselves.
They need to build back better.
Yeah, current America was never great, domineering, but not great. USA 2.0 will be better for the world, and hopefully better for Americans too.
“old” america is never coming back. it never was. and by ‘old’ i mean like cold war or obama era, not racist sexist 30’s/40’s/50’s america.
this ‘new’/currrent america might stick around for a bit, but it will be strained. it will get to a point where this new america fully breaks and ceases to exist (full civil war 2) and the country will be broken up. either into 2 new countries or breaking completely and all the states becoming their own country, which will invoke more war as states (and even other countries) fight each other for land and resources.
‘mostly’ world paece was amazing while it lasted. but billionairs didn’t make enough money
Yeah lets wrap this US gov up at this point. No right to clean water and the truth lol.
You will drink sludge and accept our lies like the good little American sheep you are.
Oh, it was a conservative deciding this. This tracks.
Then what is the point of governance?
to build roads and maintain the world’s strongest defensive military, of course. y’know, the things people need?
people don’t need safe drinking water, duh
“Oh look at me, I’m an entitled American. I want water to drink and to not be lied to. Wha Wha Wha”
You give people this and they’ll start asking for healthcare next instead of just dying in the street with pride.
Bunch of greedy entitled fucks.
*Nestle enters the chat
I’m sure Coke and Pepsi will also be happy to sell you bottled water priced at whatever the market will bear.
Who invited Steven Miller to this thread?
Steven Miller has probably never been invited to anything. He just pops out from around a corner or behind a bush and your heart stops beating for a second.
In some parts of the world, people are thinking about UBI.
In other parts of the world, having safe drinking water is put into question.
Well if judges had the right to not be harassed and have their houses burned, it would be in the constitution too!
Says right here, “Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.”
Without clean water there’s no life. With no life, there’s no liberty, and no pursuing happiness.
How do you “promote the general welfare” with filthy, poisonous water?
This is like the most fundamental thing, even Rome provided clean water. We’ve been surpassed by ancient Rome.
Not sure why I have to be the person in this thread to explain basic civics to everyone, but “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is from the Declaration of Independence, it is not in the US Constitution.
The Declaration is not law, it was just a declaration. You can’t cite it like this, that’s not how it works.
Yes, but- Someone forgot to transfer that line to the constitution. We’re all going to die or become bonded corporate slaves because of an administrative oversight.
Edit: on second thought, maybe the first one was a well-written a call to arms and they knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote the actual charter.
The preamble to US constitition has zero legal bearing on the US. There has never been a legal case in the US where “preamble based natural justice” was accepted as a legitimate basis for complaint. If your complaint was only based on the preamble, normal judicial practice would be to dismiss it as frivolous, and force you to pay defendants’ court costs.
That’s not even in the preamble of the constitution, that quote is from the Declaration of Independence. It also went on to say all men were created equal forgetting slavery
It falls under the life part of consti rights, he’s obtuse.
That is some 3rd World shit right there. Hire a plumber to reroute that asswipe’s water supply.
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
The judges there regularly issue decisions so far right even SCOTUS won’t get on board. “Fifth Circuit” really ought to be in the headline of articles about their ridiculous decisions. It’s the Fifth Circuit doing Fifth Circuit things.
Do Americans have any rights anymore?
Only if you’re rich.
Those aren’t Americans. Those are rich people with American money vacationing in America.
Buy some top tier filters, people, you’re going to need it!
What about the water youre paying for that had the implied value of being safe. Being defrauded by a group selling the water is a crime and every customer should have access to what they are paying for.
Mississippi law provides civil immunity to cities for certain liability, including negligence. So I assume they brought the constitutional claim because they couldn’t bring a negligence claim. But if you think that is bad, consider how much more immunity law enforcement has.
Edit: also, fraud is usually a legal term in most states, relating to altering business documents like contracts, receipts, and ledgers with intent to profit.
