Transcript
Hello, news, chick lit, chick lit like the candy. Well, chickens, anyway, I'm a five time Golden Necktie Award winner, Cody Johnston, a newsman, a man of the news and welcome to news, man. And here is some news. A train derailment? No, not the reason. Seminole Golf Railway train derailment with propane. The recent Norfolk Southern train derailment carrying hazardous materials. No, not the recent Norfolk Southern train derailment involving hazardous materials in Detroit. The reason? Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio. OK. All right. No, not the recent Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio, near Springfield, the recent Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio and East Palestine. OK, there we go. Finally, got there. My gosh, boy, that was a real. What's the word like when nothing goes right and it's a huge catastrophe, a real plane wreck? That's the phrase. Anyway, East Palestine, why? Hey. Good. Weirdly worded question. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about this one train derailment, even though there have been a ton more since it, including ones that happened while we were writing this episode and presumably filming and editing this episode. So on February 3rd, twenty twenty three, a Norfolk Southern rail line and East Palestine, Ohio derailed, throwing thirty eight cars off the track where trains live and into the grass, where plants and animals live. Of the roughly three dozen cars that derailed, 11 were carrying hazardous material and 12 caught on fire. Investigations revealed that it was likely a malfunction of a wheel bearing overheating and failing that caused the derailment while nobody was killed or injured during the derailment itself. The train cars were carrying a variety of flammable and toxic chemicals, but if you're worried that those chemicals were accidentally released into the environment, allow me to calm those fears by assuring you that they absolutely were not accidentally released into the environment. They were intentionally released into the environment. Hooray ! Celebrate. We have balloons. We don't OK. On February 6th, there was a controlled release of toxic fumes from the burning train cars by Norfolk Southern, which was done out of concern. There would be an explosion. The presumably very smelly cloud included a laundry list of chemicals that sound like one of the jokers gift receipts. Stuff like vinyl chloride, butyl acrylics eye so butyl in a flexible acrylic, ethylene glycol, mono, butyl ether and art is a premium. Platforms of Pokemon, but the rest of those that were pronounced correctly are very real chemicals that are arguably just as lethal as the most formidable Charizard. Toxic fumes got to catch them all. The EPA reported that five chemicals known to be toxic were released into the air, soil and external bodies of water near east Palestine, which again is the area where plants and animals live animals like puppies, scorpions and also people like Firft Jenkins, East Palestine's veteran mail carrier. Now, I don't actually know anyone in East Palestine and therefore can't confirm whether fur is still slinging mail or if he actually exists. I merely picked his name at random to represent the people of East Palestine and underline the point that human beings live in the area where Norfolk Southern blew up their poison train, a thing they did not have to get permission from anyone to do, especially not fur. One of the chemicals released vinyl chloride has been linked to liver cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Additionally, when vinyl chloride burns, it becomes phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which are highly toxic gases through the super shredder to vinyl chlorides. Regular value meal shredder. And wouldn't you know it? Government authorities identified phosphine and hydrogen chloride as fumes that were produced by the train cars. For context, phosgene was responsible for most of the chemical weapons deaths in World War One. It is colorless, with a strong odor that causes breathing problems and vomiting. Fun chemistry facts we discovered while dousing people with it in wars. Glorious name fer for members of the war, doesn't he? He remembers what he did, doesn't he? And just in case you thought you'd seen the final escapee in this chemical jailbreak butyl accurately, it was also released as a result of the derailment. According to the CDC, acute exposure to butyl accolade can cause irritation to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract, including breathing problems. So bad naughty stuff needs a spanking these nasty chemicals do. Luckily, the town of East Palestine was evacuated in the immediate aftermath for five days on February eight, five days after the derailment and two days after the controlled release of the toxic fumes. Residents were instructed by Republican Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine that it was safe to return. But despite these assurances, residents weren't so convinced and didn't exactly trust Norfolk Southern or the local authorities after the train and just ripped a big, toxic fart on their town. We have the proper testing. We can not get a two to three in your paper, say once you're not satisfied with the testing that's been done at your house. Now, when you're going to smell it, as soon as you go into my house, I don't feel safe taking my kids into town. Especially to the house, like my neighbor right across the street from me, literally got diagnosed yesterday with chemical pneumonia. What what does the government do? Whose responsibility is it? Because I'm not quite sure that the, you know, Norfolk Southern is really doing much. Don't blame these people at all. Their concerns are pretty darn reasonable, given that the Choo-Choo Kaboom has been killing thousands of animals in the area. