Trump Judge Just Ruled That Americans Do NOT Have A Right To Safe Drinking Water

According to a truly horrifying new report from Mother Jones, a Trump-appointed judge has made it abundantly clear that safe, clean, uncontaminated drinking water is, in fact, not a right afforded to Americans. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kurt Engelhardt, who was appointed to his position by none other than Donald J. Trump, delivered that bone-chilling ruling in his dismissal of a lawsuit brought against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, by its residents, in which they accused the city of knowingly allowing them to consume water that was heavily contaminated with lead for upwards of six months in 2015. "Defendants' actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information," Engelhardt wrote in his dismissal on Friday. "These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.' Nine US states and more than a dozen countries around the world maintain protections surrounding citizens' right to clean, safe drinking water. In both New York and Massachusetts, that basic human right is intertwined into their state constitutions. But according to Engelhardt, the US Constitution does not provide that basic human right to all American citizens. In their lawsuit, residents of Jackson, Mississippi, accused the city government of not only knowingly withholding information about the lead contamination within their water supply, but actually making the issue significantly worse by instructing residents to boil their water -- a tactic that serves to kill bacteria in water but actually further concentrates levels of lead. Yet, according to the Trump-appointed judge, these citizens had no constitutional right to "truthful information from officials during a public health crisis." Allow me to reiterate: these people were not only told that they have no right to safe, uncontaminated drinking water, but they were further told that they have no right to even the truth. Officials could simply lie to them and purposely make them sicker with absolutely no repercussions. While this ruling is certainly disgusting beyond comprehension, it's not surprising, as the Trump Administration has made it its mission to make this planet as dangerous to human beings as possible. Just recently, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency released a supplemental rule with the sole purpose of further weakening the Clean Water Act. As noted by Mother Jones, Jackson's population is 80 percent Black and its poverty rate is more than double the national average. When we tell you that Trump and his people are trying to kill you, we quite literally mean it.