Episode 285 – We the Poisoned: No One Will Save Us with Jordan Chariton

[00:00:42] Steve Grumbine: All right, folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. My guest today is my good friend, author, activist, news host, you name it, Jordan Chariton, journalist extraordinaire. If you follow Jordan’s work, you probably go back to TYT [The Young Turks] and remember him taking Donna Brazile down on the DNC [Democratic National Committee] floor. You remember Jordan from doing a lot of exposing of real truths out there at the Dakota Access PipeLine.

And, moreover, you probably know Jordan from his intense nonstop coverage of both the Flint water crisis and the East Palestine fiasco with the train derailment. And he’s my good friend and I get to join him, sometimes, most of the time, on Tuesdays over at Status Coup. Thank you for coming on today Jordan.

[00:01:31] Jordan Chariton: Yes, I’m currently on a non-dairy gluten diet, but I made an exception for Macro N Cheese.

[00:01:38] Steve Grumbine: Well, let me just say this, he is an author and he’s got an upcoming book. We will have Jordan back on to talk about the book, today is not going to be the time. His book is called We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans.

We will be getting to that later on, but for right now, we’re going to talk about naming names. And we’re going to talk about the media, and the fact that the media literally plays an integral role in covering up the news that probably most matters to the working class. Jordan has kept receipts and taken names.

And I think the most important part of this, is that we are highly dependent on these news outlets to tell us what’s going on in the world. And when they cover up the news and they prevent us from having the truth and they gaslight us, we make decisions for our own lives that are poor. We make decisions without the full facts, being able to impact our own lives in this neoliberal hellscape that we call the USA.

For folks who listen to us around the world, you’re probably not in a much better position here. Jordan has done great work in really tackling the subjects most just ignore. And if they do cover it, it’s very quick, it’s passive, they wave their hand, and they’ve moved on to the next story in the news cycle.

So with that, Jordan, thank you so much for joining me. Again, I really want to emphasize, you’re doing the hard work, the unsexy hard work, sticking with these investigative stories. For me personally, I’m very proud to be associated with you, so I appreciate the work you’re doing. Tell us, you wrote the Substack article and you laid out the receipts, and really the media is covering up stories left, right, and center. What is going on?

[00:03:26] Jordan Chariton: Yeah. So first, from a big picture perspective, I have been doing investigative work for about eight years and it really started to dawn on me that we are living in an upside-down media system. And what I mean by that is, in the old days, [you know, old days, meaning before social media and before, I would say the ’90s, when Bill Clinton deregulated the media, look up the telecommunications act of 1996], how it worked was, you break a big story and other outlets piggyback off of that. So, if one outlet breaks a big story, other outlets will cover it, credit that outlet and maybe even expand on it and do their own follow up reporting. Well, the hard part back then, was breaking the story.

If you’re an investigative reporter, building the sources, building relationships with sources, [where they’ll give you confidential information or even leak you confidential documents], pounding the pavement, going to different places, knocking on doors, digging up where the figurative dead bodies are- sometimes literal dead bodies- and breaking the story… that was the hard part.

The easier part was then, it spreading, getting broader pickup, getting media outlets to care. If you were more of an independent journalist, getting bigger outlets to work with you on the story, to publish it.

That tended to be easier. The distribution was easier. But now it’s kind of the opposite. And I have experienced this head on the last few years, because it is hard, still, to break the story. That has not changed. I mean, I’ve gone to Flint 21 times in 8 years. And that is how I’ve broken major investigative pieces.

Not to mention the- God knows- hundreds of hours I’ve spent on the phone with sources and going through documents. I mean, it’s not all based on being there, a lot of the work was not there, after the fact. But the harder part now, has been getting media outlets to actually cover, when you break big major stories. And at first, I just thought I was running into bad luck.

For example, my first big Flint story that I broke in Vice, was in April 2020. Well, there was something called COVID that was the dominant story internationally, domestically. And my story on the former governor of Michigan’s henchmen, [his right hand man going off and offering sick Flint residents payoffs to keep quiet], kind of got buried under COVID.

Alright. I thought ‘ bad luck timing-wise, but at least I got the truth out.’ Then, my next Flint story, I obtained phone logs of former Governor Snyder, his chief of staff, his health director, all on the phone like a bunch of drunken teenagers, 22 times in 2 days, at the same time that the Legionnaires Disease was spreading throughout Flint. And Snyder’s environmental department and his health department were all frantically emailing and communicating.

And I got Snyder’s phone log showing, he, too, was frantically communicating with his top lieutenants. We broke that story right after January 6, 2021. So obviously, that was the dominant story, it kind of got lost. So at first, I thought, alright, just bad luck, I’m not getting outlets to pick up my stories, or do their own coverage, because of these major events.

But as time went on, it became clear that I could literally find video of Rick Snyder pouring lead into the water, and Michigan outlets we’re not going to cover it. Flint outlets we’re not going to cover it. And this was not a case of, ‘oh, you say tomato, I say tomato’, just, ‘I think something’s a story, but a news outlet has a different opinion’, I was breaking, major news on destruction of evidence in the Flint criminal investigation.

I was breaking major news on the governor obstructing the investigation. I was breaking major news on the current attorney general burying financial fraud charges, not just based on sources, but I had receipts.

I had obtained criminal documents, and I could not get Michigan outlets to cover it. Literally, I was being gaslit by Michigan outlets. I was being told via email by editors from The Detroit News, “Well, wasn’t this already kind of known?” And I’d say, ‘can you send me the links to these stories to show me that this has already been out there?’

Of course, they were lies. All of the information I was publishing was all brand new, based on confidential documents, sources. They just didn’t want to cover it. I’ll tell you quick, in 2020 I literally drove to Michigan during COVID, because I didn’t want to fly. I met with one of the top editors from the Detroit Free Press in a parking lot, windows down, handing him documents.

We were in our cars because this was at the height of Covid, and nobody knew anything. I handed him documents showing Snyder’s phone logs, showing that prosecutors had concluded that his phone activity showed him and his top brass were covering up the deadly Legionnaires outbreak, not notifying the public. Those were the prosecutor’s words.

