A lead paint chip off the old GOP block
by digby
A typical Republican makes the typical Republican case for deregulation:
Gov. Larry Hogan's top housing official said Friday that he wants to look at loosening state lead paint poisoning laws, saying they could motivate a mother to deliberately poison her child to obtain free housing.
Kenneth C. Holt, secretary of Housing, Community and Development, told an audience at the Maryland Association of Counties summer convention here that a mother could just put a lead fishing weight in her child's mouth, then take the child in for testing and a landlord would be liable for providing the child with housing until the age of 18.
Pressed afterward, Holt said he had no evidence of this happening but said a developer had told him it was possible. "This is an anecdotal story that was described to me as something that could possibly happen," Holt said.
Yeah, and you know what else could possibly happen? Some wily developer could see that he was dealing with a bigoted moron and tell him a ridiculous anecdote to feed his prejudices in order to save himself from being forced to stop killing children and causing brain damage. (In fact, it's fair to guess that Mr Holt himself may have once eaten some lead based paint chips in his day.)
This is what happens when you elect a Republican to run a Democratic state. They have no personnel infrastructure only wingnutty partisans with which to choose among to run their government. Big problem.
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