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has estimated that over 43000 aquatic animals have died following the derailment. And I'm I may not be an ecologist, but that seems like a lot of animals to poison all at once. Indeed, one might argue too many. If my math is right, that's roughly four hundred and twenty five point seven metric Cruella de Vil is in one mass poisoning people who reported their pets getting sick or dying, including chickens, cats and dogs. And although these reports haven't been officially quantified, once you start getting piles of dead frogs, I'm honestly going to believe you about your dead chickens. That's not a huge job. Frogs are the chickens of the creek. I said jump like a frog hopped up. But seriously, many animals have died, and still the information coming out of East Palestine has been confusing at best. Even though several photos and videos taken of the ongoing event have gone viral, it's unclear what exactly they're depicting. Wow, look at all, I look at it, it's all in the bottom of the creek, but that rainbow sheen could be chemicals forming a film on the water, but it could be wokeness run amok. It could also be biofilm, an organic substance created by dead or decaying animals, which would make sense given the sheer number of the aforementioned deceased fish and frogs. So the water could just be filled with more dead animals in the back room of a pet store rather than polluted with toxic chemicals. And wouldn't that be a relief? So, OK, how polluted are things? Is it really safe for people to be going about their daily lives swimming through that chemical cloud like they're conducting business on a foggy London morning? There's a lot of confusing information flying around. In addition to the toxic chemicals flying around and distrust of officials is high for obvious reasons. When you let railroad billionaires duke their dirty train poison all over town because corporate profits have more rights and power than the American people, your constituents are going to look at you. Dare I say askance? Ohio State and federal officials have said that they have not detected dangerous levels of chemical substances in homes they have tested or in the municipal water. But these are the same officials that said it was safe for residents of East Palestine to come back into their homes, even as all the dogs and cats were dying in each other's arms like the characters in Chernobyl. The HBO show and the real event, I guess. But. Mostly the HBO show, and true, it's not outrageous to believe that drinking water might be safe even if the surface waterways are polluted. But the water testing itself has been, you know, all messy. Oh, a little sloppy. Oh oh drunk in the build a bear workshop, if you know what I mean, you know. You know what I'm talking about, which is not generally the vibe you want during the aftermath of a catastrophic train derailment, while the Ohio EPA has been doing weekly tests of the water. Norfolk Southern has also been testing the water and has reportedly had issues in terms of sampling errors such as air bubbles in the samples or samples not being acidified correctly, according to EPA guidelines. It doesn't mean the drinking water is necessarily unsafe, but it's weird to conduct your testing more loosely than one hung over driving instructor when you're trying to convince people that their drinking water isn't death elixir. Also, locals are still reporting symptoms like headaches, fatigue, skin irritation and anxiety, which could be caused by pollutants or by the overwhelming psychological trauma of a chemical explosion. Perhaps both both sides, because at Norfolk Southern, their motto is Eat fistfuls of s**t and fear you, peasants. It's not as catchy that could be, but it's pretty close. They should. Tweak it. Also, their mascot is a railroad tyc**n, polishing his monocle behind the wheel of a locomotive, riding along a track of human bones. It's captivating imagery can just see it on a T-shirt available for a reasonable price and a merch store, perhaps get them while they're definitely real. To be clear, when we say these symptoms, some of the people of East Palestine are experiencing maybe psychological. We don't mean that people are making up their symptoms or their symptoms aren't real and serious. Psychogenic illness in response to anxiety over contamination is a real and documented thing. Physical symptoms can originate from mental distress. So that's a possibility. But it's also very possible that people are having reactions to actual chemicals still left behind by the derailment. And I'm not a doctor legally, but it seems like we should at the very least be taking these reported symptoms very seriously when these short and long term health of the population of an entire town is on the line. The EPA has conducted a number of air quality tests in the area and found that the 79 chemicals that they've been monitoring have been below levels of concern for short term exposure and predict that the concentrations will dissipate. Texas A&M University researchers analyzed the EPA's data, and while their testing mirrors the results of the EPA, the researchers noticed that there are significant amounts of compounds that can cause headaches, eye and lung irritation. And in the long term, cancer, a particularly concerning chemical noted by the A&M analysis is atrazine, of which they found levels that were sometimes above the threshold for long term health consequences to people's lungs. Texas A&M researchers acknowledge that residents would have to be exposed for months or years to see some of these health issues, and the EPA contends that the concentration of the chemicals are likely to go down, meaning people wouldn't be exposed to high enough levels to pose a serious health risk. So basically, the EPA is admitting that these chemicals can damage people's breathing or even give them cancer. But because the levels are so low, maybe they won't like garnishing your macchiato with a light misting of arsenic just enough to get the tongue. There's probably, but probably and maybe actually aren't comforting words for residents who had a poisoned train explode in their backyards. Also, as we noted at the top of this episode, this keeps happening, keeps happening. Trains apparently derail every damn day in America, and it's not comforting to know that it's not a major chemical disaster. Most of the time, car accidents also happen every day. But you know, cars aren't on permanent tracks and are kind of dependent on hundreds of people on the road driving safely. And at every point one percent of the time, a car crash created a TNT style explosion that wiped out a city block. We would find those odds unacceptable or like if hypothetically someone was manufacturing cars that would occasionally drive on their own and crash and then burst into flames. That totally hypothetical scenario would be very concerning. Despite how rare it was, and so the chemical effects being temporary in this one event doesn't really calm the mind when it's part of a larger, systemic issue. So what are we going to do about this, if anything? And why did it happen? Why? These are great questions I am asking right now. I'm very smart at the questions and can juggle very well and to answer those questions. I'm going to need to take an ad break to charge my big jugglers brain, you see. 