He said to me, and I quote, “this is major, we’re inclined to say yes, let me go back to my boss.” 3 days later… “We don’t have the resources to do this.” So, it became really clear to me that something ain’t right in Kansas, something smells wrong here.

And then fast forward to- I mean, we’d have to talk for seven hours to go through every instance of the media blowing me off or lying to me- but what prompted me to write this story, [about two weeks ago I released audio that I’ve had for a while], in 2019, I met with Sheldon Neely, he was running for mayor of Flint at that time, [I was in Flint for different reasons] he approached me in the basement of a church.

I think he knew who I was. I had heard scummy things about him, like most politicians. I guess he’s just dumb and didn’t realize that you should say “off the record”, and I would have to agree to off the record, but he never said that. And he just started talking very freely and saying some pretty scandalous stuff.

So, knowing the law, I pressed record on my phone and I recorded him saying some pretty scandalous stuff. He accused the most powerful foundation in Flint- one of the most powerful foundations in Michigan- of basically, pulling the strings that caused the Flint water crisis. He said that they’re the ones that chose the emergency managers.

For those that don’t know, the water crisis happened because the Republican Governor appointed unelected emergency managers. They took power from the elected mayors and city council, and they made the decisions that ended up switching Flint [water system] to the Flint River.

And we know what happened after that. He said on tape, “yeah, they’re the ones that pull the strings, they chose the emergency managers.” He also implied that they’re racist- the foundation. I don’t know, you tell me Steve, that’s pretty newsworthy. He’s the mayor now, he’s on tape accusing the foundation that funds Flint.

He also said ‘they don’t give a hundred million dollars to a cause, just to help out’, referencing that they gave a hundred million dollars towards the Flint water crisis. The implication being, they were trying to clean up some of their mess. So I published it, I sent it to every Flint outlet, every Michigan outlet… not one would cover it. Not one.

And then I learned that, interestingly enough, the Mott Foundation, they fund most of Flint’s nonprofits, including hospitals, cultural centers, you name it. And those nonprofits that Mott funds are some of the biggest advertisers to local news. Also, The Flint Journal, which, it’s in the name, The Flint Journal, they rent from a real estate company that is Mott funded.

So, The Flint Journal is renting- not directly from the Mott Foundation, but from a real estate company that is funded by Mott. Well, you do the math Steve. The nonprofits that are funded by this foundation, they’re the main advertisers to local media. And The Flint Journal, which you would think would report on the ‘mayor caught on tape’ on the foundation, accusing them- I don’t want to say directly causing the water crisis, but playing a huge role.

Crickets.

It was just stunning to me that none of them would cover it. And I had published it in the Detroit Metro Times, which is an independent alternative outlet. And they are not corporate funded, so they were willing to publish it. But the The Flint Journal, the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, all the local ABC, NBC, CBS outlets wouldn’t touch it.

[00:11:51] Steve Grumbine: What does that tell you, Jordan? I mean, as I look at politicians, you know I’m on record, I don’t buy into the electoral process at all in this country. I believe it’s the Oligarch Olympics, and I believe it’s there to manufacture consent and it’s there to keep us deaf, dumb, and stupid, while they rape and pillage the country.

And what you’re saying to me, isn’t making me feel like I’m really far off. This is local politics, we’re even talking. We’re not even talking about national, which we really have very little impact on. But at the local level down to the mayor’s office, these folks are on someone’s payroll.

If I was a mayor of a small city- or a big city in this case, I don’t think that I could morally cover up things going on, that impacted the citizens of my jurisdiction. And yet it seems like, not only is the media willing to do- obviously the politicians will all gaslight you and throw whatever they want at you- but the funding of these media outlets, and their reach, and their ability to have control over the narrative, it’s astounding to me. Because I know you’ve covered, not only the Flint water crisis- which is the subject mostly of your book- but you’ve also covered East Palestine [Ohio] as well, which is even more current in some respects. The same exact stuff going on.

Talk a little bit about that.

[00:13:15] Jordan Chariton: Yeah, so, that was the next one of this two week fiasco. By the way, I should mention, in response to my story, the mayor issued a statement moonwalking as fast as Michael Jackson from his comments, claiming I took him out of context- which I didn’t- he was on tape. And the Mott Foundation issued a statement.

So not only did the media not cover the initial story of the audio, then when the mayor and the Foundation issued responses, also newsworthy, media wouldn’t touch it. So that should tell you something.

Then you move on to East Palestine. As humbly as I could say it, Status Coup has led the charge covering this. We’ve been there 6 times, since this happened 16 months ago. I’ve gotten sick there, my colleague Lewis has gotten sick there, my cameraman has gotten sick there. We have kept in touch with residents and because we have stayed on it, the residents trust us. And that’s how you build sources.

So a source contacted me a few weeks ago and said, “hey, I’ve been texting with an EPA official and he just told me that they detected vinyl chloride in the soil.” And let me just break that down for your audience. Vinyl chloride is the toxic cancer-causing gas, for which Norfolk Southern- a multi billion dollar railroad company in America- detonated 116,000 tons of toxic cancer-causing gas over East Palestine. When I say over East Palestine, it makes it sound small. It was really over the entire Northeast.

A story just came out, that this spread to 16 states. She told me that, in text, ‘he acknowledged that they recently had detected vinyl chloride.’ Well, that was major, considering the EPA, since this happened, has told the public and told the residents they’re not finding it. They’re not finding it in their air testing. They’re not finding it in the water. They’re not finding it in the soil. So, I told her, well, respond to him and ask, “Did you notify the public?” Which I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to put it in writing.

He said, “No, we didn’t post it on our website,” and then gave some bullshit answer why they didn’t notify the public. I mean, this is major news. This is not like, opinion. This is the top EPA responder on the ground at East Palestine. He’s been there basically since this happened telling a resident, “yeah, we detected it in the soil, we didn’t tell the public.” He tried to minimize it. ‘It was low levels, yada, yada, yada.’ Well, EPA could say low levels, but the EPA also said Flint wasn’t poisoned. And what they think is low levels, I would like to hear from experts, not government officials trying to cover it up.

