New reports now indicate that the train that was derailed in
East Palestine Ohio had broken down prior to the derailment.
And even though employees for Norfolk Southern made it clear that they were
concerned about that seems like executives ignored it.
Here's a video explaining more.
>> Employees working on the train were concerned about what they say was
excessive weight and length in the days before it derailed and burst into flames.
>> Fire department report to the station for mutual aid fire in East Palestine.
>> According to employees familiar with the matter,
the train broke down at least once before derailing on February 3rd.
In a statement, Norfolk Southern said the weight was uniform throughout with
features to help reduce mechanical issues and that a longer and
heavier train used to run.
>> So of course, the company is trying to cover their tracks, no pun intended.
But the train which originated from Madison Illinois on the evening of
February 1st broke down at least once before derailing in East Palestine Ohio on
February 3rd, and that's according to an employee who spoke to CBS news
on the condition of anonymity, they don't want to be retaliated again.
Now the employees say there were concerns among those workers on the train
over what they believed was the train's excessive length and weight 151 cars,
9,300 feet long, 18,000 tons before it reached East Palestine,
which contributed to both the initial breakdown and also the derailment.
And one Norfolk Southern employee who spoke to CBS News said, quote,
we shouldn't be running trains that are 150 car lengths long,
there should be some limitations to the weight and the length of the trains.
In this case, had the train not been 18,000 tons,
it's very likely the effects of the derailment would have been mitigated.
We have more comments from other employees, but John Cenk,
what do you think?
>> I think the context is important.
So I'm gonna read the next graphic, the train derailed is considered me very long
according to Sarah Feinberg who served as an administrator for
the Federal Railroad Administration from 2015 to 2017.
Quote, when I was at FRA administrator,
I was not happy with the length of the trains and they were 80 or 90 cars long.
Feinberg said, this train was 50% longer.
So as we've been covering this story earlier, we told you that
the trains have been adding more and more cars to one ride, right?
And so the reason they're doing that is obvious if you have
two different trains going, you need two different staff and
there's other factors involved, but they all relate to cost.
So what they wanna do is longer train less staff to save costs.
Now, do they know that will leave less time for inspections,
less people to inspect less safety, right?
Yeah, they know all that.
And I would be surprised if in their internal spreadsheets,
they have not already accounted for a number of accidents that would result coz
they are not taking those safety precautions.
>> Exactly. >> And
then they put that into their budget and go, okay, we're gonna pay this amount for
the accidents, but this is how much we would pay for the extra staff.
The extra staff cost msore, the shorter trains cost more, so who cares?
We're gonna make more money this way, add more trains, add more trains so
we can keep on going with the gravy train by the again up but
not intended, but the government lets them do it.
That's why they do it, otherwise, they'd be afraid that there were would be
a regulator that would say this is outrageous and
have massive fines that would make it not worth it.
But we know with corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans,
they're gonna let them get away with everything.
>> In fact, just yesterday I shared with you guys that Norfolk Southern had
announced a $10 billion stock buyback program just last year.
So if you're wondering, what do they do with all those profits,
all they care about is maximizing profits, right?
Well, they have a generous dividend program for their shareholders.
I talked about that as well and $10 billion that they could have invested
into a better braking system, better safety protocols.
The things that would prevent these derailments from happening or mitigate
the impact these derailments would have, they don't wanna invest in that,
that's not gonna increase return on investment for their shareholders.
So instead they artificially bolster their stocks with corporate stock buybacks,
$10 billion just last year.
>> Yeah, there's no question.
So why does Buttigieg let him get away with it if you're again new American
politics?
It's because he thinks serving corporate donors is the right strategy and
all of these are giant corporations.
And so Buttigieg sent out less to protect us but more to do marketing on
behalf of whichever corporation he's supposed to be regulating.
So when there was those giant delays with Southwest, he did not come out and
say I'm finding Southwest for these delays and I'm gonna make sure that anybody who
was affected gets their money back and then some etc.
No, he came out and said no, we don't need to do anything.
Don't worry, it's all under control, everything is great.
Southwest is amazing, we don't have to regulate them.
Now he didn't come out for 10 straight days,
now he's saying, there's nothing we could do which is a total and
utter lie that his own transportation department debunked.
So his job is not to protect you is to protect corporations, and why?
Because that's where all the money comes from for their campaigns.
So I'm gonna read something from one of our members really brilliant point.
Make you see the Silver Dragon road in, I said this during the no show that's on
boss with Nina Turner on our network, will check that out.
