Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has been harshly criticizing members of the mainstream media and the Biden administration for failing to give enough attention and coverage to the train derailment which took place out in East Palestine, Ohio, and the controlled burn of highly volatile chemicals that seem to be posing a threat the health of millions in the heartland of American that it caused.
Both state and local governments called for the evacuation of all residents living within a mile of the derailment site and started a controlled burn of the venting industrial chemicals to mitigate the high risk of a deadly explosion. The chemical in question is vinyl chloride, a carcinogen that is known to heavily contaminate water supplies, and it was released from a total of five train cars in the form of gigantic pillars of acrid smoke which could be seen all across eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, sparking extreme concern for the quality of both the water and air for the area of the Ohio River Basin.
Known to be a newly elected member of the Senate, Vance stated as part of an interview with Tucker Carlson, a host for Fox News, this past Monday that the people living in East Palestine are obviously the victims of extreme incompetence and misplaced priorities of government officials such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“We have had hundreds of train derailments after we spent over $1 trillion on infrastructure in this country, so the fact that this isn’t getting obviously better is a major indictment of the people spending the money and what they’re spending the money on,” comment Vance. “Now we know, if you listen to Secretary Buttigieg today, that they are focused more on whether we have too many white men in construction jobs than he is on the fundamentals of his job, which is ensuring we have a viable transportation infrastructure in this country.”
Buttigieg has been noticeably silent about the train derailment for well over a week since the incident took place and several days after the controlled burn. He nevertheless made an appearance on Monday at the National Association of Counties Conference to speak about matters such as racial equity in the construction sector. The former presidential candidate eventually addressed the ordeal via a post to social media after being forced to deal with extreme pressure from elected officials on both sides of the aisle.
“My constituents in East Palestine have been some of the main victims of the fact that we have failing infrastructure in our country after spending tons of money in an effort to actually fix it,” Vance went on. “We are ruled by unserious people who are worried about fake problems instead of the real fact that our country is falling apart in some of the most important ways.”
Vance also highlighted the fact that numerous legacy media outlets have devoted minimal amounts of attention to the ongoing disaster. He claimed that they have historically been seen to neglect the issues being faced by middle America, going on to add that quite a few reporters are unwilling to push government agencies and other groups concerning the full scope of the disaster. Most notably, the legacy networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS have only given the disaster just under 30 minutes of coverage time, combined.