So, I broke that story. By the way, I reached out to the EPA. They confirmed it. They would not answer my specific questions. They would not answer the date that they detected it, probably because it was months ago, and it would show that they’ve been hiding this for months.

They would not tell me how deep in the soil they found it, which matters because under the soil is your groundwater. If it’s deep in the soil, there’s more of a risk to that vinyl chloride seeping into the groundwater that people drink. They would not tell me what testing equipment was used, because they dug out the contaminated soil. So what testing equipment did you use to make sure that it didn’t spread into the air?

And they would not tell me if they tested for the byproducts, because once vinyl chloride goes into the air, within a few days, it becomes formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, hydrochloric acid. Really, shit you cannot be breathing in without getting sick.

Wouldn’t answer, just gave me vague answers. I don’t know Steve, I didn’t go to journalism school, but I’m pretty sure that’s a major news story. Not a lot of things stunned me, but I truly believe that if I pitched the Washington Post, the New York Times, Ohio outlets, to do the story- meaning I would do it for them- I even offered to like, share the byline with 1 of their reporters… they would say YES!.

Only one outlet got back to me, The Washington Post, and responded “We’re going to pass.” “Thanks for this, thanks for letting us know though.” So I responded, [I was just dumbfounded] I’m like, ‘Let me get this straight, you’re going to “pass” on informing residents, who just had their small community and surrounding Western Pennsylvania- [so, not so far from you Steve], you are going to pass on informing them that the EPA actually has detected these toxic chemicals, and just forgot to tell the public?’ what does that even mean, you’re going to pass? that’s not you passing, you’re choosing to suppress this information.’

And I provided the receipts, not only the text messages, but the EPA email to me confirming it. Never heard back from them. Never heard back from the New York Times, AP [Associated Press], you name it.

In my story that I publish on Substack, I have a graphic for every outlet I pitched.

Okay, I decided to publish it myself. I send it everywhere, national outlets, local Ohio outlets… nobody touches it. A resident tells me, “I’ve been talking to an Associated Press reporter, he said he confirmed it and might do a story on it.”

I reached out to the Associated Press reporter. He says, “yeah, I reached out to the EPA on your story and they confirmed it, I’m just working on a couple other things right now, so I’m going to try to get to that when I can.”

Just a question: ” What are you working on that is more important than highly cancerous chemical…”-

[by the way, vinyl chloride exposure is linked to all sorts of cancer, and people are starting to get cancer in East Palestine. A man had to get double mastectomy because he had double breast cancer, which is highly, highly unusual in men, by the way]..

You know, I’m trying to be respectful. Human nature, if you just berate these people, they’re not going to do what you want-

but I said, “okay, I’m sure you got a lot going on, but I think time is of the essence, I don’t really think this could wait, that was nine days ago.”

AP still hasn’t reported it. Then I find out from the source who provided the text messages- she was the one that EPA official reached out to and told that they found vinyl chloride- that after my story published, a couple of local reporters reached out to her to quote, “get more information.”

Truly, I don’t even know what information they needed, because it was in black and white in my story. The text messages are there. He says, “Yes, we detected vinyl chloride.” He says, “No, we did not notify the public.” My story has the EPA confirming it. I understand sometimes outlets want to independently confirm things themselves. There’s nothing to independently confirm. It’s all in my story. Like the Associated Press reporter told me, he confirmed it with the EPA.

These outlets reached out to her. She gave them everything she gave me. Not one outlet, two weeks later, has reported this. And the bottom line is Steve, people are busy, people have multiple jobs, they’re taking care of kids. Most people’s, consumption of news is a couple minutes on the local nightly news or online. So, from these outlets, sadly, from these outlets, local ABC, local CBS, local Fox, local NBC, the local paper, whichever ones are left, because a lot of them have been gutted.

So, if these outlets are not reporting this- they don’t know about my Substack, most of them don’t know about Status Coup- so, bottom line, there are residents in East Palestine and Western Pennsylvania, I would say the majority, are currently unaware that the EPA detected the very toxic chemical they lied about not detecting, and hid it from the public.

Which begs the question Steve… What else are they hiding? What other threats lie in the air, soil or water? Because I have residents still to this day, not just in Flint, but East Palestine, sending me pictures of the rashes they’re getting from showering. Sending me pictures of their eyes, bloodshot. And again, I was just there in April and I got sick.

That’s why it’s important to go on the ground. I don’t want to get sick, but I can report they’re not making it up. What do you say, Steve, other than the media is in on the coverup. And it just so happens, Steve, Norfolk Southern advertises in a lot of media.

[00:21:10] Steve Grumbine: Yeah, no shit. Go top to bottom, I mean, just for the folks that don’t really have a full remembrance of Norfolk Southern in East Palestine. Pete Buttigieg- rat boy- literally, put his hands up in the air and said, “I don’t know what to tell you, I can’t really do anything about this, I’m not going to do anything about this.”

Joe Biden knew about this, and ultimately, it could have been called a ‘disaster area.’ The federal government could have swooped in there, could have bought up every house in the area, could have given everybody a new lease on life. Instead, they put these people back in their homes, built some random playground somewhere, and said ‘have at it’, and have done, really, next to nothing for them.

I mean, I’ve watched your coverage. I’ve, been a part of some of those stories while you’re covering them, when I’m there with you. So I’ve gotten to hear firsthand, from the victims, and listen to their tear jerking stories. I mean, horrible, horrible stories of the pain and stuff, that they’re going through.

[00:22:07] Jordan Chariton: I mean, not to interupt you, but it’s been described to me, by chemists, that this is a mini- Chernobyl.

