Happy Wednesday. On this day in 250, Emperor Decius began persecuting Christians in Rome who presumably hadn't taken their Christmas lights down yet.

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MICHIGAN GOVERNOR RICK SNYDER has now called the Flint water crisis his “Katrina.” Hey, every ex-CEO who promises to run government like a business gets at least one.

ON TUESDAY EVENING, the governor delivered his State of the State speech (spoiler: crappy) and apologized for the change in water sources that delivered lead-poisoned water to the city — which was initiated by an official he appointed and then covered up by officials in his administration.

CRITICS OF THE GOVERNOR ARGUE THAT the water crisis is the inevitable result of his power grabs, which replaced local officials with state-appointed officials more concerned with slashing services and selling off public property than helping the poor, nearly all-black communities they’re sent into. At one point, half of all African-Americans in the state had no locally elected government officials.

BUT, AS GOVERNOR SNYDER MIGHT POINT OUT, most of them didn’t get poisoned!

AND OH YEAH, THE "EMERGENCY MANAGER" who brought lead-poisoned water to Flint is currently the “Emergency Manager” of the Detroit Public Schools. You’ve heard of “failing up”? This is “poisoning up”!

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AFTER A REALITY STAR FAMOUS FOR QUITTING HER POST AS GOVERNOR endorsed a reality star famous for firing people, the race is on for Republican candidates to find an endorsement more harmful in the general election than Sarah Palin.

TED CRUZ thinks he has the answer — Glenn Beck.

THE TALK SHOW HOST LISTED TRUMP POLICIES that conservatives pretend to be against on Facebook — “Big government, bailouts, executive orders, not just abortion but partial birth abortion, nationalizing of banks, stimulus, pathway to citizenship” — before singing the chorus to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

CRUZ AND BECK will appear together as soon as Sarah Palin concludes the run-on sentence she began early Tuesday evening.

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TA-NEHISI COATES is not just the winner of the the National Book Award but the author every liberal professes to love even if they pronounce his name wrong every single time.

COATES MADE THE "CASE FOR REPARATIONS" in 2014, radically redefining the concept for most Americans by expanding it beyond slavery — which even the Heritage Foundation is against, now — to the crimes that followed Reconstruction into segregation and up to the massive plunder of black people during the subprime mortgage crisis.

AFTER SANDERS REJECTED REPARATIONS last week as too “divisive,” Coates tried to get in touch with the candidate for three days but received no response, though several hundred fans of Sanders did randomly tweet to him encouraging him to #FeeltheBern.

THAT SANDERS IS WILLING TO EXTEND the expectations of what government does in health care, education, and acceptance of a bushy-headed 74-year-old secular Jewish man as Commander-in-Chief — in nearly every way except reparations — makes Coates beyond depressed about him, but entirely forlorn about the future of race relations in America.

REPARATIONS ARE DEFINITELY POSSIBLE IN AMERICA, but apparently only reparations that go to directly to rich white people.

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THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE MOTION PICTURE ACADEMY'S second annual snub of all black actors and actresses continues to rage with a new focus on just how white Oscar voters are.

“IN 2012, A LOS ANGELES TIMES STUDY OF THE ACADEMY found that ‘Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male’ while ‘Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%,’” CNN reports.

THIS MAKES THE IOWA CAUCUSES look like the set of Soul Train.

THE OSCARS ARE SO WHITE THAT A BOYCOTT will probably do no more than generate headlines for the next few weeks, distracting from the nominated movies but inevitably driving everyone to tune in to see how Chris Rock handles it. And hopefully he’ll embarrass the Academy enough that next year the Oscars will only be as white as the Country Music awards.

NO, KEITH RICHARDS IS NOT DEAD. But he does get asked that a lot.

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER NET—A five-foot Blacktip shark was found in the pool of a condo complex in Florida, where it had likely moved to evade child support payments.