Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/3/22 - Mini Show: Saudi Lobbyist, Permafrost Virus, CNN Layoffs, RailWorker Interview, FIFA, Dem Repub Chart

Episode Date: December 3, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Fifa, Partisan Chart CNN Layoffs, Permafrost Virus, Rail Workers Strike Interview, Saudi Lobbyist in Arizona and more!TIMESTAMPSFIFA (0:00 - 5:45)DEM/REPUB CHART (5:45 -11:09)NEW VIRUS (11:09 - 15:12)CNN LAYOFF (15:12 - 18:48)SAUDI LOBBYIST (18:48 - 35:06)RAILWORKER INTERVIEW (35:06 - 1:13:00)Breaking Points is doing live shows in NYC and Boston!CODE: BREAKINGPOINTS for both venues!NYC: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/03005D6A3318087FBOSTON: https://thewilbur.com/artist/breaking-points/To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it means the absolute world to have your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Well, we had a little bit of holiday unpleasantness and it was all because of FIFA, Crystal. So while we were traveling, it turns out that our show, our last show that we had on Tuesday was fully blocked by FIFA. And it was actually crazy because that show, as you guys might remember, included some video, not even audio, just some video of the Iranian soccer team refusing to play or refusing to sing its national anthem. It was less than 10 seconds. It was clearly within the guidelines of fair use. For people who don't know what that is it basically means that news organizations are allowed to use copyrighted material as long as

we're not just like watch this as the full context of the clip as long as it has news value which of course it did an overtly political moment yes we played it's called voiceover, so you can see it visually, but you don't actually hear it and we're talking over it. So it's not even the full audio and video. It was a tiny clip and they blocked

our entire full premium show because of this 10 seconds of overtly, politically, clearly justifiable fair use content that honestly, we didn't even think twice about putting in the show because it's such a clear instance of fair use doctrine.

Right, of course. And look, we have contested it. We'll see. It takes weeks in order to win. We had to previously win a fight with the UFC over that. So we have a well-established track record. But I think what's really crazy about this is they actually said, this was a notice from YouTube, let's put this up there on the screen.

It says, hi, Breaking Points. After a manual review, copyright owner has claimed material in your video. As a result, your video has been blocked, can no longer be played on YouTube. This claim does not affect your account status. Wow. Well, thank you for that. And for the context, we send our premium shows an unlisted YouTube link where they can watch it. So they

claim this is based on a manual review. If it was just the public clip, I think I would understand that. And also, it's not like we're making any money off of that premium video. We don't serve ads on that video intentionally because we send it out to our premium subscribers. So it was just outright blocked. Now, look, is this because of criticism from Qatar and all that? I'm not going to get that conspiratorial, although I do think it is possible. But I do think it just shows like a deep neuroses on their part to try and block out any of this. And I mean, we can't, we cannot look past the fact that A, it was done manually. And B, this was about Iranian protesters. That's what it was about. So are they serving every news organization on the planet with a sort of notice?

Oh, yeah, because we were far from the only ones. What, you think we're the only people who cover this? Yeah, so they, like, take it down on CNN's channel. Right. Probably not. Yeah, let's see. I would love to see that. Listen, it shows the same thing that it always shows. Number one, it is very hard to cover politics on YouTube,

to cover news on YouTube, and be able to do it without fear of having these sorts of issues arise, which is why we built the business model that we built, because we knew this from the beginning. Number two, you can't trust these people. You can't trust it to be applied fairly. You can't trust them to be applied consistently. You can't trust our channel being treated the same way as the CNN channel or larger, you know, official corporate media channels. And so, yeah, it's a terrible situation ultimately. You know, we figured out, like, we sent out the premium show on Vimeo instead as our workaround so that we could still provide the product that we promised to you all who are paying subscribers. But, you know, we are at their whims like every day, all the time.

We're always thinking about when we're doing the show, we're having to ask ourselves constantly, like, are they going to fare? Is this going to be copyrighted? What about that music? All what was it? We had a little music playing in our midterm. Oh, OK. Yeah, this is fun was it we had a little music playing in our uh midterm oh okay yeah actually this is fun so we had to play a video obviously of trump during his announcement and trump happened to have some music playing in the background we got the whole thing got hit by copyright because there was some audio in the background of this video when we covered that's right when we covered trump donald trump announcing the presidency okay there's what can we covered, that's right, when we covered Trump's Donald Trump announcing for the presidency. There's,

what can we do about that? The man played some music. Obviously, this is like a clear news gathering, like core function, journalistic value, and the whole thing

gets hit because he played some music in the background. So it shows you how hard it is to navigate by their rules, how inconsistently the rules are applied, and how much of a threat it really is ultimately to independent media. And it also shows why we appreciate you all who support us so much.