But I have to say it again, Pete's only qualification for this position was
dropping out of the primaries and backing Biden against Bernie.
This position was his reward for that.
>> That's right. >> Now that's actually indisputable.
Like even if you ask the mainstream media reported they say, well yeah,
that's true, right?
So he has no experience in transportation.
>> He was the mayor of a small town.
>> And a very bad one by the way, like there's been a ton of marketing and
propaganda for Pete Buttigieg because he uses SAT words and loves corporations.
That's exactly what the Elite love, right?
But our own Jonathan Larson devastating stories about his administration is
South Bend.
African Americans are living with him and it was both incompetence and
a lot of racial issues in South Bend, you should read those stories.
But by the way when Siro to at the lever or Larson at TYT or
anybody else does real honest reporting about Buttigieg.
We've literally had mainstream media reporters go, yeah,
you guys don't like them, right?
You're biased.
>> I would love to like him, right?
Do the right thing and regulate these companies so
they don't get away with what they've been getting away with,
that I wouldn't be reporting these stories.
I'd be giving him kudos.
>> Of course, why wouldn't we give him kudos if he did the right thing?
Could you imagine he regulates them and prevent the accident?
We come out, we're like, yeah, we don't like people being protected,
on what planet?
It's like we tell them two plus two equals four and like I say,
you're biased against five.
No, you're weirdly biased and protecting him.
And by the way guys, it's good cop, bad cop,
right wing media is attacking Buttigieg.
But on his husband and he likes diversity and the railroad comes like
Joe Rogan today almost made it sound like black workers did the accident.
What has had nothing to do with any of that?
>> Listen, I don't know what Rogan said, I haven't heard it or read about it.
But what I will say is what Buttigieg did was he ignored what
happened in Ohio for 10 days straight spoke at an event.
And what he talked, he didn't mention what happened with the derailment.
All he talked about he made a comment about how,
We need more diversity with construction workers.
People who see infrastructure projects happening in their towns.
They wanna make sure that the construction workers working on those projects look
like or a representative of people in the community.
And look guys, I know that for a lot of people that's not an objectionable thing
to say and I agree, right?
But at the same time understand what quite honestly corporate democrats tend to do.
They have their own version of culture war distractions, right?
They'll deflect from real issues, including issues where corporations
are screwing us, corporations are making us sick and and they'll distract us with
other culture war narratives that in this case it didn't work, right?
>> No, in a lot of ways it did work.
I mean the lever has done an amazing reporting here and now,
some of the other outlets associated Press, Reuters are starting to come in,
but guys, that's exactly what I was saying, it's good cop, bad cop, right?
So Buttigieg in order to distract you from the actual safety problems and the and
the money that the corporations would have to spend goes,
it should be diversity in the workers.
And then Rogan and Fox News go, perfect, culture war issue, shouldn't be diversity,
should be all white workers or whatever the hell they're saying.
>> It's a good point and that's all,
that's the main focus that you hear in right wing media.
>> I almost know this is a little too conspiratorial, but
I almost think Buttigieg just said that so that people would
get distracted into a culture war issue instead of focusing on the real problem,
which is that he's choose not to regulate these companies.
>> That's right, I mean, I don't know if he's smart enough or
strategic enough to do that on purpose.
But either way, don't let anyone trick you into thinking that this story is about
anything other than the fact that both corporate Democrats and
corporate Republicans are in cahoots in allowing corporations to get away with
little regulation that harms all of us,
including the people who are living in East Palestine Ohio.
>> And last thing, right wingers.
So a lot of you make totally wrong assumptions about us and
like yeah you're gonna criticize Buttigieg and Biden for this.
Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the last two weeks, right?
You know why? Because we do honest reporting.
Right now, do you wanna know who did the deregulation in the first place?
Donald trump, now that doesn't mean Biden's not guilty.
It doesn't mean Buttigieg and
Obama aren't guilty, Obama should have pushed how to do, right?
But why are you guys so weirdly biased that they're like, yeah,
Obama should have pushed harder for the to protect us.
But Trump was totally right in stripping away all of our safety regulations so
that we could get bombed in the middle of Ohio.
And then Biden was at fault for
none bringing those regulations back that Trump wiped away.
Come on, you can't be that biased, I mean he bragged Trump bragged all the time.
I'm gonna take away all the regulations, if you have one I'm gonna take away two.
What do you think he was doing that for to help?
No that leads to a giant flame balls over Ohio,
he was doing it to help his own donors just like the Democrats.
It was those companies that are donating to him.