Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Ken Baxton has been impeached as Attorney General of Texas. We have a great show today. Senator Tammy Baldwin stops by to talk about veterans services and how you pass bipartisan legislation in the year twenty twenty three. Then we'll talk to Kim Kelly about the horrors of black lung coming back in the West Virginia
coal mines. But first we have MSNBC Daily Editor James Downey. Welcome back to Fast Politics. James Downey, thank you for having me again. Very excited to have you. So let's talk about what is happening with the Texas legislature. I mean, I bet this is an incredible story because it's so stupid.
Oh it's yeah, it's incredible is exactly the right word. I mean Ken Paxton the attorney general. There a House panel that has been investigating him just came out with twenty articles of impeachment and recommended his impeachment. And this is a Republican led panel. The idea of impeaching an attorney general in his third term. He's been re elected relatively comfortably twice, though by Republican in Texas standards, not hugely comfortably.
And he did have challengers like my favorite senator, the stupidest man in the Senate, Louis. That's the French Louis to Gomert Louis Gohmert, who failed to challenge him in the primary.
Yeah, he has shown he has quite quite the base in Texas. He has a lot of fans on the conservative base there. These are twenty articles impeachment, largely centered around protecting a donor of his who and among other things, also hired a woman that Paxston allegedly was having an affair with.
I'm shocked, so think this.
Is nothing new for Paxston. That this guy has been under indictment for securities frauds since I believe twenty fifteen and has yet to stand trial thanks to a series of legal maneuvers.
How do you do that, by the way.
To be honest, I don't know, but I would imagine being the Attorney General of Texas helps, right, I think to some degree at least it is because he is in office that he's been able to stave it off this long and he's on an FBI investigation for these donor. Allegations of the allegations of helping this donor and protecting.
Part of the articles of impeachment include retaliation against whistleblowers in his office, four different whistleblowers, and he's trying to get Basically, these four different whistleblowers have won a three point I believe it's over three million dollars a judgment against him, and he's trying to get the state to foot the bill.
Wait say that again.
He faces a whistleblower complaint from four different whistleblowers. This is packs done, yes, and he settled a lawsuit in February from four former aids for three point three million dollars. I mean there are allegations in the articles impeachment that are related to involving retaliation, but separate from that, he wants the state to foot the bill for the three point three million dollars.
Why what's the thinking here?
Because he's the attorney general? Is his thinking? I mean the legislature has already this is another area in which the Texas legislature has balked it. I mean they are not on board with doing this you know, one important piece of context here is that the Texas Republican Party, there's the conservative grassroots. There's also the sort of more business friendly establishment of the party, which is particularly powerful in the state legislature.
Which part is Paxton and.
Paxton is the conservative base is the grassroots, and he has been feuding with, most recently the House Speaker Feelin, who he accused of being drunk based off of a video where Feeling was slurring his words or appeared to be slurring his words.
I suppose do you think the house speaker was drunk?
Oh?
I watched that video and it certainly sounded like that was not how normal people speak.
He sounded like he was learning as well as that's for sure, right. But I think that Ken Paxton's bringing it up to distract. This is a guy who I mean, we've seen it. You mentioned Louis Gohmer, you met me
like we obviously. Ted Cruz is another example of this where we see, particularly in Texas, but all over the place, where you have these Republicans who are beloved by the base and the grassroots and the talk show listeners who are just do not get along just on a personal level with the establishment of the party, and I mean
again just something they are purely personal. I mean, Paxton, this is a guy who, from the perspective of just effectiveness, he's made the state you know, a laughing stock in terms of the kinds of challenges and the kinds of projects he's gotten involved with. I mean, he was at the forefront of the election challenges, which guy laughed out of court even by conservative judges. And abortion, yeah, well
an abortion. I think there he'll have more support from again the establishment, where that's more sort of an agreement. But I think if you're the tech Republican establishment, you don't want this guy, this clown wasting I mean again, millions of dollars and wasting all of this time and all this energy on you know, on this impeachment stuff, on these pie in the sky even by Republican standards lawsuits. You know, you want someone who's going to be more effective.
It's very unclear whether or not they'll actually vote to impeach him. They only need some majority in the House. They need two thirds ind and Senate, just like at the federal level.
But the panel that voted to bring up the charges of impeachment was five zero.
Yes, yes, and that was Republican led I think I think the bigger issue is whether they could get two thirds in the Senate, which is Republican majority. I believe it's close to two thirds Republican majority in the state Senate, even if the State House again moved forward with the impeachment. It's just there are there are plenty of legislators there, even if they're not in leadership, who are very beholden to the grassroots and very much agree with Paxton and
are very much in his corner. You know, we talk about Greg Abbott. A lot of the terrible things he's done as governor there, a lot of them have been basically him protecting him his right flank against the Paxton wing of the party. Not so much that Paxton himself would be running against Abbot, but Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor. He was very worried about jud Challen's.