[00:22:14] Steve Grumbine: Yeah, it’s insane. And the reason why I want to bring us back to this, is because for our listeners, many of which would focus on the economic side-

and by the way, I want to take just a 30 second pause here to tell folks, when I first met Jordan, Jordan had never really heard of MMT [Modern Money Theory], he had heard of it, I guess, sort of maybe. But now, working with him and diagnosing problems and realizing what the federal government could, in fact, do. To see Jordan understand the gaslighting on the economic side, folks, don’t give up on working with your friends. Don’t give up on going and influencing the influencers. Jordan’s got a huge platform. His credibility is out there. He’s a guy that when he talks, you should listen. And he’s understanding the economic game that’s being played here.-

And when you look at what was done to Flint, Michigan… every one of those pipes could have been paid for, had Joe Biden or Trump or, Obama or anybody else, any other president could have done it. Just like they had no problem saying, “we’ve got an emergency in Israel, let’s go ahead and kill some Gazans, let’s go kill some Palestinians man, kill some kids. Let’s go ahead and fully fund that shit.”

They don’t ever come back and say, “Hey, let’s make the US citizens whole.” NO. They’ll bail out banks. They’ll bail out corporations. They’ll use the media apparatus to literally disinform you. And then there’ll be these elites, these well to do folks, that want to stay in the good graces of these folks. And so they’ll stay mum on a genocide. They’ll stay supportive of a president that’s funding genocide, or worse, they’ll stay mum on a guy who didn’t fund the fix in Flint, and didn’t fund the fix in East Palestine.

So, obviously the response was laughable. What did the people at East Palestine even get? What was the “package?”

[00:24:14] Jordan Chariton: For the most part, the people in East Palestine got temporary relocation. There were residents, not just in East Palestine, but Western Pennsylvania. We gotta make sure people know, it’s not like that plume of toxic shit just stopped within a one mile border, it went into Western Pennsylvania. And a new report that just came out said it went as far as Maine.

But the residents of East Palestine, [and some residents in Western PA] got temporary relocation, mostly to hotels, some Airbnbs, paid for by Norfolk Southern. A flimsy, makeshift healthcare tent, or something like that, that was put up by Norfolk Southern, that didn’t actually treat anybody, just kind of gave you referrals to your actual doctors. And a couple PR events, like Norfolk Southern paying for an Easter picnic barbecue.

But for the most part, it was temporary relocation and testing, that, based on my experience with the EPA, as well as corporations doing their own testing-

Because at first, the EPA was allowing Norfolk Southern to do the testing itself, which is the police investigating police. Norfolk Southern used a contractor that is notorious for fudging numbers, from the BP oil spill, among others. And then the EPA’s own testing I don’t trust, because the EPA’s officials are on record saying, “yeah, the equipment we’re using won’t pick up lower levels of contamination”, which can still be a public health threat. And the EPA has fudged testing in the past. I’ve seen it in Flint and elsewhere.-

So essentially, they got testing [that I don’t trust, and the people don’t trust], temporary relocation and a totally inadequate settlement. There was a settlement announced a couple weeks ago for $600 million.

I look at the timeline. This is one hell of a quick settlement. I believe Norfolk Southern is settling now, a little over a year later, before the cancer surge begins in East Palestine. I hate to say it, but that’s going to happen, and I think they’re trying to settle as quickly as possible, to avoid that bill going up. Because once that cancer surge happens, then you start talking about lifetime healthcare, which Norfolk Southern does not want to pay.

[00:26:22] Steve Grumbine: The other thing that drives me insane about this, is the fact that, obviously, Trump had deregulated the railway industry during his stop. So, his part in this, the bloody hands on him, is the standard right wing deregulation. But with all that said, the Biden Department of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, they have tremendous power to regulate and to impact regulation.

At least that’s what we’re always sold, when we’re told we’ve got to “vote blue no matter who”, and ultimately, they didn’t change any of those regulations either. They allowed this. And when the derailment in East Palestine occurred, I mean, this was 100% caused by that very deregulation. So, you’ve got a federal government that created this and then, simultaneously, they stopped the railway workers from even being able to strike using an old antiquated law from what, 1919 or something like that, to prevent them from even taking care of their own labor. The whole thing fucking sucks.

[00:27:58] Jordan Chariton: So, I want to respond to that. This isn’t a criticism of you, because we have bought-off, corrupt media that doesn’t do any investigative work, even you don’t know the full story. Let’s go Flint.

The framing was always- ‘oh, this was just a tragedy, borne from government trying to save money, they were trying to save money, so they didn’t add certain chemicals that were needed, to the water, to prevent lead from leaching off’-

That wasn’t the case. This was about making money in Flint. It was a privatization scheme. There were city officials and government officials, in on a scheme to privatize the water system in Michigan, and Flint residents were used as a guinea pig.

It was about making money, not saving money. Now we move on to East Palestine. The media narrative has been- and Democrats like to use this because East Palestine is a conservative Republican voting area- “Well, this is what you get when you vote for Republicans.” “This was Trump deregulation.”

Well, deregulation did play a part in the initial derailment, but derailments happen all over America all the time, Steve. Most people are not aware, the massive disaster and health crisis is not because of the actual derailment, the crisis is due to the chemical detonation that happened after the derailment.

That has nothing to do with deregulation, that has something to do with ‘our country is corrupt.’ So, what happened was, the derailment occurred on Friday evening and there was a major fire. Yes, there were chemicals leaking out, but those chemicals were leaking out in a pretty compact area. It was not blown up in the sky right away.

Although a massive fire with chemicals is not good, it was contained to that area. What made this a disaster, was the EPA and [the state of] Ohio allowed Norfolk Southern, the company that derailed, to control the emergency response. NORFOLK SOUTHERN! Not the EPA. Not the local fire chief. Norfolk Southern was controlling the emergency response for several days.

[00:30:04] Jordan Chariton: They were controlling what the firefighters could or could not do. They were controlling the strategy for putting out the fire. And Norfolk Southern was the one communicating with the owner of the chemicals. The owner of the chemicals that were on that car, [Canadian chemical manufacturer] Oxy Vinyls, they sent people down there.

Who are you gonna trust, Norfolk Southern or the experts who made the chemicals? And those experts- and they testified to this- were advising Norfolk Southern for three days after the derailment. There is no risk of an uncontrolled explosion. The temperature of the cars is cooling.