Because if you have to be at their whims, at the whims of the YouTube gods, they can screw you at any point in time with very little recourse. Absolutely correct. So I know a lot of you guys had questions about that, so it was important to address it. That's the full context. We've contested it. We'll see if it works or not. I'm not particularly hopeful.

You know, again, the one with the UFC, that was when that, I forget the guy's name, the fighter said something about Ukraine. And again, we covered it, no question. Totally taken off, blocked. And here's the other thing. It's so ridiculous. Okay, let's say, so for that one, we're ultimately successful in the challenge, right?

But it took weeks, actually. Yeah, all the views are done. At that point, I mean, yeah, it's over. Like, okay, you can technically contest it. You can have it remedied after the fact. But, you know, I mean, that show was long in the past at this point. That's part of what we do here is being very timely with breaking news as it occurs. So if you're talking about weeks later getting a remedy, I mean, they've already screwed you.

It's done. It's over. Absolutely right. All right, guys, some interesting poll results to dive into here. There's a lot here, actually, about how Democrats and Republicans feel about a variety of industries within the economy. Let's take a look at this. So you've got along the right-hand side, and I'll narrate this, all these lists of different sectors of the economy. So you've got agriculture, trucking, restaurant, manufacturing, construction, dairy, higher ed, technology, etc., etc., etc. And they asked, and this was done by YouGov, generally speaking, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these following industries?

And so they've got it divided here by how Republicans feel about all of these industries versus how Democrats feel about these industries. Some of them are quite close, quite aligned. Like, for example, Republicans and Democrats feel basically the same way about the hotel industry as one example. And also about the railroad industry, which is interesting and relevant given the fact that there's a potential strike looming here. But the places where they had the biggest partisan gap soccer were news media, entertainment, higher ed, mining, broadcasting, which I think to me that's like – That includes entertainment. Feels like it falls into both news media and broadcasting. Yes.

And entertainment rather. Education services and oil and gas. So some interesting details there. On news media, just to pull out one of our, you know, favorite things that we talk about, Republicans are minus 57 in terms of their views of the news media. Democrats are only at plus 17. So it's not like Democrats are really in love with the news media at this point either, but Republicans just wildly more negative on the sector. And even though I'm not a Republican, I tend to side more with their assessment of the state of affairs over there. Yeah. The big one that actually stuck out to me was higher ed because it has Republicans at zero, but Democrats at a plus 45. To be honest,

I am surprised Republicans are at zero. I thought that they would be in negative terrain. If you include boomers, they're not going to hate universities. Yeah, I think people, you know, people have a very, like, they have believed this is like a path to a better life. And I mean, the American higher education system

has long been like the envy of the world. And so it was interesting to me, yeah, that Republicans were at, were still at neutral and not like overtly negative on higher education. That was kind of a surprise.

Tobacco was an interesting one, too, because Democrats actually have a more favorable view of the tobacco industry than the Republicans. Although all the data that I've seen says there are a lot of Republicans smoke a lot more than Democrats. That one is surprising. So that one, I wasn't quite sure. Pharmaceutical companies, this is a shared place of contempt. Good. Some potential, you know, bipartisan overlap here. You have them at minus 18 for Democrats and minus 14 for Republicans. So it makes me think about, you

know, Josh Hawley and what was ultimately like a fairly self-serving op-ed to sort of like push any sort of midterm blame off of Trump and by extension off of himself and his own stop the steal nuttiness. But he did make a good point there about, like, hey, guys, why are we filibustering, like, lowering insulin prices? Right. This is something that is insanely popular, overwhelming, bipartisan skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry. I would be interested to see these numbers, like, pre- and post-COVID. I bet that there's—I think there's been a lot more skepticism in the pharmaceutical industry among Republicans post-COVID. But good to see a sort of like bipartisan contempt there.

Yeah, I also think that professional sports number was interesting because it's quite low. You know, professional sports rating very low, both for Denver. That's not good for professional sports in general. Finance, no surprise there. But yeah, actually, the one that surprised me the most was tobacco and with sports, especially sports. Finance, though, I mean, I'm not surprised either. And by the way, very close. Republicans minus two, Democrats plus two.