It, so Patrick might run for governor against Greg Abbott.
The fear was that Dan Patrick would run against him in twenty twenty two, right, which is too late, so that Abbot had to make moves. Some of the stuff that Abbot has done, I mean, not that he's had a great record overall, but some of the stuff that Abbot has done has been very much in with mind towards preventing the right flank of the party from ousting him in a primary.
Unbelievably insane.
It's incredible, you know. And it's also incredible that in some ways I'm more surprised that Republicans would actually move to impeach him than that an attorney general would do. This would behave this way right?
All right? No, no, me too. Think about all they went through with Trump, where they just were like going along with that.
Yeah, I think.
I think again, it's speaks to Paxton's personal lack of charm, you know, and if we we'll talk about this later again with a certain Florida governor, but I think Paxton just on a personal level, doesn't really endear himself to a lot of his fellow Texas Republican well, I guess legislators, lawmakers, et cetera.
Speaking of charmless, we are in this very interesting failure to launch the thing. I'm struck by. It's like, you know, we're seeing so much breathless coverage. Do you see a world where there is you know, Ron DeSantis is Trump without the charisma right without the charm, Like, who is this for?
I think the first way to answer that is to go back to the rapid, unscheduled to sent disassembly that was the Twitter spaces. I mean, that's the sort of thing you put together to announce your campaign on Twitter, even if it all goes according to plan. Is the only the kind of thing you do if you have a very online group of advisors, have people around him, his communications people, many of his most public facing communications people at least like Christina Pushaw and others very much
embrace battle on Twitter. And that's weird. Like you, if you wanted to reach the most people, if you want to do it online and break some boundaries and stuff, you'd do it on YouTube. You wouldn't do it on Twitter. So who is this for? I think it's for the extremely online conservative person who you know thinks they're fighting the woke mind virus.
Right all right, yes, the woke mind virus everybody drank.
Yeah, it's hardly an encouraging start for him, to say the least. I think that. Well, before we go further, I think you don't need me to tell you, but obviously you know it's important. I think to repeat before going further into the horse race coverage, is that, you know, just the fact that this guy is where he is, it's just a terrible thing for the country, given his record of voting rights, his book bands, the attacks on nCbT, Floridians, et cetera.
The thing I'm struck by an I was like arguing with someone about this on television yesterday. It's like he hates gay people. Like his legislation is so shockingly anti gay. I mean for a country that has codified gay marriage, like yeah, we are, this is not being gay is not a big deal in America, and like this guy wants to go back to like nineteen thirty. I mean, it's just crazy.
It's really remarkable, especially when you look at I mean how quickly they're moving on from their original justifications. You look at the don't say Gaygill and everybody around him was like, yeah, was like, well, this is only about elementary school children, you can't possibly object to that. And then immediately, you know, within a year, they're already expanding
it to high school kids and so forth. You know, it's remarkable, And I think the thing that's particularly concerning though, is that despite the rough start in the rough past couple of months. You can look at that and say, well, he's maybe he's missus moan and so forth. But I think that's it's a long race. And he raised eight point two million on his first day. That's a very strong number.
I have a question for you about that number, because one of the things that is a sort of hallmark of DeSantis world is they kind of juice numbers, So there is a he has this statistic whale. He says that the crime in Florida is the lowest ever. But the would they change the way they reported crime? This could have been raised before and then announced when he announced, right, I mean, it's easy to juice this number, right.
I think we won't know the details behind the number until they file FEC reports and so forth. You know, campaign limits. We don't know the exact breakdown. I noticed that there wasn't anything about percentage of small donor. As far as I could see, there wasn't like a we received you know, X percent of the donations were under
two hundred dollars or something like that. So, I mean, certainly, it seems like they don't really want us to ask too much about how many people are donating as opposed to how much was donated, so we don't know a lot about that. But you know, even with that, he he's got a decently sized campaign staff. He's still hanging around to twenty around twenty twenty five percent in Iowa, and people have come back from much farther than that at this point in the race, right right.
There is like a horse race mentality towards the way all of us deal with these political and you know it's a horse race, because it's a race, right But the one thing I wanted to sort of interject here is that he's not running against a normal political candidate. He's running against Donald Trump.