Because that’s when you would actually have a risk of an uncontrolled explosion, if the temperatures are heating up. They were going down. And they kept advising Norfolk Southern, just let the cars cool down. You don’t have to do what they called a controlled burn, which is a BS. There is nothing controlled about. It is was an uncontrolled detonation.

Norfolk Southern disregarded the experts advice. And also hid from the Ohio governor and the fire chief, did not tell them that they were being advised by the experts against this. And they fear mongered to the Ohio governor and the fire chief, our experts are saying that there’s risk of an uncontrolled explosion. So we need to do a quote controlled burn.

That’s what caused the public health crisis, not the initial derailment, not deregulation. That is a different matter. And it’s important because deregulation is a threat to public health. But in this case, it was unnecessarily chemically nuking this small town. The owners of chemical cars testified to that, and the NTSB chair [Jennifer Holmendy].

She testified to fake populist Senator J. D. Vance, who right now is going around prostituting himself to become Trump’s vice president. She testified that, exactly what I just told you. Norfolk Southern was advised against this by the experts. They lied to the governor, they lied to the fire chief. And they did this because to do it the right way, which would have been. Take time, let the cars cool down, let the fire go out.

That would have taken probably an extra five to six days, maybe a week. And Norfolk Southern didn’t want to lose a million dollars a day. So they basically said, fuck it. We’ll just use this as a sacrifice zone. It’s fly over country. So I tell you all that because the media who just regurgitates what the EPA says, regurgitates what the corporations say.

They regurgitate, quote, “controlled burn.” It wasn’t. We actually got on tape, an EPA official saying, no, it was not. It was an open burn, which is against EPA regulations. We have the NTSB chair, the chemical car companies saying Norfolk Southern did this intentionally when they were advised against.

When that happened, I reached out to Senator Vance, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democratic senators, Republican senators, Democratic governors, Republican governors in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Basic question. Are you going to call for a criminal investigation into Norfolk Southern? How many do you think responded, Zero.

Actually, Sherrod Brown responded with , you , know, I’m furious, blah, blah, blah, but no call for an investigation. So, the bottom line is, the media misreports a story, so the narrative goes, Oh, well, red blue, the Republicans deregulated, that’s what caused this.

Yeah, deregulation caused the initial derailment, and causes all the other derailments that happen all the time. This one, the health disaster is because a railroad company was allowed by the government to unnecessarily nuke a small town.

When I expose that EPA is then lying about the toxic chemicals that are there, I think the EPA is covering it up because if they told the truth about what’s there, there would be no other choice but to evacuate the town. That probably would cost tens of billions of dollars in permanently relocating people which, clearly, you and I know the government has. But this is about not setting a precedent that the government can actually help people in an emergency.

So again, not one media outlet, Steve, has covered the fact that the EPA detected the toxic cancer causing chemical that they’ve been insisting they’re not finding and hid it. So what do you call that other than the media is in on the cover up?

[00:34:18] Steve Grumbine: Absolutely, I mean it is Insane. Thank you, by the way, for adding that nuance there, I did miss that. And that is a huge tie-in.

[00:34:27] Jordan Chariton: But it’s not your fault. How would You, know that?

[00:34:29] Steve Grumbine: Well, because I am friends with you, man.

[00:34:30] Jordan Chariton: I know, but most people do not have time to be an investigative reporter. Most people don’t get their own time ’cause they got kids and other things. So you depend on the media to inform you. Unfortunately, they’re not. And it’s by choice ’cause most of these media have way more resources than you or I do in our independent outlets.

[00:34:50] Steve Grumbine: Hey, can we take just two seconds to talk about that? I mean, the humor of me basically being in room A working, which is a privilege by the way, to work from home. I’m not going to lie, there is privilege there. But then, immediately, like rushing from room A, where I’m doing that, to room B, where my studio is, to do a show or an interview.

Then quickly, without even eating, rushing back to my job to do my job. You. This is your job. This isn’t like a part time endeavor. You literally are doing this live. Live! You are literally living this life man, and what a hard challenging world it is. Especially in a world where the social media companies that you have to depend on to get your work out there, stifle you with algorithms.

And people have to be more than a meme. They have to actually get past that first thought. I mean, you’ve got to catch them with clickbait just to get their attention. And you’re lucky if you hold them for five minutes. it’s just amazing. I mean, just take two seconds before we go into the third story about Kalamazoo.

Let’s take a few minutes to talk about the level of effort to get information out there. I mean, without people sharing it, without people engaging, YouTube doesn’t reward you, Substack doesn’t reward you, Twitter or X doesn’t reward you. People just take this shit for granted and it literally is the lifeblood of getting this information out. Talk about your experience because I know you’ve been killing yourself

trying to figure it out

[00:36:25] Jordan Chariton: To be honest with you, man. I mean, I’ve had moments even recently just saying to myself, maybe it’s time I do something else. I love what I do, but at the end of the day, I take pride. You know, my personality and DNA is not, yes, I want my work to have purpose, but I also want it to have impact.

And sometimes you can’t help but think, all right, I’m informing people who already watch me and who already support me. But because of all the things that you just said, and the roadblocks to distribution and getting stuff out there further to the masses, you know, why kill yourself? No matter what you find out, no matter what you break, if you can’t get it to the masses because the gatekeepers are locking the gates.

That’s what we’re talking about here. The gatekeepers of information are locking the gate. In a sane world, the stories we’re talking about that I broke, not even me, if anyone else broke the stories we’re talking about. We would be on the front page of most papers. But for me, it is very, very disheartening.

this is not about my ego and like, oh, my stories are not getting up. No, this is about I’m talking people who are sick. I have people calling me all the time who are sick and are slowly dying, and are depressed and have PTSD from East Palestine to Flint to Kalamazoo. I can name a couple other communities.

I gave my number to way too many people and they call whenever they want. And I don’t blame them. Because if, no media will cover you and there’s one or two that will, you’re going to lean on them. And I would do the same thing if I were them. But it’s exhausting. I probably spend 50 to 60 % of my time, Steve, now trying to get outlets to pick it up.

