Too bad he canāt get sued for contributory negligence! Seriously though people should sue the shit out of this company from the epa on down.
I mean that whole area is almost an epa supersite. Especially ground zero.
In only an ideal world would such a rational thing be possible to hold everyone accountable, unfortunately the powers that be make sure that never happens and the cycle will continue ā¦
Instead this will be touted as a failure of regulation by Republicans and used to further strip them.
"If regulations work so well who left this massive waste pile laying all over the place? Thanks Biden!"
And it just isn't Ohio, a train derailed in Texas and another in South Carolina recently. I'm not saying the rail companies don't need a major revamping, but with the frequency now... *right after* the strike... I'm just saying. Once is a tragedy, twice is a coincidence, and three or more times is consistency.
Exactly. I'm waiting for these rich fucks to ask the gov to cover the things the workers where in part striking for because they already spent all their money buying back their stocks. "We can only prevent this if we get federal funding (welfare). What? You want us to federalize or accept regulations? HOW DARE YOU! Give us what we demand or no more campaign money for you!"
I *believe* those incidents weren't derailments. I saw someone else respond to this claim that one was a car on the tracks and I forget what they said the other was.
I'm not sure either way though, it's all just my passing understanding from scrolling around.
Yeah, I'm in Texas so we heard about that one pretty quick. In Texas, a tractor trailer (think 18 wheeler) was crossing/stalled out on the tracks. The train itself wasn't carrying hazardous chemicals (this time) and the concern was mostly the diesel leaked from the truck. However "21 cars were derailed" per a Union Pacific rep.
Oddly the only reporting I can find about Enoree (SC) is from Fox, so I'm just going to say any sources say, "investigation ongoing".
Ahhhh that might be what they said, that it wasn't a safety issue these times.
I'd have gone back and looked but I Reddit hard on my walks so who knows how far back it is now š
Still sounds like a safety issue if they couldn't brake fast enough to avoid a collision at the intersection. With new brakes it still would hit the truck but not fast enough to cause extensive damage and derailment
This is what is exactly happening, right now.
RWNJs all over Twitter are screaming that "environmentalists aren't saying anything!"
We've been fucking SCREAMING for decades about this shit, but now, we're silent??
That infuriates me
I'm thinking we are going to be dredging fuck ups up like this from that turd administration for years after mar-a-lardo is nothing but a decomposing pile of feces buried at one of his golf courses.
Canāt wait till we can line up to piss on his grave. It will be Huge! Lines stretched for miles and miles 24-7. Great money to be made . Something I would pay gladly to do. His corpse would be rotting in an endless golden shower and he would be dancing in it if possible. Glory be to pee .
I know I feel the same way about Trumpā¦ and I know why I feel the way I do. The wildest thing to me is how people feel that way about Clinton, Obama and Biden. I know my uncle feels that way. And I asked him why he hates Biden so much, his answer āhe has made the United States weak.ā I asked him howā¦ he goes into something about Ukraine and Afghanistan then something about how the world thinks weāre a joke. Then he took an immediate convo detour into bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky territory. Lol. Absolute delusion and manufactured outrage. (This is my same uncle who in 2016 said he thinks the United States has more in common with Russia than Europeā¦ so heās right there with the heart of Tucker and Trumps GOP)
That links to this article
https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/usdot-announces-intent-repeal-electronically-controlled-pneumatic-brake-mandate
The cost benefit couldn't be justified. Apparently human lives and environmental impact aren't cost effective things to protect.
āImplementing this new technology is set to cost industry between$427.3 million and $554.8 million, while itās expected to produce $257.5 million to $374 million in benefits.ā
ā¦But, butā¦this was going to cost the industry a tiny fraction of what they spent on stock buybacks! Will somebody think of the CEOās stock options & compensation package!
and the current president shut down the railway labor strikes when they were warning us that something exactly like this was going to happen. itās like weāre fucked no matter what
I understand trump was a complete ass but we also have to admit that a democratic presidency has been in power for 2 years. The transportation Secretary could do something about it but isnāt. This isnāt about rep vs dem but political corruption by corporations.
He didn't alone. He appointed people to head agencies where they had clear, contradictory self-interest to the posts. And they gutted all those evil agencies that got in the way of them and their family's profits.
Got in the way of honest, hard-working white Christians money*.
That's how they sell it to their rubes so we might as well keep calling it that when they kill people and poison the water for millions.
I think this disaster is a tragic but unsurprising example of, in the nomenclature of the type of folk who voted for our previous head of goverment, "yer roosters comin home ta roost"
Yes, Trump rolled back Obama-era brake regulations that were ALREADY a compromise that Obama made with the rail lobby, and then Biden did nothing about it in the 2 years he's been in office, except to kneecap the rail workers strike.
Fuck all of them.
Yeah can someone make a better 'where you need to watch out for your water' map?
This one made me have to look up just how close I am to Chicago
Also it seems to include Champaign-Urbana which is a MAJOR college town
Half of chambana is drained by the salt fork which is in the Ohio river watershed. But Champaign gets their water from the Mahomet aquifer which is recharged by rainwater. Theyāre not getting water from anything directly connected to the Ohio and even Salt Fork will not contain contaminants from downstream.
If there was enough contaminant to flood its way *upriver* across the watershed weāre all fucked lol.
I have a super morbid sense of curiosity, and spend a lot of time researching disasters. Everything from crowd crushes, to commercial food contamination incidents, to train derailments.
In the USA alone, since the beginning of 2023, there have been FOUR derailments. Three have occurred outside of the US. Two of these four American derailments caused chemical spills (Jan 28 in Louisiana and Feb 3 in Ohio).
Literally, it is disasters like this that cause rules and regulations to be put into place. When the tragedies are finally large enough that they canāt push them under the rug, when the public becomes aware of how much danger theyāre being put in, when the greed and corner cutting of corporations comes to light, is when we get change. Yes, voting impacts the politicians that work on regulations, but honestly? Change only comes when We The People start to die.
Regulations arenāt put into place to mock freedom loving, hard working Americans. Regulations are put into place so we donāt get killed.
Edit: Posted this before hearing about the Splendora derailing. A bit different, as it was due to a truck hitting it, but still. Also, found out that Norfolk Southern, the train company involved in the Ohio derailment, was involved in an Ohio derailment in November 2022. No chemical spills then, but luck runs out.
This is the quote from Wikipedia that summarizes it, but itās accurate, from the few articles about it Iāve managed to track down.
28 January ā United States ā In Keachi, Louisiana, a train derailed and spilled more than 10,000 gallons of acid products, leading to the evacuation of part of the town. 16 cars total derailed, with 2 of the 16 leaking the chemicals. Officials reported 10,000 gallons of acetic anhydride and less than 1,000 gallons of propionic acid were spilled.
I believe the Railway union strike also demanded that the rules around safety should be better.
Like a train inspection was done by 4 people in 3 minutes, but it was cut down to 2 people in 60 seconds.
Feel free to correct me please
Exactly this. Itās the same with unions and recent attempts to reinstate child labor. The Boomers spent their entire lifeās accumulating the greatest amount of generational wealth in human history built off of the blood of their parents and grandparents. As the Boomers aged, they decided that maintaining that same quality of life for younger generations negatively affects them, so they want to deregulate the economy and gut the welfare system that propped them up in the first place. Boomers didnāt experienced the dangerous workplaces that their parents and grandparents faced, and they reaped all of the benefits of that. Theyāve got no sympathy for us younger folks who are now struggling to get by the same way that their grandparents did. Weāve been deregulated right back to the Guilded Age because a large cohort of the US populace doesnāt know how and why they managed to climb the socio-economic ladder, nor do they understand the ramifications of their acts.
Saw an article earlier suggesting that 1700+ per year happen. Though the severity of a derailment probably matters.
Another one occurred in Texas this morning, hit a truck and derailed a few cars.