No, absolutely not. He's in a very strange situation in some ways because more so than your typical sort of clear second favorite in a race like you think back to, for example, two thousand and eight, where I think for most of it it was, you know, you had Clinton as a clear front as a front runner, and then Obama was probably like a number two. But when it came to debates, et cetera, Clinton always received the most
fire from everybody on the stage. And I think one interesting difference here is going to be that I think the Santus is actually going to be the target for a lot of the and I mean there's always some extent of that. There's always the people who aren't number two always want to become sort of the alternate option
to number one. But I think the added fact that, as you said, Trump is such an unusual candidate and a lot of the other candids are so worried about alienating his base that they're going to even more focus on attacking DeSantis, you know, and making themselves the Trump alternative, rather than attacking Trump, which is so stupid.
Because I mean, the whole thing is just insane.
Yeah, it's incredibly short sighted because it's like, Okay, when you get to that point, then what what's your next step? You have to attack Trump at some point if you're
going to beat him. And I do think one thing that's sort of weirdly that could be sort of weirdly to advantages the wrong word, But one thing that could be weirdly influencing DeSantis' strategy here is that, as we talked about, I think last simer I was on the show, he doesn't really have anything else other than anger right as a persona and he almost may have to attack Trump just because he can't charm the audience. He's not going to charm the electorate. He's not going to pile
them with policity he tails, that's for sure. His only approach may have to be to be tough and angry
with Trump. I mean, you know, and again I say that's not so much to talk about the horse race so much as like I think voters should be aware, should be looking out for where he tries to distinguish himself on his record and where he tries to sort of out extreme Trump and be aware of that threat and what that threat presents to American voters, because I think, for example, on abortion, you're going to see some very interesting exchanges and it's going to be very revealing on
what both Santis and Trump just how far they want to go, just how extreme they want to go nationally in banning abortion and restricting women's rights.
Out trumping Trump is a fool's errand right, I mean, people don't people didn't you know? Trump was not elected on his policy. He was elected on his stick. I mean that's the joke, because like he was a roarshack. People liked him because he felt like he might you know they liked him because they liked him, you know, and then you have DeSantis being like you love Trump's policies. Let me give you that with a less charisma and less charm.
It's a disturbing pitch.
If it's successful, right, I won't be though, I mean there's no chance.
Yeah, I don't think it's likely. It's just I don't want people to get too relaxed about him, you know, too quickly.
And you know I wrote this piece which about everyone, and all the worst people in the world mad at me, including the Daily Mail. They called me a Nepo baby, and you know, I said, he's much more dangerous than Trump. I mean, you know, if we were going to slide into fascism, this would be the way to do it.
You know, elect someone who's like Trump but good at it. Luckily, he's so not charismatic that no one will vote for him, but or he won't be able to break the Trump spou but I mean he really does have you know, if you were going to be hungry, this would be the way to get there. Yeah.
Absolutely, And I think that you know you're talking about as the efficiency efficient implementation of authoritarianism. You look at the new story from my colleagues at NBC News that it's officials in his administration, not his campaign, who are soliciting lobbyists for.
Contributions a John Allen story.
Yes, yes, and that sort of taking that and taking what is already a very gross practice of governors soliciting directly from obbyous and then adding this apparats in the state on top of that. I mean, that's something that Destantis has done time and again where he just takes things that are terrible and he gloms the state apparatus onto it in very discouraging and frightening ways.
Yeah, I mean, just unbelievable. Thank you so much, James. I hope you'll come back.
Of course, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it as always.
Senator Tammy Baldwin, as a junior senator from the state of Wisconsin. Welcome back, too fast. Pology, Senator Tammy Baldwin. I am so happy to be back. We're delighted. So tell us about what you've been working on for veterans. I think people will be interested in sort of the machinations of how you get involved in what legislations you do in the Senate. If you could, So if you could talk us through some of the sort of more nuts and baltsy stuff, I think that would be interesting.
Absolutely. Well, let's start with I just did a whole sweep through the state of Wisconsin. This is our Memorial Day recess, and so I got a chance to have input from veterans from all over the state several stops, and one of the things we were focusing on is newly passed legislation called the Packed Act, and that is so long overdue meeting our commitments to veterans to have been exposed to toxins in their service to their country.
So these are burden pits, these are agent orange, these are exposures to other toxic fumes that so many in multiple eras have experienced. And the health outcomes of these exposures are varied but very serious, everything from respiratory illnesses,
hypertension to certain forms of cancer. And what happened prior to this legislation is oftentimes a veteran would say, you know, I think this ailment might be connected to my time in uniform, my time in deployment, and they're basically often told no, or you know, there's nothing going on here that has to do with your service, and that has been turned around completely with the pack Deact, and now we are seeing veterans there's a review of the exposures
they might have had during their service, and they're being connected to via.
Services now, whether that be the ability to.
