In the new episode of our weekly podcast Lever Time, Producer Frank sits down with journalists Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook for an in-depth conversation about The Leverβs groundbreaking reporting on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio (1:50).
The group explores how an environmental disaster like this can occur, including examining the influence of the railroad and chemical lobbies, as well as detailing the regulatory capture of three separate presidential administrations. The group also details how The Leverβs reporting gained national coverage, triggered a public pressure campaign, and helped lead to a response from Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
A rough transcript of the episode is available here.
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It's the SAME...OLD...THING. It doesn't stop. One speaker said the regulatory failure has been going on over the course of at least a few administrations. Another called some flubs "illogical or nonsensical," and they don't "add up." Nothing about this matter is illogical or nonsensical, and it adds up perfectly. And it's stable over the course of a series of administrations. Industries pay legislators not to impose on them (and they clearly don't care about the consequences), and the legislators, who tell themselves they need the money, do whatever the industries pay them to do, or not to do.
This is the firm, predictable, and reliable problem of private money in politics. That's all it is. Legislators want to be elected, or re-elected, they want money for their campaigns, and they are entirely for sale to whoever pays them. Yesterday, the fourth of July, there were several or many shootings and killings. And Joe Biden offered the boilerplate "thoughts and prayers." Whatever anyone thinks is wrong with Biden, he should be able to come up with something better than that. We get that from Ted Cruz, etc. To the right of this comment space is a photograph of picketers holding a large sign that says "BIDEN: END FOSSIL FUELS." Someone has to remind him that fossil fuels are highly destructive (and limited in supply anyway)? A few days ago, a friend whose career is sentence reduction for convicts called me to tell me that the convict whose sentence she wants to get reduced has "OCD." It didn't make sense, and I asked a lot more about it. It was clear her client is either autistic or schizophrenic, but because the ACA is privatized, and her client, who is now a convict, can't get hired, his insurance premium has increased. So I told her to send him to me, and I'd treat him for free. But why did Obama not get further than a privatized ACA? Everyone at every government level is sucking a tit. They can't afford to care too much about the public, if it can cost them campaign donations.
Fred