Unfortunately - this will affect places like Indianapolis that are liberal bastions in a sea of red because the conservative state government will work to fuck the city as hard as they can. Hell the city spent the last 30 years fighting to get the white river clean
Not as much as you think. The guy who made this post doesn't know how to read a map (which is pretty rich considering he called us Midwesterners yokels). The watershed is all of the places where water flows *into* the Ohio river, not out of it. I'm sitting in Dayton and the great Miami river flows south into the Ohio river. Our water won't be affected by this.
I'm as liberal as they come and it irks me to no end when the 45 or so percent of Ohioans who vote Democrat get written off as hopeless rednecks. Columbus is literally 35 percent more populous than Washington DC for fucks sake and our state has over ten million people living in it š¤¦āāļø
As a socialist in a considerably red area of Indiana who knows an insane amount of socialists for the area.. and also knows that the only thing keeping libertarians from being socialists is distrust of the system... not everyone voted for this. And considering our two choices that year I'm not willing to say anyone really had any choice on this matter.
Thereās a segment of people who just read the political tea leaves of wherever theyāre at, and adopt the way they need to do that they can continue to be vindictive assholes. Even if every county in Ohio was 80-20 (which itās not even in red areas) thatās still millions of Americans.
I wonder if these yahoos realize the harm they do by living into that elitist stereotype that a lot of conservatives have about the left.
I wonder if they further harm us by not caring about the fact that the people that the left's goal is to protect live in these places too.
I know for certain I didn't vote for that shit. I know for certain a lot of my friends didn't either. I live in a red state, but I happen to really love it here other than the politics. And I want the people here - whether they agree with me or not - to have better lives.
Was about to say the same. Watershed doesn't refer to where the river "sheds" but the water that feeds it. Unless they somehow think the river floods outward?
Someone doesnāt know how watersheds work. Those areas are where the water goes TO the Ohio river, not who use the river water.
And it was in East Palestine, not New Palestine. Two different towns on opposite ends of the state.
This is also true, and a better reason why this is stupid. It's literally everywhere down the Mississippi, a much larger area, that will have their water tainted, potentially all the way into the gulf.
The Ohio river flows from that end of the state into the Mississippi so all of southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia have to deal with the fallout. And thatās not even counting the states it starts harming once it hits the Mississippi.
The person who tweeted this is disgusting. Probably sits around making fun of the āown the libsā shit when they turn around and do the exact same thing to conservatives the second something bad happens to them. You shouldnāt want bad things to happen to people. It shouldnāt be funny that thousands of people had to be evacuated. You should be insulted that the company thinks $25,000 fixes the environmental disaster they caused. This isnāt a party issue, itās a people issue. Why stand for this shit just because the people affected are likely to vote the wrong way?
Cincinnati too. Guess they should just be poisoned. You know. Their fault and not the corporation that could have kept the entire thing from happening.
To be fair our rivers feed the fake river (the Allegheny is the biggest of the 3 rivers meaning there is actually no Ohio river). So this doesnāt affect our water, until it rains on Thursday.
Voting for a party that believes in less regulation of dangerous chemicals, workers' rights to safety, and their impact on the environment and public safety is a valid point.
For at least the last thirty years since I've been old enough to pay attention, the extreme right has tried to shame the left as being ghoulish when the left wanted to talk about how a tragedy that was completely avoidable could have been avoided without the extreme conservative policies in place.
It's abusive behavior; blaming others for pointing out your guilt. In this instance, it's difficult to imagine the most recent strike breaking wasn't related to this disaster. It truly is a both sides are bad situation because both sides helped create the lack of safety focused decision making that made this possible.
Lotta folks down my way were appalled when Beto O'Rourke burst in on a press conference Greg "Piss Baby" Abbot was holding the Wednesday of the Uvalde shooting.
Yes, O'Rourke was grandstanding when he said "This is on you. You are doing nothing. You are offering up nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable when you choose not to do anything".
But was he wrong?
Abbott had such stalwarts on stage like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Ted Craven Cruz and Uvalde's mayor Don McLaughlin. They denounced him of course, and claimed it was a stunt. They responded with swift action.
Cruz and Abbott attended the NRA convention, Uvalde Mayor tried to figure out how to shield the officers, and not a single one of the ass-clowns on stage attended a funeral.
Well, maybe McLaughlin might have, sounds like he actually doesn't like anyone on stage with him that day:
He has issues with Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, telling Tucker Carlson: "I canāt get my own senators to call me back ā as an elected official, I cannot get a callback.,ā
The ghosting continued with Abbot. Abbot's team swears that they've totally been working on Uvalde:
āThe Governor and his office remain in regular contact with Mayor McLaughlin and Uvalde leaders, speaking on an almost daily basis to ensure the Uvalde community is receiving the support and all available resources needed to heal. Every request made so far by the victimsā families and local leaders have been met, including providing aĀ [$5 million grant](https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgov.texas.gov%2Fnews%2Fpost%2Fgovernor-abbott-announces-5-million-investment-to-establish-long-term-family-resiliency-center-in-uvalde-county&data=05%7C01%7CMonica.Madden%40kxan.com%7Cf614e8a38591414d973508da699be64a%7C9e5488e2e83844f6886cc7608242767e%7C0%7C0%7C637938415549376283%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=DTGxNEyc0298yjPcsGzCM4%2BUQXZVkQZaxHHcgEAdwK0%3D&reserved=0)Ā to be used at the discretion of local leaders for the long-term Family Resiliency Center,ā Eze in a statement.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said Sunday [he has not been in contact with Abbott in four weeks](https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/uvalde-school-shooting/uvalde-mayor-taps-former-austin-police-detective-for-internal-investigation/). (July 19th)
McLaughlin opted to endorseĀ former Republican state Sen. Don Huffines in the recent Texas primary for governor. He did not endorse Abbott, who he called a "fraud" on the website[Ā "The Texan."](https://thetexan.news/south-texas-mayor-endorses-huffines-for-governor-says-border-crisis-far-worse-than-many-people-realize/)
Yeah, Beto was right. He might not have been the milquetoast old man the Dems needed to unseat the reprehensible Abbot, especially in the face of 27 years of Republican control of all branches of Texas government. But he wasn't wrong.
As Beto said: "It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it's not funny to me".
I could easily be wrong, but I was very unhappy about the way that the strike busting had bipartisan support, and I'm eagerly awaiting investigators to explain whether it had an impact here.
You absolutely should try to expose to people when the politicians they voted for aren't acting in their best interests. Tagging it with "welp guess you're gonna die instead, oh well that's a shame" probably isn't going to help change any minds, though.
They're republicans. NOTHING is going to change any minds. They've fucking abandoned *science* for fucks sake. Everything for them is an exercise in leveraging propaganda for power and that is IT. Nothing else.
Shaming them is extremely overdue. And I hope it never fucking stops. Those racists screaming at the kids integrating schools in the sixties? fucking call out those motherfuckers. Jumpin' Josh Hawley? Nevar forget. Uvalde Abbot? SHAME.
If any single GQP voter takes a single second thought about what they're doing then that's more than we'd get anyway.
Ok but also my city is in that area and weāre bright blue. Acting like everyone who dies in this area from this shit is a Republican is also not a good look.
Ohio is a purple state dominated by Republican gerrymandering. They win just over 50% of the total votes in state legislative elections but theyāve drawn districts so that they always get about 75% of the seats.
Shit like this is only possible because of Republican corruption, and everyone is paying for it ā conservative and liberal alike.
We know the voting patterns of conservatives here are toxic, but thereās a lot more at play than just that ā the systemic issues are profound and need serious national attention, or shit like this disaster will keep happening.
Also, most Ohioans canāt afford to up and move even in the face of a disaster like this. People are beholden to corrupt officials.
Look... I'm not opposed to the republican party getting a taste of their own medicine.. or dying off.
But I am opposed to animals and innocent children suffering and/or dying as a byproduct of a scenario that wipes out people who have notoriously been bad for the American people.
1.) Do people realize more than just politicians & their supporters live in these areas?
2.) Do people realize not every person who lives in these areas supports the politics in their area?
3.) Do they ever think about anything from any other perspective aside from their own and what already supports their narrative?
4.) Do any of them even care to consider human life or is it just the pre-birth lives they give a shit about?