Get their healthcare through the VA or a recognition of a disability that provides some disability compensation. And boy, the stories I heard this week were so powerful, including one that is so important to remember that there was a
surviving spouse of a Vietnam veteran. He never had the VA admit that his illnesses might be service connected, but then after we passed the pac Act retroactively, they said, of course this cancer and this respiratory illness was service connected based on the new law, and therefore the surviving widow and children in college all got benefits related to his service. I mean, again, long overdue, but time to reach out and try to retroactively meet our commitments our promises.
This dovetails with expanding the VA. Can you explain to us a little bit about what that looks like.
Yeah, So, first of all, when you pass legislation like this, the you know, implementation is a big deal. Getting that right is a big deal. But we just didn't have enough staff who process claims in order to keep up with this, and so the VA has been hiring more folks that review these claims and that can make good on this commitment faster than you know, if we hadn't expanded. The other thing that's happening is internal to the VA
health system. You know, if we have arguably three point five million veterans who may be eligible for services under the Pack Act, that requires a big expansion of capacity. And so right now a lot of the exams for eligibility are actually being done in the community. There's VA referrals to community doctors. And it's not without little bumps. And I certainly heard about a lot of these bumps.
On the road, sure you did.
But it is a expanding capacity to be able to determine eligibility and then get people in for both healthcare and treatment for their conditions, as well as again reviewed for eligibility for disability payments. What will that look like, Well, it's happening right now. What I can tell you though, as we speak at a time when their precarious negotiations
going on on how to avoid default. If what the Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a few weeks back, were to ever come to be or even close even part thereof the VA would have to turn back on all of the hiring they've just done and the sort of expansion they've been able to achieve to implement the pack debt, and we would be basically having an empty
promise for veterans once again. And so it is so vital during these very precarious days to trying to avoid default on the nation's debt, that we don't prospectively slash and burn our ability to make good on our word to our veterans, make good on our word to our seniors and other vulnerable populations like our children.
So let me ask you, this bill is bipartisan. The Pack Deact was, yes, So talk to me about that.
When we were passing it last year, there was a strong coalition, but it actually came close to not passing in the Senate. You know, in order to defeat a filibuster, we need sixty, which means all the Democrats and at least ten Republicans or last year, yeah, last year, at least ten Republicans because we were fifty to fifty and it was precarious.
For a while.
There was a moment in which some of the Republicans had reneged on their support and it looked like it was going to go down, and then we saw veterans come out and there was you know, there were people camping out on the steps of the Capitol saying, you've got to make good on your commitment.
You've got to see this through.
And their heroic activism following their time in uniform was really critical to getting it over the home. But we ultimately had sufficient votes from Republicans to get this Packed Act passed into law.
And you also worked with JD. Vance. Can you talk about that, Well, that's.
Been you know, he's come into the since all of the Sin Packed Act, et cetera. But yes, absolutely. We just introduced a measure together called the Cool Online Act. Okay, so what does that mean? Cool stands for Country of
Origin labeling. So what I will tell you and everybody knows is if you go to retail store, bricks and mortar store, walk in the door and you're say, buying a shirt, and you can look in the label on that shirt and it's tell you where it was made, made in the USA, made where you can look at an object, a plate. You know, you smash your plate, you're replacing it, it'll say where it was made. If you shop online, there is no obligation right now to
tell where something was made. Now, I'm somebody who loves to support Wisconsin businesses even if I can, but it'll say made in America, not usually made in Wisconsin, right, But you know, I buy local when I can support local businesses. But I want to know where something I'm
buying was produced. And I've been fooled a number of times online, especially during the pandemic where I wasn't going out as much to stores, and I remember buying something and it arriving, it was all excited and saw that it was made in China and it was like a surprise to me. I thought I was buying from a US vendor. And anyways, we want this information available to consumers online when they shop. And jad Evince stepped up
and said that's something that I'm interested in. You know, he hails from a manufacturing state like I do, and we want to support you as jobs.
When we can.
Yeah, your women were the first gay senator twenty twelve, first openly gay senator that's right.
It's an important distinction.
It's a very important decision. But you're working with jd Vance, who has I mean, despite his earlier time being more moderate, or at least appearing more moderate, he really embraced MAGA. I mean explained to us because I think there's like a relevant issue on how we live with our I don't have any Maga relatives, but I'm sure a lot of people do. How do you work with someone where some of their core tenants are so not your own.