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And for a limited time, when you buy one pair of sugar rays, you'll get the second pair free. That's a DIY or a wireless dot com. Slash your new. Is code more news to get a second pass? She did raise very shady red.com/ more news code more news. Feel the exploding palette of sunglasses and also an electrical substation. Hey. Hello. Hi. We're back. We were just discussing the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the effect it had on the local people and environment because we love fun. And now it's time to sink our luscious, sexy teeth into the consequences. What has been done? What could have been done? Has anyone gained superpowers from the chemicals where they turn invisible or at least have a bunch of spikes on them? Like that guy whose name I can't guess from X-Men three? To answer that last question first? No. And to guess. Hug, Monster. You know, watch out or you'll hug you and stick you with spikes at some point during the hug. X-Men three The best MCU movie that's in the MCU. Have fun in the comments ! But the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to test for toxic dioxins, which the EPA said it will oversee. Great. That sounds reasonable and responsible. Unlike the plan to deal with said dioxins, which is to send the contaminated soil around the derailment to a nearby incinerator and burn it. That plan has come under harsh criticism, including some from former EPA official Kyla Bennett, who has now become an environmental activist highly critical of the EPA. Her fear is that we don't actually know the extent of what chemicals may be in the soil and that burning them would just release whatever's in there into the air, which is way worse than just leaving it in the dirt where it is. Even the EPA itself has stated in the past that burning chemical compounds found in the soil would be iffy. Writing in a technical brief that the effectiveness of incineration to destroy certain compounds and the potential to create harmful byproducts in the process is not well understood. Even the incinerator itself is kind of shady. According to reporting by The Guardian, the Heritage Thermal Services Incinerator Burns Department of Defense chemical waste, resulting in a federal lawsuit filed by local environmental groups. It was also the subject of the EPA investigation that found the facility had violated the Clean Air Act almost 200 times between 2010 and 2014 and is currently recorded violations in eight of the last 12 quarters. So I'm not an incineration specialist legally, but that facility seems like maybe not the best choice in this situation. Indeed, it kind of seems like the equivalent of a government mandated tire fire, but I guess it's not as if there are any great options after you crash a chemical train in a small town and then burn its contents to prevent a real disaster crisis averted. Another question is whether Norfolk Southern acted hastily in releasing the burning chemicals from the railway car. As we mentioned earlier, Norvell contends this was done to prevent the possible explosion. But it turns out that not everyone was on board with the whole let's release chemicals into the air plan. And that includes hazardous materials specialist Cecil Caggiano, a retired Ohio fire chief who was also a member of Ohio's Hazardous Materials Technical Advisory Committee. We basically nuke the town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open, and we're going to be looking at this thing five, 10, 15, 20 years down the line and wondering Gee, cancer clusters could pop up, you know? Well, water could go bad. Mustache still claims that Norfolk Southern detonated the containers quotes because the alternatives to what they did would have taken too long and cost them too much money if they had put the fire out. They would still have had to handle every one of those containers and is content as hazardous waste all non marketable and they would have to have gotten rid of all of that contamination. This way, they don't have contamination anymore. It burned up and it spread over. God knows how much they got off very cheap in my book. But still, Caggiano is just one mustache with a really cool name and a really cool mustache. What's one awesome name against the mighty Norfolk Southern? How many mustaches do they have? We don't know. We can't know. They will not tell us. But Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, whose name is markedly less cool, is also criticizing Norfolk Southern for their hasty. This in detonating the train containers. In a letter to the CEO of Norfolk Southern, Governor Shapiro claimed that Norfolk Southern didn't want to explore other possibilities and that their decision to burn the chemicals in order to clear the rail line more quickly quote injected unnecessary risk and created confusion. However, when asked about this, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shah rebutted by pointing out quote no other Governor DeWine and Governor Shapiro and Mayor Conaway and Fire Chief Dray Beck and the National Guard were all aligned that this was the right decision to make in terms of public safety. Ooh, I love a good, he said. He said, especially when the well-being of thousands of people are at stake. He said that we can't legally play this song, according to Governor Shapiro's letter. Norfolk Southern personnel acted on their own at the scene separate from local agencies, which caused confusion. And at the time of this writing, at least 30 lawsuits have already been filed against Norfolk Southern, alleging that both the initial derailment and the following planned detonation of chemicals was negligent. According to a lawsuit filed by Morgan and Morgan, the chemicals shouldn't have leaked out in the first place, not even after derailment and the decision to dump over. One million pounds of cancer causing vinyl chloride directly into the environment was just the chemically burn cherry on top of the sun of failure. It's a real hideous cherry, a real phantom of the opera looking piece of s**t. Hell yeah, look at that little phantom mask on him. It's adorable and sexy and hideous. Yum. So in other words, it seems like Norfolk Southern is doing its