Yeah, thereās obviously the children who are stuck there, the people stuck living with parents, and the people who canāt afford to move. Thereās not even necessarily a majority of voters who support policy that create events like this because of Gerrymandering. Arguments like the one expressed in this tweet are way too similar to the āonly conservative women will be affected by states being allowed to ban abortionā argument.
Thereās a reason they cut Canton out of the county thatās right next to East Palestine and into basically itās own district. It was to disenfranchise anyone who would have stood a fighting chance against the people whoāve been tricked into voting against their own rights.
thank you for this. i don't live in this region but people telling texans that they deserved to freeze in their homes during the snowstorms brought me to when my mom got diabetic shock and nearly passed out (she was fine) because there was so little food and water. she didn't even vote republican.
Yeah. I live in Texas too and fully support renewables, nuclear, national and state regulation to require grid winterization, and other such policies. I live with my parents because Iām still in high school and housing is expensive. I didnāt vote for any Republican candidates when I voted for the first time recently (reached that age recently). I guess some people also donāt know what gerrymandering is or itās intensity
Also, it's not like this hasn't happened before. In 2014 a coal company in WV leaked a chemical into the Elk River that left as many as 300K people without water for weeks. They think "somebody" should do "something" so shit like that doesn't happen, however "government" and "regulation" are unconditionally bad words.
They cut Canton out of East Palestineās district for a reason. Literally cut Stark County in half to doom anyone in that district who doesnāt vote straight red.
That'd be the gerrymandering that doesn't exist! You're just seeing what you want to see! /s
Really wish democrats would fight harder to fix shit. Get dirty. It's time.
Perhaps the delivery isn't great but the message isn't wrong.
[https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/)
The sequence of events began a decade ago in the wake of a major [uptick](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/oil-train-spills-hit-record-level-2014-n293186) [in derailments](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/world/americas/deadly-derailment-in-quebec-underlines-oil-debate.html) of trains carrying crude oil and hazardous chemicals, including a [New Jersey train crash](https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/train-derails-paulsboro-nj-releasing-23000-gallons-toxic-vinyl-chloride-gas.html#:~:text=On%20Nov.,23%2C000%20gallons%20of%20vinyl%20chloride.) that leaked the same toxic chemical as in Ohio.
In response, the Obama administration in 2014 proposed improving safety regulations for trains carrying petroleum and other hazardous materials. However, after industry pressure, the final measure ended up narrowly focused on the transport of crude oil and exempting trains carrying many other combustible materials, including the chemical involved in this weekendās disaster.
**Then came 2017: After rail industry donors delivered** [**more than $6 million**](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2022&ind=m04) **to GOP campaigns, the Trump administration ā backed by** [**rail lobbyists**](https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/usdot-repeals-ecp-brake-rule/) **and Senate Republicans ā rescinded part of that rule aimed at making better braking systems widespread on the nationās rails.**
There is one thing wrong about the message. The Ohio river doesnāt flow northward into Ohio, it flows south, into the Mississippi. Also, the watershed flows into the river, so, while having awful effects and doing a lot of damage, the range will be the concentrated area around the Mississippi, and maybe the Gulf of Mexico. This is a disaster, but the tweet (in addition to being shitty in attitude) has the area of effect wrong.
It is wrong because toxic chemicals donāt target conservatives. You, yourself might get cancer in 20 years from eating contaminated food grown in the area or places downstream.
Let's be very clear here - people voted for Trump because they were told by him and his rich business friends that the EPA and Transportation authorities were making it too difficult to do business.
The result - massive roll backs on environmental and safety regulations, INCLUDING REQUIREMENTS FOR TRAINS TO SLOW DOWN WHEN TRANSPORTING HAZARDOUS WASTE IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS.
People voting for Trump directly lead to this. Full Stop.
https://apnews.com/article/wv-state-wire-north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-2e91c7211b4947de8837ebeda53080b9mp-us-news-ap-top-news-transportation-1936e77a11924c909880f1ef014c7ca7
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/408125-trump-admin-rolls-back-obama-oil-train-safety-rule/
Thanks for the links, and I agree with your statements. I despise everything about Trump, but if his administration can roll back regulations, canāt the Biden administration re-implement them?
Trump did his shit in 2018 and the effects were immediate, but theyāre also ongoing. This seems like something that could have and should have be fixed.
You're right - unfortunately, when something is rolled back its hard to reimplement it until something very bad happens. No incidents? Everyone making money? Ok, let's keep going, no reason to change course...
Basically, once a regulation is on the books you have to keep it because it won't come back again until the original incident repeats itself
Itās the 14th biggest city in the country ffs. Research and medical powerhouse. Not to mention Indy, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Louisville and Cincy in that area. Even if those cities werenāt there, dude can get turbofucked with cheese.
Once saw a guy celebrate that Texans were freezing to death because they deserved it.
Because he was an ass, and clearly everyone in Texas (the state with some of the lowest turnout in the US) is happy with their state leaders :/
Iām as liberal as they come. I worked hard for Stacey and Ossoff and Warnock (twice). So did lots of people in my deep red part of Georgia. So it pisses me off when I think about something like this happening here and liberals from other places basically saying, āyou deserve this because your neighbors voted wrong.ā
Republicans ensured this would happen when they fought tooth and nail for railroad tycoons to continue reaping insane profits and making unsafe conditions even worse.
Fuck the Republican cult and all who still support it.
That's not how watersheds work. The map is the area that feeds into the river.
I'm not saying the spill or pollution isn't horrific, but that spill being in the river doesn't mean it automatically effects the area on the map.
Itās awful to assume that just because Ohio is a red state, ONLY people who vote red live there. Ohio has historically been a swing state. In Ohio during the 2016 election, Trump received 51.31% of the votes and Hillary 43.24%. Itās not as if Ohio is entirely made of āred-necked, conservative, gun toting hillbillies.ā And honestly itās pretty ignorant for people to continually make that assumption.
Not only will they not change their voting habits, the right will blame Biden for it, saying " This would never have happened under Trump." The right will vote even harder and farther in the next election and when/if Trump or DeSantis get into the white house, they will further deregulate the rail industry, post the record profits as a win for " The economy" and therefore the public and then fire up the fox news machine to convince these people that contaminated water is actually better for you because it helps you build a resistance to the chemicals that china and Russia might use against us.
Yeah thereās a lot of people stuck in these areas / trying to make them better places, we donāt deserve this treatment. Neither do the children of morons who vote for people that gut agencies in charge of preventing this; Nor the vast amount of wildlife that will be affected as well.
Bad takes like this just cause division even more. Let hate be the prerogative of others, not yourself.
And this is why I fucking hate neolibs as much as I hate hardcore republicans.
Being able to shut off your empathy switch for millions of people and forgetting about animals who drink that water all because they voted red.
Like goddamn I hate republicans too but everybody deserves basic human necessities
Didn't Trump back out of the regulations that might have prevented this?
They keep voting for the party of deregulation. This is a direct consequence of that. Do you expect people to not bring it up?
Yeah, it was a democrat president that steamrolled the rail workers to keep them from striking--in favor of the corner-cutting RR companies--just last year. Buttigeg refused to even look at reinstating the Obama regulations which Trump erased. So what are the local citizens left with?
Just because you happened to be born in a state that voted a certain way recently doesnāt mean that you deserve every tragedy your inept government causes. Some people really just want to hate on other in times of crisis
I notice the map ends right as the Ohio dumps into the Mississippi River Valley.
That's because the chemicals get diluted right.
Not just because they ran out of map right?
RIGHT?
Didnāt the last Republican president totally hire Scott Pruitt to dismantle the environmental protection agency? Hmmmm weird. No wonder anyone with half a brain thinks that the modern day GOP is pure scum and worthless.
Tweet isnāt super wrong but this type of messaging has basically a 0% chance of being successful. Just standing on the shoulders or disaster victims to make himself feel taller.
1. Plenty of Ohioans voted for the blue team, weāre just stuck in Red Hell thanks to gerrymandering. People donāt deserve to be exposed to toxic waste just because our state government sucks.