It's been a long journey in terms of my time in politics. But let me tell you a story from the early days, just to give you a sentence of how I approached this. Back when I was in the state Assembly. There's a very conservative Democrat, so he's in my caucus. He's been around for a long time. I'm like a freshman state assembly member. He was pro life. There was a day that we were about to consider
some anti choice legislation. Typically Democrats stick together on procedural votes, and so this was a vote to advance, and I wanted everybody in our caucus to vote no so we could stop the bill. He voted yes, and it was a procedural vote. It wasn't on the substance of the bill, and I was really really angry as a woman, and I was going to march across that room and give him a piece of my mind. I don't know who intervene, but you know, nobody knew I was going to give him a piece of my mind.
But Sunday came up, we had a discussion, etc. He was gone.
I didn't have the confrontation. The next day, he as a committee chair again a senior member, blocked a bill, the advancement of a bill to institute the death penalty in Wisconsin.
We actually don't have the death penalty in Wisconsin.
And he was my biggest hero that day because that was something I never wanted Wisconsin to do. And it was like that whiplash of yesterday. I wanted to scream at him the next day. I wanted to say that was brave, that was the right thing to do, and it was against the will of the public. And that was a lesson I never have forgotten, especially when you work in a job like I do, and so bring
that many many years forward. You know, I remember when I was running for reelection in twenty eighteen, running into my first Trump Baldwin voters.
Like who is that?
Who loves And then later you.
Know, I was I ran into this guy who worked in a foundry, in a foundry actually, and he yeah, I saw him, and he said, you're picking on my guy Trump, and I'm like, you know, he said, why.
Do you keep picking on my gut Trump? And I'm like you sometimes he deserves it. And he got a little bit of a grin, not much, but somebody came up to him afterwards. I said, okay, so you're a big Trump fan. What do you think of Baldwin? And he said, oh, she has my support. She supports buy America just like Trump does. And my job wouldn't be
here if we didn't have buy America policies, right. And so you know, between my ancient history with my colleague, my pro life colleague, and my current dealings with folks who, yes and many many realms, have very different views, but we find common ground. And I will have to say one more thing though.
It doesn't mean that I don't speak out about the things that are being said, especially when it happens in committee and on the floor and I hear it. Sometimes they say things, you know, to audiences or on Fox that I never hear about because I don't pay attention. But when I hear them in person, we have to speak out, and I do.
I'm always of the belief that these people that a lot of this stuff is performative, the racism, the sexism. But do you actually hear stuff from your fellow senators. You don't obviously need to answer those if you don't want to, But were you sort of bland?
Yes?
I actually remember one of my Republican colleagues coming into a hearing after somebody had just been what is.
What would I call it bloviating?
Or do you right?
So it was one of his Republican colleagues, and he said, I come to hearings because they're informative. Some people come because it's performative. And I think we just saw that he said that of his Republican colleague.
Maybe I see.
It less in the Senate that I used to do in the House, which is kind of a little crazier for him. But you know, I think a lot of times they save their performances for cable news and for other media where they can grow their following and raise money and all of that sort of thing. And they're a little more.
Tame in the chamber and in the committee rooms.
So I guess I don't see as much of that, but I do see some, and yeah, it makes me uneasy. And then you got to decide where you're going to use your time to make your points or to respond to theirs.
Both are important, especially if you're doing something like a hearing where you want information, right, Can you talk to us a little bit about like sort of you know, you're running for re election. State of Wisconsin really a split state, but a state that has really I think been affected by I don't know, I mean that Supreme Court election seems like a really important data point. Will you talk to us about how that factors into your thinking?
Sure?
So, first of all, you know, the twenty twenty midterms, again, we were that fifty to fifty sort of state.
We had a wonderful victory. You won our governor.
Won re election with like a landslide three four percent right for Wisconsin is huge, right, Yes, he like doubled his margin from four years earlier. So we re elected Tony Evers. And then we had this heartbreaking loss for our US Senate seat after the Republicsan spent I think it was seventy seven million dollars in support of the incumbent, Ron Johnson. Mandela Barnes lost by like less than a
percentage point, closest Senate race in the country. He came closer to you know, upsetting an incumbent than any other candidate this past cycle. But it shows this sort of fifty to fifty nature of the state of Wisconsin. And then, you know, just a few months after that, in April of this year, we had our nonpartisan Spring general elections, and these are mayors and school county board, city council, but we had one statewide race and that was for
Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. And it just so happened with our seven member court and a conservative justice retiring this racement, flipping the ideological balance of our state Supreme Court, and having just nationally experienced the overturning of Roe versus Wade, and Wisconsin has a near total criminal abortion ban. People sort of connecting the dots like that is a state law.