best to be recognized as the greatest threat in Captain Planet's rogue's gallery, right in front of sludge. f**k and the sweaty oiler. If you're watching this and saying to yourself, Man, it really seems like a potentially massive environmental disaster in small town, America should be bigger news. You're absolutely right. Unfortunately, one of the initial issues with the derailment was getting new stations to pay attention to it at all. In fairness, the country had something far more urgent to focus on at the time, the giant Chinese balloon that had been floating across parts of the United States has been shut down. Well, new details have emerged about the Chinese spy balloon investigation. In February, a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States. The Pentagon, as you may have heard, is now tracking a very high altitude Chinese spy balloon over the north northern United States. Damn you, Skylab, and f**k you too. The sighting of the Chinese balloon was reported on February 2nd and the East Palestine Ohio derailment occurred on February 3rd. Media Matters did an analysis of the balloon versus the train derailment coverage, and they found that from February 4th to the 13th, there were only two programs that bothered to discuss how weak our regulations for hazardous materials are, specifically due to rail lobbyists that absolutely include people representing Norfolk Southern. They also found that exactly zero of the big corporate broadcast discussed the lack of safety regulations. So even when it was being covered, nobody was really talking about the role deregulation, incompetence and plain old greed had played in the disaster. So if you feel like the coverage of the Ohio derailment has been spotty and inconsistent and took too long to trickle into the national discourse, you're probably not imagining things. An article by Molly Taft for Gizmodo reveals that there are only three newspapers in the county that contains East Palestine, and all three of them are owned by the same company and have a tiny staff that includes zero environmental reporters. And the two local news outlets closest to East Palestine have, of course, suffered massive layoffs in recent years, as is the custom for journalism these days. This meant there were few resources to cover and disseminate news about the derailment. In addition, a reporter who is trying to cover the catastrophe was arrested in a shocking response by law enforcement. Sorry, I'm at a typical and routine response by law enforcement. That's governance. That's got to come out. We just don't worry about it. You're under arrest of virus friends over. Apparently, if you want to be a hard hitting reporter, you have to get hit hard by the police. The reporter, Evan Lambert of News Nation, was trying to cover a news conference on the derailment held by Ohio's Republican governor Mike DeWine. According to the Washington bureau chief of News Nation Mike Viqueira, Lambert was quietly talking while setting up a live shot. Local law enforcement then confronted Lambert and said he was out of line for talking when the governor was talking. Apparently talking while Mike DeWine is speaking is illegal because he is some sort of celestial emperor should have offered him cheese with that. DeWine walk a walk on police brutality that director after Lambert said he was just doing his job and hadn't broken any laws. They dragged him to the ground because this country rules and it's totally normal. Charges against Lambert were ultimately dropped, although I can't imagine what the charges even were talking out of turn, I guess, because this is a study hall anyway. Molly Taaffe, the Gizmodo writer I mentioned earlier, contends that the lack of strong media coverage and investigative reporting in combination with a weak response from the Biden administration, has helped to fuel right wing talking points about a grand conspiracy to poison people. And she's super not wrong. If no one reliable is giving you any answers, you are going to turn to whoever is offering them, like how I learned to build a shed through Pornhub comments after Home Depot banned me for sleeping in their gardening section. It's exactly like that thing I just described, and there's no difference anyway because of these talking heads looking to make a buck off of hysteria. Vague conspiracies and over generalizations now surround the Ohio disaster in between treatises over how much she wants teens to get married and pregnant and how trans people are womanhood, vampires, professional creep and dead eyed freak. Matt Walsh found time to tweet some t goofball s**t about the derailment. He wrote last week they wouldn't shoot down a spy balloon over Montana for fear of the impact on civilians. The week before, they blew up thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals and poisoned the air and water supply in order to clear a train derailment. Someone makes sense of this. Sure thing, Matt. I'll help you out. So as we discussed earlier, the they that blew up the trains was Norfolk Southern, a private company that has control over a railway in our very capitalist and cool country and was allegedly able to act independently during the response to the derailment. Something you probably support since you hate the idea of government when it's not catering to you. Meanwhile, the they that waited to explode a balloon while it hovered over populated areas was the US government and Pentagon. That's not to say the government doesn't bear responsibility for deregulating the rail industry or for their tepid response to the derailment. But the decision to burn a million pounds of poison and the decision to spare a mysterious balloon were made by two completely different entities and not a single they, as implied by Matt's excellently baby brain tweet. Matt Walsh succumbs to woke ism, uses a pronoun. I don't want to dwell on it, but it's kind of amazing how unserious Matt Walsh and the other conservative pundits like him are. Like, There are so many ways you can use the derailment news to point out why Biden sucks as long as you're not beholden to pushing your political narrative at the same time. But since Walsh is a weird right wing grifter and oh yeah, dead eyed freak, he certainly can't admit the role that deregulation might play in this event. So instead, he felt the need to try and mushed together two talking points that have literally nothing to do with each other, implying that the Biden government is the sole reason behind this disaster and follow up hazard. That said, it's not not the fault of the government, including Biden's administration. They are, after all, in charge of like everything. But it's also not only Biden's fault. It's more like a mélange of fault, a fruit medley of blame swirling in your mouth, and most of it's f**king melon. And in these partisan times, that mixture is often lost by a lot of people, but not us and our big, hunky brains. And so, of course, it's now time to point some juicy fingers. Can you taste it? Can you taste my fingers? But first, we have to do an ad break, but when we come back? Blame Bush. You. You love it, you love blame you, Sweet Angel. Hello, workers, it's Cody. 