Beyond just gathering of the information, the building of sources. Frankly, I’m not going to let independent media off the hook. It’s dark to me. That’s been one of the biggest disappointments. We kind of expect it to be an uphill climb to get corporate outlets to cover these things, but you would hope that independent outlets, you know, the big outlets, from Breaking Points to Kyle Kalinsky to, you name it.

I like all these people. I like a lot of their shows. So it’s not a personal attack on them, but at the end of the day, there’s very few independent journalists out there that actually break news and information. I could name a handful. I think Abby Martin is the best in terms of foreign, policy and imperialism.

I think I’m high up there as far as domestic. Other than that, there’s few and far between. So you would hope that when you break really, really important stuff and you send it to other independent outlets. They might say, all right, this one probably won’t get a lot of but it’s important and we should lift each other up.

Yeah.

I’ve sent these stories to all the usual suspects, independent outlets. Hardly even got responses. And sure, everybody wants to cover their own things and this and that. But with all due respect, I’m a fan. At a certain point, all right, we’ve done 40 videos on Brianna Joy Gray getting fired from the Hill, which I don’t think she should have.

And I think. is newsworthy and is scandalous, but how many videos do we need on this? We’re breaking a town was chemically nuked and the federal government is covering it up. You can’t make that clicky? How many videos do we need responding to something horrible or stupid?

Ben Shapiro said, or,Candace Owens, it’s all junk. And I understand people need to pay the bills, and the algorithm rewards that kind of shit. Even, very occasionally, I’ll even, do some popcorn and clickbait from time to time. But at the end of the day, if we can’t even get independent media to lift up these stories, then we’re in real trouble. And, you know, you’ve got to be careful about that. Because I don’t want to bite the hand that occasionally feeds me. I give great credit to Breaking Points.

We have been a content partner with them. So they published our Flint documentary in April. You could go watch that at flintfatigue. com. They published it and it got nearly 50, 000 views. It probably would have got a thousand on my channel. they didn’t have to do that. So I appreciate it.

You know, they published some of my work from East Palestine, some of my work in Kalamazoo. So it’s not all bad, but at the end of the day, I mean, I haven’t been able to get any independent outlets to cover these stories, which makes you scratch your head. If corporate ain’t gonna cover it, if independent’s not gonna cover it.

Then what do you do? Do you just publish these things your Substack and be happy with a couple thousand people seeing it? I mean, I’m certainly not happy if that’s it. And you know, some people might say, well, Jordan, it’s on you to market it and spread it. Well, if you want to come sit at my desk and see all the obstacles, including algorithmic suppression on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube, owned by Google.

if you want to see. All of these outlets that are basically hiding our content. If you have a magic formula to get around that, I am all ears.

[00:41:08] Steve Grumbine: We experience this, obviously to a lesser degree, but we cover macroeconomics most of the time. And many of the people in this space will not be able not even give us a courtesy tweet. Not even give a courtesy retweet. Not even, you know, recommend it. It’s like [South Carolina Rep. James] Clyburn putting his hand on [Bill] Bubba Clinton and the black churches down South.

The people that could literally lift you up and put you out to the open sea to get out there, are the gatekeepers. And they literally don’t think you’re worth the time a day to even give a simple retweet. it’s Brutally painful and it doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of your work. Doesn’t have anything to do with the value of your work.

it’s literally like a mean girls or mean guys club where just elitist and little teeny pockets of people supporting one another. Some do it great, some do it poorly. But at the end of the day, we are literally trapped in the fake world that we get from our politicians. And a fake world that we get from the corporatemedia., the important stuff doesn’t make it out there.

I give credit to the Tic-Tockers and the people in Palestine and Gaza who are making folks pay attention to genocide. At least that’s happening. I do know some people that really should be paying attention to it, but haven’t said word one. But, that notwithstanding, it’s amazing that any of us get anywhere with this stuff.

Because the algorithms, once again. it’s like the big farming, you know, You’ve got the big agriculture and the government supports big ag but literally kills the small farmers. It’s the same thing with media. They have given all the power to these companies and they were hand-in-glove with the government. And whenever you say something, I mean, we have a book, a single book called The Case For A Job Guarantee by Pavlina Tcherneva, that book literally will get you banned on Facebook because their algorithm says that you’re trying to collect sensitive information.

And so she’s like, how in the world can I take my academic book and get it past these gatekeepers? Because literally, if you post about it on Facebook, you’ll get a warning it’ll be removed, and you’ll be told any more strikes and you’re going to have your account suspended. Stupid stuff like that. I mean, that’s how suppressed information not approved by the corporate media outlets is.

[00:43:29] Jordan Chariton: The bottom line is, there’s a basic mismatch between what I do and the few independent outlets do. The few independent journalists, I should say, so people who actually like are out there and, you know, trying to break stories and the majority of the rest of the media. And this isn’t an attack on them.

It is what it is. I mean, I had this when I was at TYT bottom line is I’m a journalist and Cenk [Uygur] and most of the TYT people are shock jock radio people on the Internet, commentators. They’re not journalists. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means you gravitate and are interested in probably more sensational or hot takey or what’s in the Zeitgeist food fight right now.

Then, you know, poor communities being poisoned. It doesn’t mean like, once you find out about those poor people being poisoned, you don’t care. It just means that’s not naturally the stuff you want to cover on a consistent basis. So there is a mismatch where hosts with big platforms claim that they care about this stuff.

But if there’s a choice between covering that stuff, we are not talking about just important stories. We’re talking about life or death, public health threats life or death, public health threats. So if you have a choice between covering that

versus I don’t know Brianna Joy Grey got fired wrongly over Israel, which I am not saying they should not have covered, they are going to go with that. And. human nature, their going go with probably what know gets more clicks. And it’s getting more clicks because YouTube, their algorithm literally tilts towards that reactionary stuff.

So, it’s a real mismatch and then you add in the corporate outlets, you know, people talk about the lack of diversity in media. The problem with media is not just a lack of diversity in terms of skin color or gender. That is a problem. The lack of diversity is about geography. The majority of our media is consolidated in New York, D. C., Los Angeles, and Chicago.