Maybe the state Supreme Court could hear a case about it, and maybe they'd find it's unconstitutional under the state constitution, and we could become a state that provides more fulsome reproductive care than we are right now, which is, you know, we're not. That race was about rights and freedoms, and Wisconsin its resoundingly saying, regardless of party, we want our rights and freedoms back. And so it was about abortion care, but it was also about voting and gerrymandering and access
to the ballot box. And it's about undoing what we saw happen during the Scott Walker administration, where voting rights were curtailed and it was made more difficult, or collective bargaining rights were curtailed or made more difficult, and so I think collectively that bundle of rights and freedoms people
were like, we're sick of seeing us go backwards. And all of that became a part of that race, and you I announced my re election sort of in the wake of that, arriving the title wave of that, if you will, and certainly hope that we are going to have the ability to say that was step one. You got to keep involved to take the next step, and the next step and the next step. Those don't happen without voter involvement, activist involvement. You know, it's not one
and done. We got to keep on going, Sendor.
Tammy Baldwin, thanks so much, well, thank you so much.
I appreciate it, and I look talking again.
Hi. It's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now, is going to have merch for sale over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab this merchandise only at shop dot Fast Politics Pod dot Thanks for your support.
Kim Kelly is the author of Fight Like How, The Untold History of American Labor. Welcome too, Fast Politics.
Kim Kelly, thank you so much for having me back. I really appreciate it.
We're delighted to have you. So. I feel like this is like part of what's happening in Republican America is that we're just like going back to all these things that were like they you know, they're always like so fetishizing the olden days. So here's something that you had in the olden days, black lung. Let's start with what black lung is.
Sure, so black lung just its official designation is CWP Coal miners pneumoconiosis. It's an occupational disease that workers contract when they're working underground to coal mine. They're breathing in coal dust and silica dust and that is causing immense damage to their lungs. And it's an incurable disease. It's a really ugly, horrible disease, and it's also a preventable disease. And basically, you smother to death. You stop being able
to breathe. And a black one diagnosis shortens a minors life span by at least twelve years, if not more.
And that's probably an average, so it probably shortens other people's life spans much more, right, I mean.
Yeah, depending on what you have going on. It's really it's just so ugly, and it's like you said, we think of it as this olden times thing, like I always think of that stupid quote in Zoolander. You know, I've got the black lung pop.
Like well, And the idea was there was legislation to protect people from having this past in the late seventies.
Yeah, the Mind Safety Act like that made a huge impact. It really brought numbers down. But we're in twenty twenty three and things that are not as they should be.
And so what has happened here? Who can we blame for this?
More importantly, there's a bunch of people that I would love to get five minutes alone in a room with this issue. But essentially, the reason that black lung coal miners Newicconiosis is having this spike and has been having this spike for really the best past twenty years, is
that there's a couple of different things going on. But like the most basic reason that this is happening is that this is happening in central Appalachia, in places like West Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Kentucky where the coal seams, the famous Appalachian coal seams have gotten so much thinner because people have been mining there for centuries now, and so miners have to go through much much more rock and sandstone to get to the coal they're trying to
dig out, and that rock is full of silica. Silica dusk is about twenty times more toxic and deadly than regular coal dust, and so there's so much more of this incredibly toxic material floating around. There's so much more of it too, because the advances in technology since the
seventies have been huge in terms of production. There's tons of heavy machinery doing the work that before which is done by people, and now you can mine about I think a minor friend of mine told me the numbers, like it takes about twenty four hours now to get the same amount of coal that used to take two weeks. Like the production is off the chain. And so there's all this happening, and there's also a lack of regulations that protect these guys, protect these workers. There isn't right
now a federal silicus standard for coal mines. There's all this red tape like kind of bunched up in the tornament of labor and in whoever it is in charge, you know, who gets to dictate how we live our lives. This is a problem that we've known about since the seventies. We've known that silica dust is incredibly toxic, incredibly harmful, but it just kind of got put on the back
burner for some reason. And now there's people my age, I'm thirty five, there's guys around my age, even younger, who are now dealing with this, this horrific disease in
a worse way. It's progressing faster because the silva dust is more dangerous and more damaging, and so it's just this it's heartbreaking, Like reporting this story broke my heart meeting people my age who I know, you know, who have kids who have dreams, who have lives, who are now going to end up smothering to death in a hospital bed instead of living the full life they deserve.
Is this like you know these regional bands where they fought for less regulation and we're seeing results of this, or is this just something that's been a kind of blind spot.