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Let's do it, starting with the Big G. When I say the government bears some responsibility in this disaster, I don't just mean the Biden administration. There have been many hands contributing to this s**t casserole, including the Trump administration and Republican opponents, to Obama era regulations. We'll dive into that s**t casserole with more gusto later. But first, let's talk about Joe Biden. Or should I say job? Because he's hiding from his job? Or is it all about you? That was. This fine, instead of quickly and decisively issuing a condemnation of Norfolk Southern and committing to strengthening regulations, the Biden administration has been frustratingly evasive about the whole train problem in the immediate aftermath of the derailment. Biden made no public statements on February 16th, 13 days after the derailment and 10 days after the controlled release of the chemicals. The White House press secretary revealed that Biden had offered Ohio's governor federal assistance. You know, quietly and discreetly because for some reason we didn't want to make a fuss about the president offering federal assistance to a small town besieged by toxic gas. And on February 17th, the White House released a fact sheet indicating that they had deployed federal resources to East Palestine shortly after the derailment. Still, Biden himself hasn't deign to actually visit the town or even give a public statement directly from his own mouth, which he likes to call the Jo-Jo. Finally, on February 21st, 19 days after the derailment, Biden tweeted about the ordeal with some light criticism of Norfolk Southern saying today, the EPA ordered the train company Norfolk Southern to pay for the cleanup and disposal of hazardous materials. This is common sense. This is their mess. They should clean it up, which sure, that's all well and good, but it's hardly a fist pumping moment of justice. That's kind of the bare minimum. Late. Obviously, the people who own the poisoned train should be responsible for cleaning it up when it spills its poison everywhere. This gentlest of rebukes from the president just sounds like a tired substitute preschool teacher. Where is the cranky old popcorn farmer who challenged the guy from Iowa who will push up competition and once punched malarkey in the dick so hard that there has been no malarkey since? But yeah, great. Norfolk Southern should clean up their mess. Good point from the Joe Hall. Or rather, it could have been because Biden's DOJ is siding with Norfolk Southern in the company's bid to block lawsuits related to their reckless handling of hazardous materials. Specifically, they're doing this in a Supreme Court case that would stop a previous lawsuit that was brought by a rail worker who has cancer. The worker alleges that his cancer was caused by exposure to asbestos and other chemicals while working for Norfolk Southern, and that he was not provided PPE or measures to protect himself. The suit predates the derailment, but if it is struck down, it would set a precedent that might make it more difficult for people affected by the derailment. To sue Norfolk Southern and in general would make it more difficult for people to get any justice when it comes to large corporations. Nothing like some good, old fashioned tort reform that protects weak and feeble corporations from the vicious claws of the people they've injured. Corporations are people. If a person that 5000 lawyers. So, yeah, Biden sucks sucks right from his Joe Hall. Then, of course, Pete Boot. A judge took about 10 days to tweet about the derailment, which isn't ideal given his position as secretary of transportation, and I'm almost certain and now told that a train does count as transportation. In a CBS interview, the judge acknowledged that he could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that's a lesson learned for me. Oh, good. Well, as long as he learned his lesson. Nevertheless, Bridges judges people are frustrated at the heat he's getting and are quick to point out. The Buddha judge did twenty three interviews in the 10 days after the accident and was never asked about it. Of course, the argument they're making is that it was the media's responsibility to bring up the derailment and not the Secretary of Transportation's duty to maybe mention it once over the course of two dozen interviews. The great communicator tongue tied because he can't think of the incident he felt so strongly about. And while it's not wrong to say that it was a failure of the media to not ask about it, it's an odd defense to say that the government official responsible for every moving vehicle in the United States didn't have any responsibility to address the derailment on his own. But don't worry, Donald Darrius Jefferson Trump was ready to pick up the slack and visit East Palestine to pretend to be a hero. We're bringing thousands a bottle of water, trump water. Actually, most of it. Some of it. We had to go to a much lesser quality water. You want to get those Trump bottles, I think more than anybody else. But we're bringing a lot of water things for the water. You having anthropomorphic casino. But because Democrats had bafflingly seated the issue and stepped down from the ladder that was right next to the hoop, they could have just dropped the ball in daddy indictment was able to show up and lie as much as he wanted uncontested. He claims that Biden and FEMA said they would not send federal aid to East Palestine under any circumstance. Which is not true at all. Governor Mike, I need a bottle for all my DeWine has confirmed that the White House has offered help, but that he hasn't accepted the help. And when a reporter asked Trump about his administration killing an Obama era regulation that would have required