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.”

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    10 hours ago

    If only the US had integrated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into law. It’s only 78 years old. Guess they haven’t had time yet.

    Article 25

    Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services,

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    14 hours ago

    Ofc not. This colony was founded by literal enslavers. It’s hard to enslave a comfortable population with their basic needs met. No water, no food, no shelter, no healthcare… Instead it’s “freeze peach” and corporate personhood.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      13 hours ago

      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

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

  • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    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.

      • green_link@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        “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

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        15 hours ago

        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.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    “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.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      Not to defend a trump judge, but it sounds like the ruling is simply that the constitution doesn’t guarantee the particular right in question. Which is true. There’s nothing in the constitution about this.

      It’s a matter of environmental law, sanitation, public health, etc. I’m sure there are laws that this situation violated, but the fact is that the laws it broke weren’t in the constitution. So the plaintiff’s lawyer kinda messed up by making this case about some made-up constitutional right and not the specific laws that are on the books at the state or federal level.

      The case shouldn’t be over. They just need to focus on laws that actually exist instead of some AI hallucinations about the constitution.

      • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        This is similar to my take on roe v wade. The supreme Court looked at the constitution and said “oh, there’s abortion, right there”. It was inevitable it would get overturned because it’s not actually in the constitution anywhere. The Dems had 50 years to pass an actual federal law and failed.

      • Tango@piefed.ca
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        22 hours ago

        Yep. Now, it should be mentioned that clean drinking water SHOULD be a constitutional right, but that’s a matter for an amendment, not for a judge to unilaterally decide.

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      2 days ago

      Money money money. This is when I can say America is finally in the medieval era. Healthcare for the kings/lords, diseases in everything including food and even the water can be poison. Just like the old days.

      • M137@lemmy.today
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        1 hour ago

        Nah, for judges I really think money is just a good extra. It’s about feeling powerful, the kinds of power people want are different so some become cops, some politicians, some influencers, and some judges etc. The importance of the money aspect in all those varies as much between each kind and each person. I think many begin with mostly money in mind but the need for power over others quickly takes over.

          • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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            1 day ago

            Because the political system intrinsically defaults to a two party system making it very easy to entrench the two parties and create controlled opposition, which then works to squash actual resistance.

            You can see it in action right now within the democratic party where a certain group of people would rather see them lose elections than support candidates who are looking to oppose the status quo.

            • BillCheddar@lemmy.world
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              13 hours ago

              Only an asshole could look at this situation and come up with a post blaming Democrats.

              I would suggest you do better but let’s face it, you can’t and likely never will.

              • Goodeye8@piefed.social
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                12 hours ago

                I’m sorry, is the entire American political system “Democrats”? I said the entire system is rotten. I only used democrats as an example because that’s literally the most recent example. I could’ve used the tea party as a republican example but why use a 15 year old example when there’s an example happening right now?

                Perhaps instead of telling me to do better you should be telling that to the establishment democrats who are not just against the DSA but also Abdul El-Sayed, who isn’t even a socialist. Perhaps the one who should be doing better is you?

                • BillCheddar@lemmy.world
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                  11 hours ago

                  OK now you’re just making shit up.

                  The first thing that happened after Abdul won his primary was the entire fucking establishment endorsed him.

                  So you’re either a liar or completely misinformed. Let us know which, thanks.

                  Not that it matters because you’ll just fucking lie about that answer, too.

  • Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip
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    12 hours ago

    Oh, will people finally shut up about tap water being safe in the US? I’ve been saying for years, I’m not drinking something if it tastes bad.