The Rude Pundit: It Pisses Them Off...
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
2/26/2023
It Pisses Them Off That We Were Right About Regulations and That We Actually Do Give a Shit About East Palestine
Two things can be true at once. We can believe that the people in East Palestine, Ohio, are a bunch of fucking idiots who vote against their own interests repeatedly, electing horrible motherfuckers who don't give a happy monkey fuck about their health or safety, but, man, they sure hate Black people and migrants, so they got your vote. And we can also believe that they should get all the help they desperately need to recover from the toxic chemicals that were spilled and burned when a Norfolk Southern train derailed in their town.
You can hear the nematodes of the right spout off about how Democrats and the "left" ignored the disaster because, as Fox "news" Tucker "You can tell I'm lying because I'm breathing" Carlson put it on February 15, "East Palestine is a poor, white town that voted for Trump. So honestly, who cares? No one in the Biden administration did care and that's an atrocity." And you can wonder, "The fuck are they talking about?" It's a fucking lie. The train derailed on February 3. By February 4, the National Transportation Safety Board was already investigating it. By early morning on February 4, the Environmental Protection Agency was already there to monitor air and water and help where it could. (Seriously: the derailment happened at 9 p.m. on the 3rd. By 2 a.m., the EPA was there.) The Department of Transportation was there, and FEMA was in contact with Ohio officials about what it could offer.
Now, I'm no big-time professional con artist pretending to be a journalist, but I'm pretty sure that both the NTSB and the EPA are part of the Biden administration. I'm pretty sure the DOT and FEMA are, too. I'm pretty sure that means the Biden administration did care and that no atrocity occurred. No, President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg didn't rush there, but that's not really an accurate measure of the care the area received.
And if the motherfuckers in conservative media and in politics want to racialize this, let's fuckin' go. You know what Tucker Carlson didn't berate the government about? The Flint water crisis, but Black people were the main victims, so fuck 'em, right? You know what they don't talk about on Fox "news" or, indeed, much of anywhere? The continuing effects of toxic chemicals in places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, which is such a fucking tragedy of high cancer rates in a region of primarily Black Americans that the United Nations has declared it "environmental racism."
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https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/02/it-pisses-them-off-that-we-were-right.html
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... wherever we live. Most of us aren't living in the desert or frozen tundra. And the railroads pass through almost every populated area, especially the upper Midwest and the Northeast corridor.
Safety regulations and procedures must be established and followed everywhere. We don't care how much profit the railroads are making, nor do we care about their executive bonuses. It's irrelevant if they can't operate without threatening the communities they pass through every day.
That's where most of the "profit" comes from.