trains carrying hazardous materials to have more modern braking systems, Trump fell back on his battle tested strategy of denying objective reality and somehow getting away with it. What do you think of Biden rather be the judge's criticism of you pulling back rail regulations? You had nothing to do with it. Oh yeah, you did have something to do with it like objectively, so you did that thing. But even though Trump is lying about this by filling a void left by the Biden administration's lack of response, he is able to quite effortlessly win the optics game, I guess. Is there anything that you would want to share with folks who don't live here in East Palestine to kind of spread some message out to the rest of the people who might be watching about what's actually happening here? Yeah, it's it's crazy, and I think they should do more about it. All these little Trump burritos know is what their parents have told them, and that a former president visited their little town and claimed he cared about them. Yes, he's lying to them. But if they feel like the government's abandoned them, what's stopping them from believing that lie? Even if Biden quietly offered help to the governor of Ohio behind the scenes which he did, he couldn't be bothered to come to East Palestine and let the residents know he's got their backs. Trump may be acting and grotesquely bad faith, but given the tepid response from Biden and booted judge, it does kind of seem like the White House doesn't care about them. But a judge claimed in a tweet that he is constrained by Trump era regulations. But critics say he does have the authority to expand the definition of high hazard trains to cover trains like the recently exploded one, which would then allow for greater regulation. Obviously, whether he's able to do it might involve courts or require legislation, but shouldn't they try or at least make a show of trying? I mean, come on, guys, how hard is it to impress a child? They're so gullible. Luckily, while the Biden administration's response has been limp and floppy, plenty of progressive politicians have been speaking out about the situation and either calling for action or taking direct action themselves. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown visited East Palestine and acknowledged locals frustration, expressing a need for rail regulations, saying I want to see rail safety legislation passed in the next few weeks. It. It didn't Bob and Bernie Sanders is using the current scrutiny on the rail industry to demand that Norfolk Southern cover sick leave for employees. I think it is kind of weird they aren't already required to do the progressive group. River Valley organizing is on the ground, canvassing and holding public meetings, creating a list of demands they have of Norfolk Southern following the disaster, as well as convening scientific and environmental experts to answer the questions that residents have over safety. All of this is good, but unfortunately progressive efforts to take on this issue have already been undermined by the Biden administration's stance on the railway workers union. When the administration prevented rail workers from striking and forced through a deal for the Rail Workers Union that still didn't address their need for paid sick days, rail workers have been complaining about companies putting profit over worker welfare and rail safety for a while now. Back in June of 2020, to division, president of the Transportation Communications Union Tom Grissom warned the railroad business model and increased pressures from management have created a ticking time bomb on our nation's rails, and he wasn't the only guy who could see the future. Back in 2020, one rail unions warned of precision scheduled railroading, a cost cutting method of decreasing the amount of time taken for operations. The unions argue that this rigid time cutting scheduling makes it harder for workers to conduct safety checks. Time is money, after all, in that both are fake, and if you make enough money, you can feel confident risking a chemical spill over a Midwestern town because you can afford the limited repercussions, if any, even exist when your profits are in the billions. Fines for flagrantly endangering the public are just part of the cost of doing business. To wit, in 2020, two Norfolk Southern's gross profit was $4.8 billion. Their initial response to the derailment was to offer a $25000 payoff to East Palestine, as in the entire town and not individuals. Before it was clear that the disaster was going to receive any scrutiny and attention. That's less than pennies to them. Then they up that to $6.5 million. After all the press coverage. But that's just pennies to them. Only a fraction of what they spend on stock buybacks. It's almost as if this company is so big that they can do whatever they want because the repercussions are nothing to them. Go capitalism, seriously, please leave. The Ohio attorney general is suing Norfolk Southern over the derailment, but it's unclear whether Norfolk Southern will face any consequences for the disaster, which is a problem because while we can point at the Biden administration's lackluster response and failure to support the Rail Union or the Trump administration's gutting of rail regulations, Norfolk Southern and the rest of the rail industry have fought hard to systematically push for deregulation for decades. In 2014, in response to an increase in train derailments, the Obama administration proposed to increase regulations on trains carrying hazardous waste. But after pressure from the rail industry, the regulations only ended up focusing on crude oil transport rather than hazardous chemicals, you know, like the kind in the train we've been talking about. In addition, the train derailed in East Palestine isn't classified as a high hazard, flammable train. See, in 2015, the National Transportation Safety Board argued that trains carrying chemicals like vinyl chloride should be considered high hazard flammable trains even if they were smaller trains. But the Obama administration denied them that classification. For some reason, they did require trains classified as hazardous to upgrade to ECP brakes or electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. But Republicans delayed the requirement for years. Hey, here's a totally unrelated fact. In 2017, the rail industry donated $6 million to GOP campaigns, and after that, Trump and Senate Republicans rescinded the regulation that would force the rail