So both that sort of like not impressed with the finance industry. This would have been very different not that long ago. Republicans did have and even Democrats. I mean, think about Obama when he ran for president. It was considered by the mainstream press like, you know, something in his favor that so many Wall Street executives were donating to him and were stalking his administration. I mean, this was considered like a sign of his intellect and his seriousness. And then, of course, you have the financial crash. And then, then you know you also have throughout

the years more and more scandal and just sort of like the rot of that entire industry on display for the whole country and now you have a really shared bipartisan attitude of sort of disgust towards them so even though I'm you know not surprised by those numbers it's important to note I bet they were very different, not that long in the past. Yeah, absolutely correct. So interesting to dig into these. There's a lot here that you could look at. Entertainment, as I said, big partisan gap there. You also have mining. Democrats, of course, much more negative. But I think it also, you can see in some of these numbers what helps to

inform cable news programming. And you can also see in these numbers some overlap where there's potential for possible bipartisan action. So we'll see. That's a good point. Either look at where there are differences or look at where there are actually some, you know, agreement across the spectrum. Indeed. Some disturbing news for everyone out of Siberia. Scientists have revived a 48,500-year-old virus from the permafrost. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is a longstanding effort by researchers who are trying to understand past pandemics and also past viruses by basically extricating them from the Siberian permafrost and then replicating them in the lab, which is what they were able to do with this particular virus. Even more troubling is the

name. The name of this virus is Pandovirus. Pandora virus. Exactly. In reference to Pandora's box. Oh, cool. Love that. Why would we facilitate that in a lab? It was taken from 52 feet below the bottom of a lake in the middle of Siberia and then replicated in the lab. One of two viruses found in 2013, although the other one was a different type altogether. 48,000, you guys will all know, is a world record for the oldest virus that has been able to have been replicated in the lab. And what they say is the remarkable feature of Pandora virus is its size. It is a type of, quote, giant virus, more than one micrometer long. They say that it can be even examined directly under a microscope, contains 2,500 genes in contrast to minuscule modern viruses that infect

humans and possess no more than 10 to 20 genes. So basically what they're telling us is that it's huge and it's big and it's old. And also we have no idea what it does at all. And that people in France are playing around with it in a laboratory setting. Yeah. Well, and this comes because of climate change, means the permafrost is melting. So it's unearthing all of these prehistoric viruses that scientists are then collecting up and reviving in the lab for some reason. What the researchers, they warned,

it could be the tip of the iceberg. They said one quarter of the northern hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost, due to climate warming. Irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide, methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect. So that's how you get this like follow on cycle. Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes, prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes,

as well as viruses that remain dormant since pre-historical times. So very dystopian. You can imagine the sci-fi movie of the end of the universe of one of these coming back to life and killing us all. And here we are living through it. Well, what I'm thinking is gain of function, which is they're like, well, eventually they may be released from the permafrost.

So we should just go ahead and replicate it in the lab to find out what it does. So it's like, well, what if it's going to go wrong? Yeah, it's like not like that has ever happened before and caused a global pandemic. So that's what I'm probably most concerned about right now. I'm like, at least with the permafrost, there's a chance that we won't get there. With this, like, what do we know about the biosafety protocols of this French lab, which happens to have facilitated this?

Also, as they even admit, they have no idea what it even does. It's like this massive strain with all these genes could easily mutate and turn into something else. Like, we don't need to go down this road, all right? Leave it to the mastodons and the corpses. Apparently, according to Global News, in 2014, the same group of researchers unearthed a 30,000-year-old virus trapped in the permafrost. That discovery was groundbreaking. After all that time, the virus

was still able to infect organisms. Now, this beats that record by a lot. So that was a 30,000-year-old virus. Now we're going back to 48,500-year-old virus, so almost 50,000 years old. I mean, I have to assume that as more and more of the permafrost melts, older and older prehistoric viruses will ultimately be unearthed. So it doesn't seem good. Major news over at CNN that they sadly were forced to write up on their own website. Let's put it up there on the screen. CNN is beginning layoffs amid economic uncertainty, cost-cutting pressures from the parent company. Chris Licht, the chief executive of CNN, announced that hundreds of people would be laying off at the overall organization, who have been anxiously bracing