Actually, this is tied to politics, and it is then we can blame on Trump like most things in a way, because this is this is an issue that's been ongoing for years, since the early two thousands, and during the Obama administration, they did try to work on a silicon rule to address this issue, and they just didn't get
it out in time. But then the Trump administration showed up, and even though he loved to talk and pretend like he cared about coal miners and take photo ops with coal miners and Appalachia his During his administration, he actually installed a former coal executive to lead EMSHA, the Mind Safety and Health Administration, and when that guy was there, he spent his time examining ways to make regulations in
silica less burdensome for coal operators. So he was basically trying to make it easier for coal bosses to get around regulations or to not have them at all. And so if we hadn't had this Trump era and this you know Republican bs, Oh, we care about coal miners, but we care about business more situation, and we'll probably further along. And there's probably people I know that wouldn't
be as sick as they are. But it all so much of this comes down to who sits in the White House, because agency is like the torment of labor, and EMSHA like they're really subject to the turnover in Washington. You know, every few years, a new administration comes in
and they decide what's going on. And if that administration doesn't care about workers, doesn't care about public health, doesn't care about upsetting, doesn't want to upset their coal boss friends, then these things aren't gonna get past, and they are going to make it through and then the next administration has to play catch up.
I mean Cole I think of as expensive and bad for the environment, but there still really is a major business there, right, And can you sort of talk to us about that?
Yeah, i'd bean in some places. Really it's in Appalachia, in places like West Virginia especially, it's so entwined with the not only the economy, but just the cultural fabric of the region. And because that's the main extractive resource, that's where so many people, not the workers, but the bosses have made their money. Like there's been a concentrated effort in places like that to really boost coal. As you know, this this great thing, this is our this
is our best hope. This is all we have. You know, don't listen to those union people or those environmental people. This is this is all we got. And you have that rhetoric being amplified by the politicians and by business friendly media. Like it's it's different in coal country, you know, Like if you're not in that area, if you don't know folks in that culture and that tradition, you would think, well,
why would anyone want to be involved with coal? Why we need to get rid of it obviously, But then you go into places like Mingo County or mate Wan, places where coal is just so it's kind of the only game in town, and you talk to people say, oh, this is the best job I can get, like I can make a decent living going into these minds like this is where like I want to get this job that otherwise there's what there's Walmart or maybe a meat
packing plant where I'll make walks an hour. It's it's the same as in Alabama and the coal miner strike. I was covering there for a couple of years at Warrior met Like it's it's not always as as simple as it may seem outside of those communities, right because if you have options, you're not going to go down into a coal mine, right right, But that's assuming you have options.
Let's talk about what you think the Biden administration should be.
Doing well right now? There is and I have to shout out MSHA Chris Williamson, the new head of it of the agency. He's I like him. I think he really cares and he's really trying to address this issue. It's like his main it's his vicious priority. And right now they're trying to promulgate a new rule, a new Silicus standard that'll take the standard down to something that
matches the data we got in the seventies. Like it. Basically, this will solve solve some problems, right if we can get this rule through and really get these regularly in place. And really what I would love to see is to see Mship Agency and get a whole lot more money so they can hire more staff, so they can inspect these minds. I want them to be able to really go after the mine operators who flow out these regulations and try to get around it and actually find them
something that hurts that throw some mind bosses in jail. Hell, you know, Like the administration does have the power to change the circumstances here. They just need the motivation and they need to throw some money at it. Like I would love to see a public health campaign that really emphasizes like this is not just something that happens to your grandpa, This might happen to you, Like, there is
so much that can be done. I think that they just need, yea, the political will and the understanding that even if a lot of folks in these areas didn't vote for you, you still have to care and maybe if you can show how much you care, that might change the way they see you too. You know, there's
so many opportunities. I think, especially in place is that get called forgotten or left behind and painted as all these trump owaysis like, people there need stuff, they need help, they need resources, And I was in charge, if I was a Democratic president and that weird alternative timeline, I would spend a lot of time getting them stuff, getting in the things they need. So yeah, well.
But the governor there, Kim Justice, was a Democrat and is a Republican, and he saw so pretty involved in the mining industry, right, I.
Mean, it just goes to show that you can be from a place and of a place and still not give a shit about the people that have less money than you. Right, And this is not a secret people in Appalachia, especially in West Virginia. No, this is a big problem. It's just not something that is getting much attention outside of those areas unless you're like me and
end up on the coal miner beach somehow. Coming down for South Philly, I mean, it's it just comes down to the influence of money and capital and anti worker, pro business, just nasty policies that Republicans and the far right and conservatives are all the same try to push through like they don't care about people. You can go up and, you know, talk about growing up in the hollers and talk about how your granddaddy is a coal miner.
But if you're not using your power and your influence to actually do something about it, then you're not worth You're just not worth anybody's time.
What other sort of labor stuff are you seeing in this country besides what's happening to coal miners.