industry to update braking systems on trains carrying hazardous materials. Boy, that that shouldn't be a thing that is true. And yet it is a thing that is true because of an abstract concept we invented to quantify purchasing power. For years and years, corporations like Norfolk Southern have fought tooth and rail to stop safety regulations that could prevent disasters like what happened in Ohio. But the CEO of Norfolk Southern says he's deeply sorry. So I guess that's that's nothing more to see here, folks. They said, Sorry, let's pack it up. But before we go. Maybe we should go through a history of how corporations like Norfolk Southern have regularly gotten away with ecological and health disasters. You know, for fun, these Norfolk Southern's East Palestine derailment isn't our country's first time at the old train f**k rodeo. As I noted at the beginning of this. There are an average of 1700 train derailments in the US every year, although most of them don't result in as spectacular a chemical explosion as the East Palestine derailment. But in general, there have been many, many disasters, even bigger ones where corporations get away with the devastating, long lasting impacts of their f**k up. There are so many of these examples. There's only one good way to go through them all with a song. Due to the me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me me. We're. And socks in their father's mouths. Boy, that took a weird turn, OK, so just to recap my song in 2005, a train derailment in Granville, South Carolina, resulted in the deaths of nine people and a league of 90000 tons of liquid chlorine, which killed another person four months later. Fifteen years later, people were still coping with the health impacts, including decreased lung function, increased blood pressure and PTSD. The rail operator our friends at Norfolk Southern in a lawsuit, Norfolk Southern, was ordered to pay $2000 to each person affected by the evacuation and $200 per person per day spent evacuating, which seems like kind of not a lot of money for being gassed with chlorine and enduring 15 years of potential health impacts. That's 2K per Joker origin story. In total, Norfolk Southern spent around $10 million in settlements, during which lawyers for the rail operator complained that the plaintiffs used unfair emotional appeals by talking about the deadly chemicals that killed those who could not outrun it, even though that seems to be exactly what happened. On top of that, Norfolk Southern had to pay $4 million for the derailment, so roughly 14 or $15 million total for blasting a town with ninety thousand tons of chlorine and oh right, also killing 10 people. Hey, remember earlier when I said that Norfolk Southern reported $4.8 billion in profit in twenty? Well, they reported $4.8 billion in profit in 2020 two. So that $14 million penalty for poisoning people to death with their train super f**king sucks. It's the monetary equivalent of a dunce cap, just the cost of doing business. It's literally baked into corporate budgets because these kinds of accidents are so common. There have been plenty of blink and you'll miss it. Disasters like the train that derailed in northern Louisiana on January 27th of twenty twenty three and leaked propionate acid, forcing an evacuation of the area. But it's not just the trains that are to blame for dousing the American people with their deadly farts. A factory explosion that occurred on February 20th of this year, also in Ohio, has received almost no national attention. I hadn't even heard of it until just now, and I scrapbook corporate environmental disasters. It's a weird thing that I do. The explosion in Oakwood Village involved led materials, and locals weren't immediately informed of the potential danger of lead contamination. Incidentally, the community where the explosion occurred is two thirds black, which probably has nothing to do with the lack of attention they've received compared to East Palestine. Oops. We just got banned by Florida's public school system. While it's true that hazardous terrain spills that result in disasters like the Grandville chlorine spill or East Palestine explosion aren't too common. It seems that companies are often a little too relaxed about making sure their huge metal chemical buckets on wheels are safe. Violations of regulations for hazardous cargo have been increasing, which could either be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. In the past five years, inspectors have seen a 36 percent increase in violations, but this could simply be the result of a 2016 audit by the Department of Transportation's Inspector General's Office that cracked down on lackadaisical rail inspectors. So violations could either be increasing or were just recording them more accurately because of the crackdown on inspections. But just in case you were worried, there aren't more examples of companies getting away with inflicting grievous harm on the general public. And if you were weird, don't fret, there's definitely more. Perhaps one of the most flagrant cases of a CEO getting away with incredible and deadly corruption is Don Blankenship, former CEO of Massey Energy and an aggressive lobbyist who ignored safety regulations in his coal operations. He was at the helm at Massey Energy in 2000, when a massive coal slurry leak poisoned the fresh waterways with three hundred million gallons of coal sludge killing millions of fish, contaminating the water of tens of thousands of people and making sludge f**k disgustingly horny. Fortunately, he went to jail for his crimes. Just kidding. Sorry, I can't. I can't say it with a straight face hu boy. The news is fun, gang. No, obviously, Don Blankenship did not go to jail because he makes too much money for too many powerful people. People like Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao, who during the Bush administration helped ensure that the investigation into Martin County call ended up closing with just a five thousand six hundred dollar fine. But I'm sure Blankenship learned his lesson. You know, which is what happens when you suffer absolutely no consequences for your reckless behavior? I mean, what are we going to do? Send him to prison? It's not like he went on to cause the death of twenty nine people in a mine explosion in 2010. Except holy f**king s**t, that's exactly what he did. Blankenship secretly conspired to violate safety regulations for the Upper Big Branch mine that he ran in West Virginia. And it turned