I mean, these are not exactly places of severe struggle, for the most part, and the people covering these stories, you know, for example, in Flint, the reporters that quote unquote cover Flint don’t live in Flint. They live outside suburbs, same thing in Detroit.

The pundits pontificating on CNN, on MSNBC, or writing in the New York Times, Washington Post. They live in Georgetown, in the Upper West Side. Some of the wealthiest areas. It doesn’t make them bad people, but how can you expect them to care when they are just completely disconnected?

That’s why, and I’ve told my wife, it’s not that I want to leave you to go travel. It’s, I get disconnected from what’s really going on the longer I’m not on the road. And I can’t do my job if I’m disconnected. So anyway, I could go on forever, but there is a real mismatch.

[00:46:25] Steve Grumbine: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the nuance you added to that. Let’s go to the third story here about [Atlanta-based] Graphic Packaging International in Kalamazoo, MIchigan.

[00:46:35] Jordan Chariton: This one just, if the other two didn’t stun you, this will knock your socks off. I’ve been there. there is a paper mill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is the Western part of Michigan, that is a multi billion dollar packaging company. So a lot of your food, you know, beer bottles, whatever, comes from Graphic Packaging bottles and containers.

And they have a paper mill in Kalamazoo that recycles paper board. Well, a lot of paper mills smell around the country because they’re releasing all sorts of shit, but there’s a difference between a, you know, a bad smell and a deadly, deadly gas. Well, this paper mill has been releasing deadly levels of gases into a poor black community.

It’s hard to tell how long, but for several decades, at least. And there have been complaints after complaints after complaints from the mostly poor black residents of the Northside that are in the backyard of this plant. And I found out about it a couple of years ago. And again, you could talk to residents, but you don’t know until you go.

So, I went last year and I went live next to the plant. I literally could not breathe. I was delirious next to the plant. I was dizzy. And I could not believe people live next to this plant. Then I went to talk to a resident who lives a block and a half away. Still, same feelings. Pressure under my eyes. Feeling delirious, headaches, my cameraman, Colin, had a headache for two weeks after leaving. The residents there, I talked to a, mother.[who] lost her 17 year old daughter to a severe asthma attack, lives a block away from the paper mill . Just lost a couple of months ago, her 32 year old son, they believe from a severe asthma attack. But very suspiciously, the health department has still not given her her son’s body or paperwork with a cause of death. In this neighborhood, asthma rates are through the roof.

COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] is through the roof. They will not allow the local daycare kids are not allowed outside for recess. It is not too strong to say they’re gassing this community. My opinion, like many of these other communities, some corporations are the economy. Graphic Packaging employs about 600 people there.

They contribute to a lot of the schools, food pantries, nonprofits. It’s a big economic driver. So I think politicians look the other way. Okay. Well, this has been going on for a while, long before Gretchen Whitmer. But Gretchen Whitmer got in as governor in 2019. Her environmental department issued this packaging company, environmental violations for air pollution and odor.

Her health department after a lot of pressure, commissioned a study to study the health effects of what they’re releasing.

Despite all of these complaints from residents, despite her own environmental department, issuing pollution and odor violations. She approved 21 million in tax breaks for this company so that they could expand.

Expand meaning expand the gases they’re releasing. Expand production. Then in 2021, her Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which is just a fancy phrase for a board of donors. It’s a cesspool. Michigan’s not the only one with it. They approved, through her administration, $125M in bonds. For Graphic Packaging. For their expansion. So she knowingly helped, financially, this company expand. By the way, they didn’t need any money from the government. Their net worth is $8 billion.

They expanded in 2022. And since that expansion, it has only gotten worse. Literally residents cannot have guests over. Because guests want to leave. The smell of the odor goes through people’s homes. Finally, last year, after delaying it for three years, the health department released their study, which– shocker –showed that a Graphic Packaging is releasing a hydrogen sulfide at far greater levels than is, quote, environmentally allowed.

And most of the allowable limits that the EPA set are bullshit anyway. But anyway, it revealed that they are releasing hydrogen sulfide at far higher levels than are allowed. Hydrogen sulfide causes respiratory issues, eye irritation which everybody is experiencing there. That study was, I think, pretty shoddy. They did not test for a lot of the other chemicals that the plant is releasing, but at least they admitted they’re releasing hazardous levels of this. So, Steve, obviously, they shut the plant right? No, they did not shut the plant down. So all of this, I found out as I was reporting this, that Graphic Packaging advertises at a lot of the local outlets.

So these local outlets will only cover it to a certain end. Really only like he said, she said, kind of reporting. But always bending over backwards, you know, to minimize it and make it seem like, Oh, well, Graphic Packaging is working to contain the problem. Well, you can’t contain the problem because they’re gassing a community.

And I would encourage people to go to see for themselves, but I don’t want people to get sick. So you could take it for me. I got sick. My cameraman got sick. And the residents are sick. Politicians aren’t working on their behalf. So, recently residents , as in the case of Flint, as in the case of East Palestine, have had to do the job of politicians.

So, an activist there has been filing complaints with the EPA, the Health [Department], Department of Justice, you name it. Recently I found out that, the Department of Justice referred this matter to the FBI. The FBI contacted one of the residents I know. I have emails and screenshots to confirm this.

And the FBI, among other questions that they asked, including questions about the financial relationship between Graphic Packaging and local city officials. The FBI was looking into just why did Governor Whitmer approve a major tax break for this company? And wanted to look into the bond deal that Ms. Whitmer approved for Graphic Packaging.

You would, obviously, want to look into this because her own environmental department issued over a dozen violations against this company. That’s a starting point. Hey, why did you do this? I don’t know, Steve. Kind of think it’s a big deal. it’s not to say the FBI is directly investigating only Gretchen Whitmer.

But part of their investigation is looking into the governor and her decisions and financial relationships with this company. So I report that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Steve, mainstream media has been slobbering over Gretchen Whitmer for years. They have propped her up, potentially as the successor for the Democratic Party in 2028.

