Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

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I'd like to see the head of the EPA, the transportation secretary, the executive team at NS, and anybody in the Biden administration who was involved in blocking the rail workers from striking move into East Palestine and live there, with their children.

Don't want to do that because it isn't safe? Then buy these people all new homes. We can start the bidding at $1M per household.

I cannot overstate the fury that I feel watching this unfold. The people living in small midwestern towns, the type of town where I grew up, and where my family lives, are not disposable, and their lives matter exactly as much as the peoples lives who live on Martha's Vinyard, or any other rich enclave.

Can you imagine a tanker load of toxic chemicals spilling into the neighborhood around one of Biden's homes? Or on Mar A Lago? Do you think there would be this much feet dragging about cleaning it up?

It is further demoralizing to watch our President on a tour of Ukraine, giving away tens of billions of dollars to fight a proxy war, when we are having citizens of this country lose their homes to an industrial disaster. No acceptable. If there is money to fund a proxy war, then there is money to make the people in East Palestine whole.

I'm from the Northeast Ohio area, and also from a small town like East Palestine. The lack of response from Governor DeWine and malice to not declare a state of emergency is infuriating.

This rhymes with Flink Michigan's water crisis, and Obama "drinking" the water in a publicity stunt: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/posts-distort-facts-on-oba...

Vote democrat and only see the elite placate the working class. Vote republican and see unions and the facade of environmental protections decimated even further.

The fact this isn't covered in NYT or headlines on cable TV is insane. How is this unprecedented disaster affecting a major watershed not higher urgency than fucking balloons.

> The fact this isn't covered in NYT or headlines on cable TV is insane

Seriously, where is this idea coming from? Search the NYT, there's been coverage of the incident almost every day since it happened - not just the incident and its causes, but also on potential environmental fallout and meta-coverage of journalism and conspiracies around the whole thing. Many times it's been the top-line headline, at least when I am logged in.

I've seen continuous coverage on NPR, in fact the subject of this post is the current top headline on npr.org.

Every time I've been at a relative's who watches MSNBC I hear it brought up at least once during news hour.

My local paper a couple hundred miles away, despite thin coverage these days, has even had articles about what/any impact the fire has in our region.

The only event I've seen the has had anywhere close to the amount of coverage is the Turkey - Syria earthquake, which is a global level natural disaster that's killed 46,000 people and counting. I think that rightfully deserves coverage as well.

What national outlets are you following that you haven't seen coverage of this?

>Obama "drinking" the water in a publicity stunt

Yeah, they did an equally convincing photo op this time too. OhioEPA forgot to crop out the bottle of smartwater when they claimed to drink from the tap... and everyone immediately noticed.

https://twitter.com/flfitfactory/status/1627443706457427969

For what it's worth, while we are sending billions of value to Ukraine, we're not literally just sending cash. Many of these things have already been manufactured anyways, the money has already been spent. Might as well use it instead of throwing it away in another decade or two.

It's the same thing with space ships. The probe development cost $565 million, but we're not just launching that money into space. We're paying people and companies that money to produce a probe, which supports our economy and lets us go to space.

note: I'm not trying to draw a comparison in mission goals between a rocket ship to Pluto and funding the war in Ukraine

I see you got the actual point you really wanted to make right at the end, however poorly.

re: [flagged] lol, you can't criticize Democrats on HN. It's verboten.

> It is further demoralizing to watch our President on a tour of Ukraine, giving away tens of billions of dollars to fight a proxy war

Because this made it sound like on this trip he gave them "tens of billions of dollars", that's not correct.

> In his remarks alongside Zelensky, Biden said the United States would provide another half-billion dollars of assistance to Ukraine, including additional ammunition for the artillery systems the United States previously provided.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/20/president-bi...

>Because this made it sound like on this trip he gave them "tens of billions of dollars", that's not correct.

I'm sorry if you read that that way. That's now how I meant it.

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