ever since he took over, and about a month ago made it clear that a lot of people were about to get the ax. And it really does come, Crystal, from pressure from their parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery. Discovery has $66 billion or so in debt that they have to pay off over, I think it's like a five-year period. With the rise of interest rates and so much of what they have to deal with as an overall business, they're like, listen, this is just not going to work. Also, their advertising revenue is down even though their profits continue to go up largely as a result of the cable subscriber fees that they're trying to hold on to. So at the promise, the beginning, Chris Slick told the

organization, he's like, no, we're not going to have layoffs. He's like, we will not have widespread mass layoffs. Now, hundreds and hundreds of people overall from the organization are getting fired. Now, you know, yeah, why don't you break down? Well, I was just going to say this likely just the beginning, but they're mostly in this round looking at paid contributors. Right. paid contributors. So, I mean, that's both relevant in terms of where the business is and the directive to make these fairly harsh and widespread cuts. But it will also be interesting to see who gets cut in terms of the potential editorial direction of CNN. We've gotten sort of conflicting indications from Chris Licht about how he sees all of these things. Most of the big moves he's made thus far

have just been like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic. They did the new morning show, which is very much like the old morning show, except kind of worse, actually, and doing even more poorly. So, you know, they tried to move Jake Tapper to primetime. That didn't work out. They moved him back. So thus far, you haven't seen like a big editorial shift.

You certainly haven't seen any big plays for new, really noteworthy talent. And as I've been saying all along, like what all of this really looks like here at MSNBC and over the longer term at Fox News as well as Managed to Climb, where they know that their business model is built for a previous era. They tried with CNN Plus to innovate something new. Didn't work. I mean, like instantly didn't work. Yeah, literally didn't work.

And so now they're just trying to hold on to what they have for as long as they possibly can, cut costs, make it more sustainable for the long term. So that's kind of where they are right now. And, you know, never fun to get laid off during the holidays. I don't feel good. You know, I'm not happy that people are getting laid off. I am happy that CNN overall is suffering. Will they choose better? I hope they fail. Yeah, I hope they fail too. Will they actually stick to their pledge to not turn it into a Trump circus show?

You and I are both of the total opinion that no, there's no way that they can resist the juice. Once the campaign really does begin in earnest, there's just no way that they will be able to avoid and slip into some of their bad habits. Yeah, it's capitalism. That's the directive that will come from their profit market, you know, their need to get ratings and juice their advertising revenue. And so, yeah, they'll fall right back into those patterns. They're not even really denying it at this point either. We will all be right back to where we all began very, very soon. So we'll see. Overall, hundreds of layoffs so far at the organization. Possible to follow at other news organizations too, who also have major pressures from their parent companies. So I guess you don't like to see it for the people involved, but you do like to see it for the

overall brands. All right. We'll see you guys later. Hey, everyone. I'm Ken Klippensine with Breaking Points Intercept Edition. I'm joined today by my colleague, Daniel Boguslaw, who had a killer story yesterday about our water rights, our precious resources here in the United States being sold to a foreign country in a state, Arizona, in which they're undergoing a serious water shortage. Can we get element one up there to show everyone what the headline of the article looks like? Lobbyist for Saudi alfalfa company desiccating Arizona was elected to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. So this is an actual lobby, this is a lobbyist for a Saudi company going on to work on a state government board that has

oversight of water issues. Daniel, can you tell us what you found? Sure. So this story is partially about corporate capture. It's partially about foreign capital investment in the United States. And it's also about local regional water politics. What my story showed was that Thomas Galvin, a lobbyist for the Rose Law Group, which is a law firm in Arizona that represents numerous corporate interests, specifically many which are focused on land acquisition and land rights, lobbied on behalf of Fond du Monde, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of a large Saudi farming and dairy production company. This company realized that they could basically buy up farmland in Arizona in a county with

very little water regulations. And by doing that, they were able to pump almost unlimited water, grow alfalfa, and then ship that alfalfa back to Saudi Arabia onto their dairy farms. So before he was appointed to the board, Galvin served as a lobbyist. He appeared in the state assembly to advocate for fewer restrictions on monitoring of the company's groundwater usage. And he was subsequently appointed to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in 2001 to fill a vacancy, then was subsequently elected in 2022 to fill that position again. So with water rights and them talking about rationing and limiting the use of water in

