Being the former Mayor of Newark should be a disqualifier from running for public office. Instead, Cory Booker used it to spring to the Senate and now wants to be the President of the United States.

Meanwhile, the city he claims to have saved, not only has a lead crisis, but can't figure out how to hand out bottled water.

Urgent new warnings from federal environmental officials about contamination in drinking water from aging lead pipes spread anxiety and fear across much of Newark, but the municipal government’s makeshift efforts to set up distribution centers to hand out bottled water were hampered by confusion and frustration. State and local officials said they were making free water available to 15,000 of the city’s 95,000 households, and hundreds of people waited in long lines in the summer heat to pick up cases of water. But officials had to halt the distribution temporarily after discovering that some of the water exceeded its best-by date.

Which means you can still hand out the water. And it is water after all. But they can't figure out water filters either.

Newark had long denied that the city had a widespread problem with its drinking water, only to reverse course last fall and give away tens of thousands of water filters. But recent tests have shown that the filters were not properly removing lead.

Cory Booker/Ras Baraka in 2020. Make America's Water Lead Again.

Residents who had been reassured for months by the mayor, Ras Baraka, the head of the water department and other city leaders that the problem was being addressed were left reeling and some have called for Mr. Baraka to step down.

To quote the poetry of his father...

Who knew Newark's water supply was gonna get leaded? Who kept the expired water bottles on the shelf? Was it the Jews? Or Ras Baraka?

Anyway, even though Newark is entirely run by black Democrat politicians, it's time to blame racism.

Like Flint, many of the neighborhoods affected by worries over the drinking water are predominantly African-American and low income.

Is Ras Baraka a racist? Can we blame this on the Democrat Governor of New Jersey? Can this somehow be made into Trump's fault? Are the Russians involved? Did the Russians put lead into Newark's drinking water in an attempt to influence the 2020 election?

Next up on Maddow.

The state and city want “to get this as right, as fast as we can,” the governor said, calling on federal officials to help. “We take this very seriously. We want to be out ahead of this.”

New Jersey property taxes are murderously high to subsidize places like Newark. Why exactly is the incompetence of Newark and New Jersey Dems a federal issue? Protecting our border is a federal issue. Convicting everyone involved in messing this up could be a federal issue.

Bailing out Dems when they mess up their own water supply and can't even figure out how to hand out water isn't a federal issue.

Maybe Cory Booker's Twitter account can help.

In 2016, annual testing of the water in Newark’s public schools revealed elevated lead levels; more than 30 schools shut off their water fountains and turned to bottled water. In January 2017, a citywide testing system was put in place. Over the following 18 months, three consecutive tests found that 10 percent of Newark’s homes had water lead levels nearly twice the federal standard.

So they knew this was coming. And they did nothing.

The recreation center was one of four distribution points set up by the city to hand out water. Some people waited an hour to get their allotted two cases. Adding to the frustration, officials also turned away some people, telling them they were not eligible for free water because they did not live in an area identified as having elevated lead levels. Though some of the bottled water had an expired best-by date, federal officials said it was still safe to drink. But city officials said they did not want to further alarm residents and those bottles were not given away. Still, Newark officials spent more than a year insisting that the city did not have an extensive water problem, declaring on the city’s website that the water was “absolutely safe to drink.’’

Water. They can't even hand out water correctly.

This is what happens when Democrats run your city.