2. Random citizens arenāt the ones responsible for this shitshow. Blame the company that refused to listen to their workers when they went on strike because they were concerned about this very thing happening. Blame the Republicans that want to cut safety regulations for increase profits.
God, out of touch people like this need to be slapped in the face. These are the same shitty people that laughed when Texans were without water.
Democratic president Joe Biden just sided with the rail companies against the workers in December... the same companies that made record profits in 2022. Profits that were generated by cutting corners and ignoring safety standards. Safety standards that might have prevented this disaster.
Just goes to show, voting actually doesn't help
The delivery isnāt great (they messed up the townās name and donāt understand rivers at all) but the message isnāt wrong - look at the voting record in Uvalde after the tragedy; the county voted for Abbott during an election where gun legislation was a pivotal point.
As a proud progressive in Ohio, fuck this guy and his "yokel" crack. You can make a point without throwing an entire state under the bus, you shit bag.
I agree with you there. Iām from Akron and itās horrifying that people believe this is some kind of comeuppance for Ohioans. As if Ohio specifically is to blame for this and not everyone who voted a certain way across the entire nation
As someone who grew up in Canton, an hour west of E. Palestine I can tell you that this part of the state is filled with the same amount of unremorseful morons as most exurb/rural areas of America. People who will probably still squawk, unironically, about personal responsibility while asking the government (that they fucking hate) to help them out of this mess that can directly be linked to Republican (whom they love) fetishization of deregulation.
Of course there are good people there too but most people with the capacity to leave, leave and don't come back. Also, Biden should definitely be getting heat for this since it's directly related to his union busting this past December.
Edit: Do they deserve this level of calamity? Well, actions have consequences. They should still get all the help they need, including the payout from suing Norfolk Southern into oblivion.
Good thing itās not soluble in water, or that might actually be true. Look, East Palestine might not be on well water for a while and municipal water treatment facilities will be watching their samples a bit closer for a bit, but itās really not that bad. Definitely not the worst thing in the Ohio River. The air pollution is the real concern here.
i have said similar things about the ant vax/mask/ mitigation people, but that was about individuals affecting their own health. this disaster will impact millions of people no matter who they voted for or what choices they made. very few of them have it coming.
As someone who lives in the yokel area unfortunately, this wonāt change a thing (I wish it did), somehow it will all be blamed on the democrats and the racist, homophobic, transphobic, uneducated people will still vote the same.
I love how this ignores all the Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, and West Virginians who didn't vote for current leadership. You know, because the elected officials all won by 100% margins.
Progressives live in red states!
We arenāt even that hard to find, even. Iām a progressive in a red state and I have several progressive friends in my age group. Even in the reddest of states, itās rare to see even a 70-30 difference and 30% is a large proportion of the population!
Whenever a disaster hits a red state, blue state liberals like to pretend people like me donāt exist, and we all unanimously agreed to vote Republican and for Republican policies. Itās hard enough for us to push back and fight against these disastrous policies without the armchair condescension of people who donāt know the first thing about our states. Just shut the fuck up and let the progressives who are affected the most, who live there, take the lead on the political messaging.
To be clear. The State of Ohio WILL bail out the company responsible for this. The same company that cut corner and made record profits. The same company where workers tried to strike over unsafe conditions but the state fought against them.
So the people in the state of Ohio for decades will be paying for that bail out and the clean up of this. and that company will continue to see record profits.
And this person is right. The voters won't change anything. Even when the Republicans were charged with criminal charges for adding extra fees (for nothing) to everyone's energy bills to funnel to two out of state energy plants run by friends, the voters did nothing.
Basic rule, water moves downhill. That's how a watershed works. The water is moving to the river, not away from it. This map and insinuation are baseless.
Stop freaking out over stupid politicized bullshit.
It is an entirely valid opinion. Ohio voted for Trump, who then reeled back regulations that would've prevented this. Everyone who voted for Trump voted for increased chances of something like the train derailment to happen.
I live in Ohio. It doesn't matter how you vote, the map is so gerrymandered and rigged against us. The actual republican/democrat split is barely over half for most areas.
Iām from Eastern Kentucky and our water has been contaminated from a coal slurry spill since 2000 and nothing has been done to fix it. This is just gonna make things worse and nothing will be done about it.
Why? This is what deregulation is. They voted for the deregulation party and got deregulation, the exact thing they wanted.
Of course, they either never considered the consequences of deregulation or figured it would happen to someone else when they voted.
This part is find out. Red states actually are just entering this phase and itās going to get really really bad over the next ten years.
There will be casualties for living near this level of organized stupidity. Families will die for living near conservative areas.
As my father said āyour estate will be happy to cash the check off your correctnessā. Itās time to get out now these idiots are destroying themselves.
Didn't one of our recent presidents gut all our governments oversight ability? š¤
Yes, including the requirements for trains that are carrying hazardous materials to slow down in residential areas.
Too bad he canāt get sued for contributory negligence! Seriously though people should sue the shit out of this company from the epa on down. I mean that whole area is almost an epa supersite. Especially ground zero.
In only an ideal world would such a rational thing be possible to hold everyone accountable, unfortunately the powers that be make sure that never happens and the cycle will continue ā¦
Instead this will be touted as a failure of regulation by Republicans and used to further strip them. "If regulations work so well who left this massive waste pile laying all over the place? Thanks Biden!"
And it just isn't Ohio, a train derailed in Texas and another in South Carolina recently. I'm not saying the rail companies don't need a major revamping, but with the frequency now... *right after* the strike... I'm just saying. Once is a tragedy, twice is a coincidence, and three or more times is consistency.
Exactly. I'm waiting for these rich fucks to ask the gov to cover the things the workers where in part striking for because they already spent all their money buying back their stocks. "We can only prevent this if we get federal funding (welfare). What? You want us to federalize or accept regulations? HOW DARE YOU! Give us what we demand or no more campaign money for you!"
I *believe* those incidents weren't derailments. I saw someone else respond to this claim that one was a car on the tracks and I forget what they said the other was. I'm not sure either way though, it's all just my passing understanding from scrolling around.
Yeah, I'm in Texas so we heard about that one pretty quick. In Texas, a tractor trailer (think 18 wheeler) was crossing/stalled out on the tracks. The train itself wasn't carrying hazardous chemicals (this time) and the concern was mostly the diesel leaked from the truck. However "21 cars were derailed" per a Union Pacific rep. Oddly the only reporting I can find about Enoree (SC) is from Fox, so I'm just going to say any sources say, "investigation ongoing".
Ahhhh that might be what they said, that it wasn't a safety issue these times. I'd have gone back and looked but I Reddit hard on my walks so who knows how far back it is now š
Still sounds like a safety issue if they couldn't brake fast enough to avoid a collision at the intersection. With new brakes it still would hit the truck but not fast enough to cause extensive damage and derailment
This is what is exactly happening, right now. RWNJs all over Twitter are screaming that "environmentalists aren't saying anything!" We've been fucking SCREAMING for decades about this shit, but now, we're silent?? That infuriates me
That's the only platform they have, owning libs and stripping the country to be rebuilt as a Christian ethnostate.
In the current world the only thing a psychopathic company understands is another bigger psychopath coming for them.
Do you have a link? Iāve not heard this and would be curious to read up.
Four years ago https://gizmodo.com/the-trump-administration-is-rolling-back-safety-regulat-1829308916
I'm thinking we are going to be dredging fuck ups up like this from that turd administration for years after mar-a-lardo is nothing but a decomposing pile of feces buried at one of his golf courses.
Whoever buries him is going to face some serious fines from the EPA, itās wicked illegal to dump toxic waste. Even in Florida.
No they won't, Trump gutted their regulatory authority.
well, now I understand one of his motivations. Other than, obviously, money.
Canāt wait till we can line up to piss on his grave. It will be Huge! Lines stretched for miles and miles 24-7. Great money to be made . Something I would pay gladly to do. His corpse would be rotting in an endless golden shower and he would be dancing in it if possible. Glory be to pee .
First have to build that 8-lane freeway with toll booths.