There's a lot, right, I've ended up focused on this very specific slice of the labor force. But I mean, I'm on the Writers Guild Council, So when I'm not paying attention to coal miners, I'm paying attention to the writer's strike, which is now I think in its third week. We've been at it for a minute. It's been really exciting to see that, especially because I've had a little bit of an inside view. Right, like my union, the Writers Gold of America East, in addition to our sister
union the West, been on this strike. We've been talking about it for a long time and talking about the conditions leading up to it, and I tend to I represent the online media members of our union, not the film and TV folks, So it's kind of a big surprise to me too, hearing about some of the things these people are dealing with. And I think there's just a poll the other day that seventy percent of Americans support what we're doing, support the strike, and I think
that's a big deal. So obviously, yeah, excited about the writer's strike.
Are you seeing any movement there on the part of the studio as part of the streamers.
I'm not proving to the negotiations, but it seems like so. The situation right now is there's two other big Hollywood unions that have contracts aspiring soon. They have negotiations coming up. I believe it's a CGA and SAG act, and that's all happening in June. So I think the studios probably aren't gonna feel like they need to pay that much
attention until after that's done. And I think that's going to bite them in the ass because people be pretty fired up and we're seeing so much solidarity from other union members in different parts of Hollywood already, Like, imagine what it would look like if all of Hollywood shut down. I feel like that would send a pretty fun message to the people exploiting our members.
The anxiety that I have with a lot of this, especially with the studios and the streamers. There are certain things that the government could do and probably should do, like with the AI stuff and the regulating the AI that is now sort of involved in this strike.
Yeah.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the writer Guild's pretty reasonable demands about AI.
Yeah, I mean, we want to ensure that they're not just having AI written scripts that then they bring our members in to rework and sound human. Now it's this AI situation. This strike is really a watershed moment. Honestly, if they're if AI is coming for our jobs, they're coming for years next, you know. Like it It's a moment where we do we could see action from the government to get ahead of this. We could see action from corporations who realized, maybe this is not what our
consumers want and certainly not what our employees want. This is the moment, and I'm so hopeful that the ball won't get fumbled. But also, I mean, there's not a lot of historical evidence for the government not fumbling the ball in these types of moments. I don't think a robot could do my job, but somebody who makes more money than me, who is control of whether or not I get that commission, might think so. And then who's going to want to read that?
Right?
It? It's tradiculous. I saw like I can't remember the person. I feel bad, But I saw such a good tweet the other day about like, why are we, like, if this is the future we're building, why are we allowing robots to why are we trying to automate art and creativity and fun stuff instead of like why are we using AI to make it safer for people to go down into a coal mine? Like that's what you should use robots to automation for, not displacing workers and making life worse for everybody else.
Part of how this AI gets smarter is by reading work. And so if an AI reads all of the law and order scripts, they will learn how to this this is any way the thinking. They will then learn how to write law and order scripts better than the humans who wrote them. So what these unions are desperately sort of begging the studios to do is not to use their work or to compensate them for training the AI.
Right, So, I mean that's just it's not fair. You know, you spend all of this time creating this piece of work and then you just plug it into a machine and they use that to automate your job away. It's asking people to contribute to their own well say unemployment or the dissolution of their industry and their work and
their craft. Just makes me think of my friend Brian Merchants wrote really great book about the Bloodites called Blood of the Machine, and I think a lot about when we wrote in that book where there's this moment when workers were faced with the implementation of new technile anology and we're given a choice like, we can embrace this and we could deestimate our tradition, our centuries of tradition, and leave tons of people unemployed and desolate, or we
could work together to regulate this and make it fair and come up with something that works for both of us, for labor and capital, for the employers and the workers. And it took in that moment in history in England, like the seventeen the hundreds, the government actually just sending their equivalent of the National Guard to stop all that. But we have this opportunity here to ask ourselves, just because we can use this technology for something, should we
Who is this going to benefit? Is it going to create something worth consuming, worth listening to, worth watching, or is it just gonna align some people's pockets for a few years until the next thing comes along.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, thank you for having me on. No mo.
Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.
This chaos Caucus is still up to no good in these debt ceiling negotiations.
Huh.
You know who's having a bad bad day?
Who?
Chip Roy? Oh what a shame. He's mad as hell, Mad as hell, chip Roy the only person less appealing than Ted Cruz, which was ironic because he used to work for Ted Cruz. There are members of the GUP claiming Democrats got nothing from the quote unquote deal Oh really in uncapped debt ceiling with an expiration date worth approximately four trillion two basically no cuts, a freeze at a bloated twenty twenty three spending level, zero clawback. I mean, basically,
let me just say. The one good thing is that if chip Roy is mad, you know that the White House is doing something right, and for that is a very heartily takes our moment of fuckory. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.