There’s been puff pieces about her and profiles in the Times, Washington Post, a bunch of other places. I would think that a story about the FBI looking into Gretchen Whitmer might get a mention in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, Kalamazoo’s own papers. How many outlets do you covered it Steve?

[00:53:33] Steve Grumbine: Zero, Oh my God!

[00:53:37] Jordan Chariton: Every story I’m telling you about, not one official has disputed my reporting. This isn’t like it’s being, you know, challenged factually. You know, we all make mistakes as journalists. If I make a mistake, I correct it. Most of the time, the politicians won’t even respond to my request, like, Whitmer’s people didn’t respond.

Graphic Packaging didn’t respond to me. The mayor of Kalamazoo didn’t respond. And why would they? They know the media is not going to cover it, so why would they respond? So, it’s all factual. And the media is just choosing to cover it up. And I found out, I won’t name which outlet, because I was told it in confidence.

But a major outlet in Michigan told one of the residents, yeah, I can’t move story further because they’re an advertiser. you don’t get more black and white corrupt than that.

[00:54:20] Steve Grumbine: No, you Jordan, this is like disgusting.

[00:54:26] Jordan Chariton: By the way, for your international audience, I can’t say this for sure because I’m a journalist in America. My strong guess is a lot of this goes on in other countries too.

I was going to say, you bring this up frequently in our talks that you’re only covering these tiny little things. You know, that this is not some weird isolated incident that this is happening throughout the country. I mean, you even went to West Virginia. And covered this stuff as well.

West Virginia didn’t get covered either.

And by the way, people sharing, on their Facebook now, in that community in West Virginia. Now their water is coming out orange.

I don’t call this the United Corporations of America for fun. We’re literally living in … Not in a government, we’re living in a multi trillion dollar corporate conglomerate pretending to be a representative democracy

[00:55:21] Steve Grumbine: Amen. Amen. You get no pushback from me on that at all. I know there’s a lot of true believers out there that will ignore what you just said. But it’s my hope that when they hear this, they’ll start questioning their kind of weird allegiance to this facade, this Truman Show that we’re living in. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

I want to finish this off here just with kind of a teaser. Cause I do intend to have you back on once We The Poisoned is out and released so that people can go out and buy your book. I have pre ordered your book. Folks, this is not like me telling you not to eat my own dog food. I’m right there because I mean, Erin Brockovich even provided the forward.

Give us just a quick taste of what We The Poisoned is all about.

[00:56:09] Jordan Chariton: Imagine how much you think you know about how corrupt the government is? So if you’re an older person watching right now, and you think you’ve been there, done that, and you could teach me a thing or two, because I’m a young guy, imagine how corrupt you think the government is, and times that by 20.

Because I literally could not believe the things I was writing. Not because I was making it up. They were true, but because what this book reveals, and obviously I’m biased because I wrote it, but what this book reveals makes The Sopranos look like a church choir.

And by the way, my reporting, the criminal prosecutor said, the government cover up worked like an organized crime unit in Flint. This book will reveal a massive government conspiracy and cover up from the Federal government, down to the state government, down to the local city government, down to the county government.

Including Wall Street, private foundations, everybody from EPA directors to governors, to county drain commissioners. And the cover up has multiple stages and multiple levels, starting before they switched the water in Flint, to after they switched the water in Flint, all the way to current day, because it is not over.

It is an ongoing criminal cover up to the point where I am currently going back and forth with the Michigan Attorney General’s office because they are trying to hide and prevent me from getting key documents that would expose the financial scam that caused this. And what I really want to impress upon people, the name would make you think that this is only about Flint, Michigan.

This book is about Flint, Michigan, but really it is not about Flint, Michigan, it is about the whole country. Because what I expose in Flint, Michigan and what will be exposed to this Flint. And usually I try to under promise and over deliver. I’m over promising because I am very confident that this is the most corrupt thing you will read in a long time.

I believe that what I expose in Flint, really, the water became toxic because our government is toxic. And I think once you read and learn what really happened, which is not the narrative you’ve been fed. This is really about what’s going on in so many other places because toxic government is causing, in the case of Flint, toxic water, but in the case of a lot of other places, toxic water, toxic air, toxic soil, toxic food, you name it. So buckle up because it’s an alarming read. I hope it’s an entertaining read. I tried to make it entertaining. You’re going to be angry. You’re going to be sad. The one thing I can promise is you’ll be informed.

[00:58:46] Steve Grumbine: The book, We, The Poisoned: Exposing The Flint Water Crisis Coverup And The Poisoning Of A Hundred Thousand Americans. This is going to be out August 6th. That’s saying pre orders ship August 6th. So, you know, hopefully we’ll have you back on somewhere shortly after that to talk about it. Jordan, thank you.

As always, I appreciate the vine you give a small outlet like our own. It’s really been a pleasure to work with you. I’ve grown to really develop an affinity for you. You’ve been a true, just an all around good guy. And it’s all the better for me to have you in my life. Thank you for agreeing to come on here, and I hope people will go out and buy Jordan’s book.

Also go to Status Coup, become a member, and check us out. I get to be on there every so often. It’s nice to be able to shoot the shit and talk about some important stuff when we get together. So that’s, always a pleasure. Again, Status Coup News is a independent outlet that does investigative journalism.

Jordan is a tireless worker and a friend, and I strongly recommend his work. With that, Jordan, I want to thank you so much for being with me today. Folks, I want to thank you all for joining us for this episode of Macro N Cheese. As you know, Macro N Cheese is a podcast for the nonprofit Real Progressives, and we are surviving simply by donations. Nothing more. But our donations are, in fact, tax deductible. So if you would consider becoming a monthly donor, go to patreon.com/real progressives. You can go to our Substack.

Please check us out, become a donor. And because we do so many other things as a non profit, if you want to become a volunteer and help us put these things on, we certainly won’t turn you away. So with that, on behalf of my guest, Jordan Chariton, myself, Steve Grumbine, the podcast Macro N Cheese, we are out of here.