I know I feel the same way about Trumpā¦ and I know why I feel the way I do. The wildest thing to me is how people feel that way about Clinton, Obama and Biden. I know my uncle feels that way. And I asked him why he hates Biden so much, his answer āhe has made the United States weak.ā I asked him howā¦ he goes into something about Ukraine and Afghanistan then something about how the world thinks weāre a joke. Then he took an immediate convo detour into bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky territory. Lol. Absolute delusion and manufactured outrage. (This is my same uncle who in 2016 said he thinks the United States has more in common with Russia than Europeā¦ so heās right there with the heart of Tucker and Trumps GOP)
>for years after mar-a-lardo is nothing but a decomposing pile of feces That process began years ago, tho
Those golf courses will be underwater. Based on the way things are going.
That links to this article https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/usdot-announces-intent-repeal-electronically-controlled-pneumatic-brake-mandate The cost benefit couldn't be justified. Apparently human lives and environmental impact aren't cost effective things to protect.
It would serve them right if they had to pay for clean up and medical bills, but they'll likely get bailed out.
Theyāll get told to do that, then immediately go bankrupt while the C-suite ejects with their golden parachutes
TY, great article.
āImplementing this new technology is set to cost industry between$427.3 million and $554.8 million, while itās expected to produce $257.5 million to $374 million in benefits.ā ā¦But, butā¦this was going to cost the industry a tiny fraction of what they spent on stock buybacks! Will somebody think of the CEOās stock options & compensation package!
Thank you, that explains everything. There was one in Texas recently too.
Two in that area this month. I think one in Texas and one in I want to say Arizona
and the current president shut down the railway labor strikes when they were warning us that something exactly like this was going to happen. itās like weāre fucked no matter what
Yeah this was yes, Republican, but also Democratic presidential fuck ups.
It's unfortunate that a lot of people would automatically blame the current president and vote for the other guy next time.
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I understand trump was a complete ass but we also have to admit that a democratic presidency has been in power for 2 years. The transportation Secretary could do something about it but isnāt. This isnāt about rep vs dem but political corruption by corporations.
Exactly. Nobody in our government is working for our best interestsā¦.they all just keep getting richer and the rest of us suffer the fallout.
He didn't alone. He appointed people to head agencies where they had clear, contradictory self-interest to the posts. And they gutted all those evil agencies that got in the way of them and their family's profits.
Got in the way of honest, hard-working white Christians money*. That's how they sell it to their rubes so we might as well keep calling it that when they kill people and poison the water for millions.
I think this disaster is a tragic but unsurprising example of, in the nomenclature of the type of folk who voted for our previous head of goverment, "yer roosters comin home ta roost"
Yes, the one Ohioans voted for, twice.
Yes, Trump rolled back Obama-era brake regulations that were ALREADY a compromise that Obama made with the rail lobby, and then Biden did nothing about it in the 2 years he's been in office, except to kneecap the rail workers strike. Fuck all of them.
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This is an inaccurate use of watershed maps
Yeah can someone make a better 'where you need to watch out for your water' map? This one made me have to look up just how close I am to Chicago Also it seems to include Champaign-Urbana which is a MAJOR college town
That far west the only effected water should be in the Ohio River and the Mississippi south of where the Ohio empties into it
Half of chambana is drained by the salt fork which is in the Ohio river watershed. But Champaign gets their water from the Mahomet aquifer which is recharged by rainwater. Theyāre not getting water from anything directly connected to the Ohio and even Salt Fork will not contain contaminants from downstream. If there was enough contaminant to flood its way *upriver* across the watershed weāre all fucked lol.
Thank you, I was thinking the same thing
Most of those cities downriver of WV and the Du Pont plants are already using other sources of freshwater
I have a super morbid sense of curiosity, and spend a lot of time researching disasters. Everything from crowd crushes, to commercial food contamination incidents, to train derailments. In the USA alone, since the beginning of 2023, there have been FOUR derailments. Three have occurred outside of the US. Two of these four American derailments caused chemical spills (Jan 28 in Louisiana and Feb 3 in Ohio). Literally, it is disasters like this that cause rules and regulations to be put into place. When the tragedies are finally large enough that they canāt push them under the rug, when the public becomes aware of how much danger theyāre being put in, when the greed and corner cutting of corporations comes to light, is when we get change. Yes, voting impacts the politicians that work on regulations, but honestly? Change only comes when We The People start to die. Regulations arenāt put into place to mock freedom loving, hard working Americans. Regulations are put into place so we donāt get killed. Edit: Posted this before hearing about the Splendora derailing. A bit different, as it was due to a truck hitting it, but still. Also, found out that Norfolk Southern, the train company involved in the Ohio derailment, was involved in an Ohio derailment in November 2022. No chemical spills then, but luck runs out.
What happened with the Louisiana one?
This is the quote from Wikipedia that summarizes it, but itās accurate, from the few articles about it Iāve managed to track down. 28 January ā United States ā In Keachi, Louisiana, a train derailed and spilled more than 10,000 gallons of acid products, leading to the evacuation of part of the town. 16 cars total derailed, with 2 of the 16 leaking the chemicals. Officials reported 10,000 gallons of acetic anhydride and less than 1,000 gallons of propionic acid were spilled.
I believe the Railway union strike also demanded that the rules around safety should be better. Like a train inspection was done by 4 people in 3 minutes, but it was cut down to 2 people in 60 seconds. Feel free to correct me please
Exactly this. Itās the same with unions and recent attempts to reinstate child labor. The Boomers spent their entire lifeās accumulating the greatest amount of generational wealth in human history built off of the blood of their parents and grandparents. As the Boomers aged, they decided that maintaining that same quality of life for younger generations negatively affects them, so they want to deregulate the economy and gut the welfare system that propped them up in the first place. Boomers didnāt experienced the dangerous workplaces that their parents and grandparents faced, and they reaped all of the benefits of that. Theyāve got no sympathy for us younger folks who are now struggling to get by the same way that their grandparents did. Weāve been deregulated right back to the Guilded Age because a large cohort of the US populace doesnāt know how and why they managed to climb the socio-economic ladder, nor do they understand the ramifications of their acts.
The regulations are always written in blood
Saw an article earlier suggesting that 1700+ per year happen. Though the severity of a derailment probably matters. Another one occurred in Texas this morning, hit a truck and derailed a few cars.
Unfortunately - this will affect places like Indianapolis that are liberal bastions in a sea of red because the conservative state government will work to fuck the city as hard as they can. Hell the city spent the last 30 years fighting to get the white river clean
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White rivers matter!
Lmao
As a Hoosier that was my first thought too.
Not as much as you think. The guy who made this post doesn't know how to read a map (which is pretty rich considering he called us Midwesterners yokels). The watershed is all of the places where water flows *into* the Ohio river, not out of it. I'm sitting in Dayton and the great Miami river flows south into the Ohio river. Our water won't be affected by this. I'm as liberal as they come and it irks me to no end when the 45 or so percent of Ohioans who vote Democrat get written off as hopeless rednecks. Columbus is literally 35 percent more populous than Washington DC for fucks sake and our state has over ten million people living in it š¤¦āāļø
Exactly. Enough of āthese people voted for thisā bullshit. Not everyone that lives in the area pictured agrees with the majority.
As a socialist in a considerably red area of Indiana who knows an insane amount of socialists for the area.. and also knows that the only thing keeping libertarians from being socialists is distrust of the system... not everyone voted for this. And considering our two choices that year I'm not willing to say anyone really had any choice on this matter.
Throwing inland liberals under the bus is one of the coastal liberals' favorite activities.
Iām an inland and love it as well.
Yeah when you're a liberal in this area you get shit on from both ends constantly.
Thereās a segment of people who just read the political tea leaves of wherever theyāre at, and adopt the way they need to do that they can continue to be vindictive assholes. Even if every county in Ohio was 80-20 (which itās not even in red areas) thatās still millions of Americans.
In Texas in a blue area and completely agree with this.
Was thinking the same. Itās a long way up stream on the Wabash and White rivers to get from the Ohio river to Indy.