out that those safety regulations were pretty important because the mine f**king exploded. For that, Blankenship did go to federal prison for 10 months, which doesn't seem like a lot for killing 29 people with your flagrant negligence. But hey, it's more than most former CEOs get. But despite his obvious ghoulish crime, Blankenship refused to succumb to the woke mob and complained in an open letter to Trump that call supervisors are not criminals, and the laws they work under today are already frightening enough for them to see the laws that he specifically ignored, resulting in the deaths of 29 people or scary juries, at least as scary as a horrific mine explosion, if not more so. Hasn't he already been punished enough? I'm so scared. Thankfully, Blankenship received a well-deserved reprieve from the tyranny of the consequences of his own actions when he scored $86 million in a payout after his company, Massey Energy, was bought out by Alpha Natural Resources. What do you call a golden parachute for committing an atrocity? A parachute made of human screams Look, prison sucks. It's a broken, predatory system that runs on an engine of human suffering, just like corporate America. So you'll rarely hear me argue in favor of longer prison sentences for anyone unless it's for like a really sinister character like Hitler on a motorcycle made up of tinier Hitler's. But the naked cynicism and disdain the justice system shows for people who have the audacity to be poor is staggering. Mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes If death or serious injury results is 20 years, Blankenship violated safety regulations and blew up twenty nine of his employees, landing him a body count higher than most serial killers. And he got 10 months, and this was after he already put people in danger 10 years prior. If our justice system has any point, shouldn't it be making sure that people don't keep doing bad things to other people? And so why is it somehow different in Don Blankenship's case? I guess because he did it in the pursuit of corporate profits. It's somehow not the same as a drug dealer shooting someone or causing an overdose. Not only that, Blankenship managed to get $86 million from the very company he fatally mismanaged. I'm not saying we should throw all CEOs in prison when their crimes kill people. I'm not only saying that, but we could at least be consistent on what the punishment for killing people is and not have the sentence be inversely proportional to your 401k. That shouldn't even be a controversial take, right? If you purposefully ignore regulations that you know are there to protect lives and it results in people dying. You should be held accountable for it, the same as anyone else. You killed those people. So to answer what happened in East Palestine and why it happened? Well, it's kind of a failing of our criminal justice system while our government goes after a disproportionate amount of offences committed by the lower classes. These huge, terrible disaster causing corporate crimes are getting slaps on the wrist because these companies give our government money and handle our infrastructure, you know, like like like the mafia would. It's a mob doing what it wants while working with the people who enforce the rules. And when they don't enforce the rules, then those rules are going to be broken a lot. And I think this is why mainstream Democrats like Biden have a lot of trouble addressing this stuff, because in order to fix this, you'd have to take on corporations head on corporations that are no doubt seen as vital to our infrastructure by coming down hard on these CEOs. You'd be waging war with a huge part of capitalism and by extension, admitting the faults of that system, including the blood on our own government's hands. Meanwhile, Republicans can circumvent the issue by blaming the woke mob or whatever. Whoever, whatever the world made me poison the people. That's the edge they have. They can make up a boogeyman, fire up their base and still manage to avoid the actual hard conversation. I'm not even exaggerating. After seeing another Norfolk Southern train derailed this weekend, I was reminded of the fact that the company wrote to shareholders stating that it is focused on the. This administration's focus on DEA is forcing private companies to rethink their goals, and one has to wonder was Norfolk Southern's DEA policies are directing resources away from the important things like greasing will bearings extremely unserious stuff. Just honk, honk a clown shoes bulls**t. It seems so overtly obvious that D-I or diversity, equity and inclusion has absolutely nothing to do with a train derailing or a bank failing, for that matter. But if you're someone who's angry, perhaps screwed over by a similar disaster or just tired of seeing corporations get away with so many crimes or misdeeds, or who feels like the country is degrading and basic quality things like infrastructure or wages or whatever? Well, you want someone to actually explain what's going wrong and how to fix that thing. And if no one will actually admit to what the problem really is or even recognize that there is a problem, it's easy to find yourself believing anyone offering answers. Even if the answer is, you know, silly and wrong. Like how ISO Bewdley in one of these spilt chemicals is also used for a process designed to detect and hunt bores way. Just the coincidence of coincidence, like like how Norfolk Southern ships to a place called the wild boar mine seriously white, OK, now calm down, calm down, calm down, everyone. Everyone, everyone be cool. Everyone be cool. Everyone be cool. I'm going to. I'm going to go, I'm going to do. I'm going to do what I'm going to do like a little bit. I'm going to do some research. OK, don't freak out. Don't freak out. No one's going. If no one, no one is freaking out, no one freak out because no one is freaking out. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to warn the country of the impending hog disaster. f**king hell, f**k, they have our trains. We're already dead. OK, bye. We're already down. Like the video, subscribe to the channel, the videos, or leave a comment and so forth. Check out our Patreon e-commerce sites to more news. We've got merch with stuff on the merchandise that you can get from links. We have a podcast called Even More News, and we've also got this show as a podcast. It's called some more news. Check out. That's it.
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