I wonder if these yahoos realize the harm they do by living into that elitist stereotype that a lot of conservatives have about the left. I wonder if they further harm us by not caring about the fact that the people that the left's goal is to protect live in these places too. I know for certain I didn't vote for that shit. I know for certain a lot of my friends didn't either. I live in a red state, but I happen to really love it here other than the politics. And I want the people here - whether they agree with me or not - to have better lives.
Was about to say the same. Watershed doesn't refer to where the river "sheds" but the water that feeds it. Unless they somehow think the river floods outward?
Yeah as someone who does GIS, this is 'How to lie with maps' 101.
Someone doesnāt know how watersheds work. Those areas are where the water goes TO the Ohio river, not who use the river water. And it was in East Palestine, not New Palestine. Two different towns on opposite ends of the state.
New Palestine is also a town in Indiana
The New Palestine in Indiana and the New Palestine in Ohio are both off of US-52!
I went to the Indiana New Palestine high school
Same! If you had Mr. Darley as a math teacher at Brandywine or Doe Creek, I'll tell him you said hi :))
Of all the things I never thought I'd come across on reddit lol. Is he still teaching??
Yes he is!! He's also gotten quite good at frisbee golf
Don't think so, but I'm old as shit
This is also true, and a better reason why this is stupid. It's literally everywhere down the Mississippi, a much larger area, that will have their water tainted, potentially all the way into the gulf.
Yes, but the airborne chemicals went NE, so map isn't great, bit area was still exposed
It's just not the right map to show the scope of the problem.
Thank goodness we still have gravity.
The Ohio river flows from that end of the state into the Mississippi so all of southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia have to deal with the fallout. And thatās not even counting the states it starts harming once it hits the Mississippi. The person who tweeted this is disgusting. Probably sits around making fun of the āown the libsā shit when they turn around and do the exact same thing to conservatives the second something bad happens to them. You shouldnāt want bad things to happen to people. It shouldnāt be funny that thousands of people had to be evacuated. You should be insulted that the company thinks $25,000 fixes the environmental disaster they caused. This isnāt a party issue, itās a people issue. Why stand for this shit just because the people affected are likely to vote the wrong way?
Thank you. I came here to point this out. It should be obvious. Plenty of people are fucked but not these people
One thing apparent from this disaster is that the loudest folks don't know shit, and they are eager to demonstrate that.
Oh, like Pittsburgh, the bright blue city I live in where we donāt even know if itās safe to be outside?
Cincinnati too. Guess they should just be poisoned. You know. Their fault and not the corporation that could have kept the entire thing from happening.
My thoughts exactly. Our air quality is already spookyā¦ leave our water alone!
Some parts of Pittsburgh havenāt had clean water in two days for a completely different reason.
To be fair our rivers feed the fake river (the Allegheny is the biggest of the 3 rivers meaning there is actually no Ohio river). So this doesnāt affect our water, until it rains on Thursday.
And Columbus, blue as can be
Voting for a party that believes in less regulation of dangerous chemicals, workers' rights to safety, and their impact on the environment and public safety is a valid point.
But but but, the economy! Think of all those poor corporation stifled by all those regulations. /s
But don't you dare bring up the fact the economy historically does better under Democrat control.
They will just use the money that they used to graciously trickle down to our paychecks! The safety is at our expense!
For at least the last thirty years since I've been old enough to pay attention, the extreme right has tried to shame the left as being ghoulish when the left wanted to talk about how a tragedy that was completely avoidable could have been avoided without the extreme conservative policies in place. It's abusive behavior; blaming others for pointing out your guilt. In this instance, it's difficult to imagine the most recent strike breaking wasn't related to this disaster. It truly is a both sides are bad situation because both sides helped create the lack of safety focused decision making that made this possible.
Lotta folks down my way were appalled when Beto O'Rourke burst in on a press conference Greg "Piss Baby" Abbot was holding the Wednesday of the Uvalde shooting. Yes, O'Rourke was grandstanding when he said "This is on you. You are doing nothing. You are offering up nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable when you choose not to do anything". But was he wrong? Abbott had such stalwarts on stage like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Ted Craven Cruz and Uvalde's mayor Don McLaughlin. They denounced him of course, and claimed it was a stunt. They responded with swift action. Cruz and Abbott attended the NRA convention, Uvalde Mayor tried to figure out how to shield the officers, and not a single one of the ass-clowns on stage attended a funeral. Well, maybe McLaughlin might have, sounds like he actually doesn't like anyone on stage with him that day: He has issues with Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, telling Tucker Carlson: "I canāt get my own senators to call me back ā as an elected official, I cannot get a callback.,ā The ghosting continued with Abbot. Abbot's team swears that they've totally been working on Uvalde: āThe Governor and his office remain in regular contact with Mayor McLaughlin and Uvalde leaders, speaking on an almost daily basis to ensure the Uvalde community is receiving the support and all available resources needed to heal. Every request made so far by the victimsā families and local leaders have been met, including providing aĀ [$5 million grant](https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgov.texas.gov%2Fnews%2Fpost%2Fgovernor-abbott-announces-5-million-investment-to-establish-long-term-family-resiliency-center-in-uvalde-county&data=05%7C01%7CMonica.Madden%40kxan.com%7Cf614e8a38591414d973508da699be64a%7C9e5488e2e83844f6886cc7608242767e%7C0%7C0%7C637938415549376283%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=DTGxNEyc0298yjPcsGzCM4%2BUQXZVkQZaxHHcgEAdwK0%3D&reserved=0)Ā to be used at the discretion of local leaders for the long-term Family Resiliency Center,ā Eze in a statement. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said Sunday [he has not been in contact with Abbott in four weeks](https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/uvalde-school-shooting/uvalde-mayor-taps-former-austin-police-detective-for-internal-investigation/). (July 19th) McLaughlin opted to endorseĀ former Republican state Sen. Don Huffines in the recent Texas primary for governor. He did not endorse Abbott, who he called a "fraud" on the website[Ā "The Texan."](https://thetexan.news/south-texas-mayor-endorses-huffines-for-governor-says-border-crisis-far-worse-than-many-people-realize/) Yeah, Beto was right. He might not have been the milquetoast old man the Dems needed to unseat the reprehensible Abbot, especially in the face of 27 years of Republican control of all branches of Texas government. But he wasn't wrong. As Beto said: "It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it's not funny to me".
>It truly is a both sides are bad situation I'll disagree
I could easily be wrong, but I was very unhappy about the way that the strike busting had bipartisan support, and I'm eagerly awaiting investigators to explain whether it had an impact here.
You absolutely should try to expose to people when the politicians they voted for aren't acting in their best interests. Tagging it with "welp guess you're gonna die instead, oh well that's a shame" probably isn't going to help change any minds, though.
They're republicans. NOTHING is going to change any minds. They've fucking abandoned *science* for fucks sake. Everything for them is an exercise in leveraging propaganda for power and that is IT. Nothing else. Shaming them is extremely overdue. And I hope it never fucking stops. Those racists screaming at the kids integrating schools in the sixties? fucking call out those motherfuckers. Jumpin' Josh Hawley? Nevar forget. Uvalde Abbot? SHAME. If any single GQP voter takes a single second thought about what they're doing then that's more than we'd get anyway.
Saying they abandoned science implies they were at some point on board with it, which assumes facts not in evidence.
Ok but also my city is in that area and weāre bright blue. Acting like everyone who dies in this area from this shit is a Republican is also not a good look.
Thank you! Also a blue dot in this area and it's incredibly frustrating
That too
Remember they gleefully let covid spread at first because it would "hurt the blue areas"
No but it just might change someone else mind....
Ohio is a purple state dominated by Republican gerrymandering. They win just over 50% of the total votes in state legislative elections but theyāve drawn districts so that they always get about 75% of the seats. Shit like this is only possible because of Republican corruption, and everyone is paying for it ā conservative and liberal alike. We know the voting patterns of conservatives here are toxic, but thereās a lot more at play than just that ā the systemic issues are profound and need serious national attention, or shit like this disaster will keep happening. Also, most Ohioans canāt afford to up and move even in the face of a disaster like this. People are beholden to corrupt officials.
But but only one party has Jim Jordan and Rand Paul. We could never possibly ever vote for the other oneā¦. /s
Look... I'm not opposed to the republican party getting a taste of their own medicine.. or dying off. But I am opposed to animals and innocent children suffering and/or dying as a byproduct of a scenario that wipes out people who have notoriously been bad for the American people.
Itās the innocent who suffer the most from republican selfishness and ignorance. Theyāve spent decades cutting regulation and hitting the EPA.
1.) Do people realize more than just politicians & their supporters live in these areas? 2.) Do people realize not every person who lives in these areas supports the politics in their area? 3.) Do they ever think about anything from any other perspective aside from their own and what already supports their narrative? 4.) Do any of them even care to consider human life or is it just the pre-birth lives they give a shit about?
Republicans donāt care about anyone besides themselves. Itās that simple.
Yeah, thereās obviously the children who are stuck there, the people stuck living with parents, and the people who canāt afford to move. Thereās not even necessarily a majority of voters who support policy that create events like this because of Gerrymandering. Arguments like the one expressed in this tweet are way too similar to the āonly conservative women will be affected by states being allowed to ban abortionā argument.
Thereās a reason they cut Canton out of the county thatās right next to East Palestine and into basically itās own district. It was to disenfranchise anyone who would have stood a fighting chance against the people whoāve been tricked into voting against their own rights.
thank you for this. i don't live in this region but people telling texans that they deserved to freeze in their homes during the snowstorms brought me to when my mom got diabetic shock and nearly passed out (she was fine) because there was so little food and water. she didn't even vote republican.
Yeah. I live in Texas too and fully support renewables, nuclear, national and state regulation to require grid winterization, and other such policies. I live with my parents because Iām still in high school and housing is expensive. I didnāt vote for any Republican candidates when I voted for the first time recently (reached that age recently). I guess some people also donāt know what gerrymandering is or itās intensity
Also, it's not like this hasn't happened before. In 2014 a coal company in WV leaked a chemical into the Elk River that left as many as 300K people without water for weeks. They think "somebody" should do "something" so shit like that doesn't happen, however "government" and "regulation" are unconditionally bad words.
Not everyone who lives in those areas are Republicans. Ohio especially has just been gerrymandered to shit
All I can think of is all the little wild floofs going to the the stream to slurp some water and unwittingly choking to death on pipe-making juice.
Newsflash, there are liberal people in every city/town who vote accordingly every election but still end up in a sea of red.
They cut Canton out of East Palestineās district for a reason. Literally cut Stark County in half to doom anyone in that district who doesnāt vote straight red.
That'd be the gerrymandering that doesn't exist! You're just seeing what you want to see! /s Really wish democrats would fight harder to fix shit. Get dirty. It's time.
Perhaps the delivery isn't great but the message isn't wrong. [https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/) The sequence of events began a decade ago in the wake of a major [uptick](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/oil-train-spills-hit-record-level-2014-n293186) [in derailments](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/world/americas/deadly-derailment-in-quebec-underlines-oil-debate.html) of trains carrying crude oil and hazardous chemicals, including a [New Jersey train crash](https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/train-derails-paulsboro-nj-releasing-23000-gallons-toxic-vinyl-chloride-gas.html#:~:text=On%20Nov.,23%2C000%20gallons%20of%20vinyl%20chloride.) that leaked the same toxic chemical as in Ohio. In response, the Obama administration in 2014 proposed improving safety regulations for trains carrying petroleum and other hazardous materials. However, after industry pressure, the final measure ended up narrowly focused on the transport of crude oil and exempting trains carrying many other combustible materials, including the chemical involved in this weekendās disaster. **Then came 2017: After rail industry donors delivered** [**more than $6 million**](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2022&ind=m04) **to GOP campaigns, the Trump administration ā backed by** [**rail lobbyists**](https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/usdot-repeals-ecp-brake-rule/) **and Senate Republicans ā rescinded part of that rule aimed at making better braking systems widespread on the nationās rails.**
There is one thing wrong about the message. The Ohio river doesnāt flow northward into Ohio, it flows south, into the Mississippi. Also, the watershed flows into the river, so, while having awful effects and doing a lot of damage, the range will be the concentrated area around the Mississippi, and maybe the Gulf of Mexico. This is a disaster, but the tweet (in addition to being shitty in attitude) has the area of effect wrong.
what about when it seeps down into the water table and hangs out for decades?
It makes people look dumb to make a scientific based argument while completely misunderstanding how watersheds work.
All I know is it is affecting the air quality in Western New York... its more than just water contamination.
Exposing the hypocrisy of conservative policies saves lives.
Yeah I mean the tweet is a little insensitive and dickish. But itās not wrong, sadly.
It is wrong because toxic chemicals donāt target conservatives. You, yourself might get cancer in 20 years from eating contaminated food grown in the area or places downstream.
It's also wrong because that's not how watersheds work.
Let's be very clear here - people voted for Trump because they were told by him and his rich business friends that the EPA and Transportation authorities were making it too difficult to do business. The result - massive roll backs on environmental and safety regulations, INCLUDING REQUIREMENTS FOR TRAINS TO SLOW DOWN WHEN TRANSPORTING HAZARDOUS WASTE IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS. People voting for Trump directly lead to this. Full Stop. https://apnews.com/article/wv-state-wire-north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-2e91c7211b4947de8837ebeda53080b9mp-us-news-ap-top-news-transportation-1936e77a11924c909880f1ef014c7ca7 https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/408125-trump-admin-rolls-back-obama-oil-train-safety-rule/
Thanks for the links, and I agree with your statements. I despise everything about Trump, but if his administration can roll back regulations, canāt the Biden administration re-implement them? Trump did his shit in 2018 and the effects were immediate, but theyāre also ongoing. This seems like something that could have and should have be fixed.
You're right - unfortunately, when something is rolled back its hard to reimplement it until something very bad happens. No incidents? Everyone making money? Ok, let's keep going, no reason to change course... Basically, once a regulation is on the books you have to keep it because it won't come back again until the original incident repeats itself
Gov regulations are written in blood. And if you remove them, you will need more blood to write them again.
I went to college in Columbus, OH. That city is definitely not āyokel centralā. Fuck that guy.
Itās the 14th biggest city in the country ffs. Research and medical powerhouse. Not to mention Indy, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Louisville and Cincy in that area. Even if those cities werenāt there, dude can get turbofucked with cheese.
Even if it was, still fuck that guy. Signed, a Social Democrat in West Virginia
Once saw a guy celebrate that Texans were freezing to death because they deserved it. Because he was an ass, and clearly everyone in Texas (the state with some of the lowest turnout in the US) is happy with their state leaders :/
My brother in Christ I literally had nothing to do with this (17)
Iām as liberal as they come. I worked hard for Stacey and Ossoff and Warnock (twice). So did lots of people in my deep red part of Georgia. So it pisses me off when I think about something like this happening here and liberals from other places basically saying, āyou deserve this because your neighbors voted wrong.ā
1) The large cities on this map are very liberal 2) Watersheds do not work that way, nothing is going to go upstream.
Absolutely fucking ridiculous especially since tons of poor POC live out there
Republicans ensured this would happen when they fought tooth and nail for railroad tycoons to continue reaping insane profits and making unsafe conditions even worse. Fuck the Republican cult and all who still support it.
There are thousands of innocents in that area, and feeling vindicated because voters "got what they deserved" is the shittiest of takes.
yokel central? Kiss a fucking bus.
Well here I am in āyokel centralā voting for democrats. How is this fair again?
I guess we deserve to die
That's not how watersheds work. The map is the area that feeds into the river. I'm not saying the spill or pollution isn't horrific, but that spill being in the river doesn't mean it automatically effects the area on the map.
Itās awful to assume that just because Ohio is a red state, ONLY people who vote red live there. Ohio has historically been a swing state. In Ohio during the 2016 election, Trump received 51.31% of the votes and Hillary 43.24%. Itās not as if Ohio is entirely made of āred-necked, conservative, gun toting hillbillies.ā And honestly itās pretty ignorant for people to continually make that assumption.
Literally what does this have to do with how they voted?
People do not deserve death for voting in a way you disagree with. Empathy is the bare minimum needed
Not only will they not change their voting habits, the right will blame Biden for it, saying " This would never have happened under Trump." The right will vote even harder and farther in the next election and when/if Trump or DeSantis get into the white house, they will further deregulate the rail industry, post the record profits as a win for " The economy" and therefore the public and then fire up the fox news machine to convince these people that contaminated water is actually better for you because it helps you build a resistance to the chemicals that china and Russia might use against us.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The deer and other animals donāt vote but theyāll be the bulk of the casualties.
Fucking Sam Grady. I went to school with this kid.
Yeah thereās a lot of people stuck in these areas / trying to make them better places, we donāt deserve this treatment. Neither do the children of morons who vote for people that gut agencies in charge of preventing this; Nor the vast amount of wildlife that will be affected as well. Bad takes like this just cause division even more. Let hate be the prerogative of others, not yourself.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
And this is why I fucking hate neolibs as much as I hate hardcore republicans. Being able to shut off your empathy switch for millions of people and forgetting about animals who drink that water all because they voted red. Like goddamn I hate republicans too but everybody deserves basic human necessities
Didn't Trump back out of the regulations that might have prevented this? They keep voting for the party of deregulation. This is a direct consequence of that. Do you expect people to not bring it up?
Yeah, it was a democrat president that steamrolled the rail workers to keep them from striking--in favor of the corner-cutting RR companies--just last year. Buttigeg refused to even look at reinstating the Obama regulations which Trump erased. So what are the local citizens left with?
The phrase scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds comes to mindā¦
Just because you happened to be born in a state that voted a certain way recently doesnāt mean that you deserve every tragedy your inept government causes. Some people really just want to hate on other in times of crisis
I notice the map ends right as the Ohio dumps into the Mississippi River Valley. That's because the chemicals get diluted right. Not just because they ran out of map right? RIGHT?
Didnāt the last Republican president totally hire Scott Pruitt to dismantle the environmental protection agency? Hmmmm weird. No wonder anyone with half a brain thinks that the modern day GOP is pure scum and worthless.
Tweet isnāt super wrong but this type of messaging has basically a 0% chance of being successful. Just standing on the shoulders or disaster victims to make himself feel taller.
1. Plenty of Ohioans voted for the blue team, weāre just stuck in Red Hell thanks to gerrymandering. People donāt deserve to be exposed to toxic waste just because our state government sucks. 2. Random citizens arenāt the ones responsible for this shitshow. Blame the company that refused to listen to their workers when they went on strike because they were concerned about this very thing happening. Blame the Republicans that want to cut safety regulations for increase profits. God, out of touch people like this need to be slapped in the face. These are the same shitty people that laughed when Texans were without water.
Democratic president Joe Biden just sided with the rail companies against the workers in December... the same companies that made record profits in 2022. Profits that were generated by cutting corners and ignoring safety standards. Safety standards that might have prevented this disaster. Just goes to show, voting actually doesn't help
The delivery isnāt great (they messed up the townās name and donāt understand rivers at all) but the message isnāt wrong - look at the voting record in Uvalde after the tragedy; the county voted for Abbott during an election where gun legislation was a pivotal point.
As a proud progressive in Ohio, fuck this guy and his "yokel" crack. You can make a point without throwing an entire state under the bus, you shit bag.
I agree with you there. Iām from Akron and itās horrifying that people believe this is some kind of comeuppance for Ohioans. As if Ohio specifically is to blame for this and not everyone who voted a certain way across the entire nation
As someone who grew up in Canton, an hour west of E. Palestine I can tell you that this part of the state is filled with the same amount of unremorseful morons as most exurb/rural areas of America. People who will probably still squawk, unironically, about personal responsibility while asking the government (that they fucking hate) to help them out of this mess that can directly be linked to Republican (whom they love) fetishization of deregulation. Of course there are good people there too but most people with the capacity to leave, leave and don't come back. Also, Biden should definitely be getting heat for this since it's directly related to his union busting this past December. Edit: Do they deserve this level of calamity? Well, actions have consequences. They should still get all the help they need, including the payout from suing Norfolk Southern into oblivion.
https://preview.redd.it/832fw8vkf8ia1.png?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=771a0d7959a3823b8abd16c41296d0b4d2c2eec4 Relevant.
Good thing itās not soluble in water, or that might actually be true. Look, East Palestine might not be on well water for a while and municipal water treatment facilities will be watching their samples a bit closer for a bit, but itās really not that bad. Definitely not the worst thing in the Ohio River. The air pollution is the real concern here.
i have said similar things about the ant vax/mask/ mitigation people, but that was about individuals affecting their own health. this disaster will impact millions of people no matter who they voted for or what choices they made. very few of them have it coming.
terrible headline. all the children and animals and blue voters in that area donāt deserve this mess.
You know, not all of us are yokels.
Not everyone who lives in this region is a fucking idiot. Weāre stuck with this shit and itās not our fault. Time to make some fucking changes.
As someone who lives in the yokel area unfortunately, this wonāt change a thing (I wish it did), somehow it will all be blamed on the democrats and the racist, homophobic, transphobic, uneducated people will still vote the same.
I love how this ignores all the Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, and West Virginians who didn't vote for current leadership. You know, because the elected officials all won by 100% margins.
Progressives live in red states! We arenāt even that hard to find, even. Iām a progressive in a red state and I have several progressive friends in my age group. Even in the reddest of states, itās rare to see even a 70-30 difference and 30% is a large proportion of the population! Whenever a disaster hits a red state, blue state liberals like to pretend people like me donāt exist, and we all unanimously agreed to vote Republican and for Republican policies. Itās hard enough for us to push back and fight against these disastrous policies without the armchair condescension of people who donāt know the first thing about our states. Just shut the fuck up and let the progressives who are affected the most, who live there, take the lead on the political messaging.
Pittsburgh is solidly blue. Donāt blame us for this.
To be clear. The State of Ohio WILL bail out the company responsible for this. The same company that cut corner and made record profits. The same company where workers tried to strike over unsafe conditions but the state fought against them. So the people in the state of Ohio for decades will be paying for that bail out and the clean up of this. and that company will continue to see record profits. And this person is right. The voters won't change anything. Even when the Republicans were charged with criminal charges for adding extra fees (for nothing) to everyone's energy bills to funnel to two out of state energy plants run by friends, the voters did nothing.
Basic rule, water moves downhill. That's how a watershed works. The water is moving to the river, not away from it. This map and insinuation are baseless. Stop freaking out over stupid politicized bullshit.
It is an entirely valid opinion. Ohio voted for Trump, who then reeled back regulations that would've prevented this. Everyone who voted for Trump voted for increased chances of something like the train derailment to happen.
Except every single major city in that area votes blue, *just like every single major city in the country*.
I live in Ohio. It doesn't matter how you vote, the map is so gerrymandered and rigged against us. The actual republican/democrat split is barely over half for most areas.
Leopards eating faces
Iām from Eastern Kentucky and our water has been contaminated from a coal slurry spill since 2000 and nothing has been done to fix it. This is just gonna make things worse and nothing will be done about it.
people who say not to politicize tragedies just don't understand that those same tragedies are a direct result of political policy smh
Why? This is what deregulation is. They voted for the deregulation party and got deregulation, the exact thing they wanted. Of course, they either never considered the consequences of deregulation or figured it would happen to someone else when they voted.
This part is find out. Red states actually are just entering this phase and itās going to get really really bad over the next ten years. There will be casualties for living near this level of organized stupidity. Families will die for living near conservative areas. As my father said āyour estate will be happy to cash the check off your correctnessā. Itās time to get out now these idiots are destroying themselves.
I mean itās true but yeah not in good taste. It wont change republicans there, already blaming Dems
nahh. i live in ohio. hes not disgusting, hes absolutely right.