Arizona, was this an election issue for him? I mean, you're the one that broke it, so clearly it wasn't, but how is that not? It was pretty shocking to see that this did not come up. He ran with very little opposition for the seat. But in statewide politics, this has become a big issue. It's become a flashpoint in the governor's race. The Democratic candidate called for an investigation into the company. But I think really what this represents is a breakdown of any sort of regulatory oversight, be it a foreign-owned company like the Saudi Arabian one operating this farm, or these massive land developers that are coming in, building houses where there should not be houses, building houses where there's not

adequate groundwater or where there's not adequate access to Colorado River water and continuing to build, helping a small handful of rich profiteers grow wealthier at the cost of constituents' access to water and the livability of the state. Let me just ask you, what are the Saudis, so they use it for alfalfa farms? So they're buying our water, which people here need to drink, and they're not even using it for residential use in the sense of them drinking. They're even using it for residential use in the sense of they're just using it for alfalfa that then they give to livestock, I assume? Yeah. So a lot of the coverage of this has described what's happening on this Arizona farm as the export of water. They're shipping alfalfa, but really people are framing it as

the wholesale export of US water into an arid climate in Saudi. Right. That makes sense. How is this not a huge political flashpoint? Because people need water to drink. This is a precious resource that I would imagine, if anything is of a national security concern, it's going to be stuff that you need to drink every day to live. And you would expect there to be all kind of outrage about this sort of thing. There is lots of outrage in the state. I think a piece of the complexity here is the fact that all sorts of large corporations, whether they're developers, whether they're big agro, depend on massive amounts of, of water pumping. So I think part of the balancing act

that has emerged during this process is the desire from constituents and local, uh, elected officials to crack down on what they see as a foreign investment in Arizona's groundwater. At the same time, their pockets are stuffed with cash from all sorts of other interest groups, which similarly rely on massive water consumption. So once you begin to regulate one piece of the equation, it opens up Pandora's box for regulations that they might not be so fond of. Part of your story that I thought was really telling was how this lobbyist, before he was put up for election, he was appointed, and I think he was appointed unanimously by the board, which tells you something. Absolutely. It tells you that there is a somewhat bipartisan consensus

on support for corporate interest groups. And I think another fascinating piece of this story is the reality that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has become a flashpoint in right-wing GOP election denial politics, right? This was something we saw a lot during the election that Trump won. We're seeing now, the governor is refusing to... And again, we're seeing it again where there was a delay, there was an issue with the voting machines, and the sort of conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork. But I think that a piece of the catalyst for that conspiracy, for that anxiety, for that madness is the fact that time and time again, even the so-called moderate politicians who sit on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors have allied themselves with interest groups which are opposed to constituents' wants and needs.

And so when you see that happen over and over and over again, people getting steamrolled by corporate interests, it breeds an intense and deranged hostility towards the system. And apparently not even domestic American corporations. It's now corporations on the other side of the world that we're not going to see anything from in terms of the money and resources being spent on things domestically. concerted top-down effort from Saudi leadership to mobilize economic means as a cudgel against political groups, namely Democrats. Oh, right. The power they exercise here in Washington, it's almost tactile. They have so much influence over the think tanks, over the revolving door that exists between folks in government who leave. And when I was a younger reporter, I thought, oh, they're out of government. They're going to tell me what was going on in the Persian Gulf. They don't want to talk about it because they're going to get a contract from these guys or a sinecure or whatever it is. Absolutely. And that's been the case for decades. I mean, I remember seeing a compilation

of New York Times articles stretching back decades where every two years there's a headline, Saudi is liberalizing, Saudi leadership is liberalizing. Forever liberalizing. You could go decade by decade. My favorite one is Thomas Friedman, the op-ed. He says the Arabs bring the Saudi winter, I think it was, and he's going to come and liberate everybody. But again, what we're talking about there is a focus on Saudi leadership, this top-down idea. And as your reporting showed, they've been very successful at wielding their economic weapons against political interest groups that they view as disaligned with

their incentives. However, what my story showed is a window into the way that a more diffuse economic spread, in this case, you know, in an agricultural area can also start to creep into local politics, into state politics, and the way that you have hyper-targeted foreign capital investments, which, you know, are going to have an influence on the bottom-up political playing field as well. Yeah, and in fact, the Saudi regime, there's been reporting to the effect that they're interested in finding out to what extent they can get involved in lobbying at the state and local level, particularly in the American heartland, which is very interesting because that has political significance to this relationship that has really become very

partisan in nature over the last several years under the young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who I think is like age 35 or 36. Absolutely. And why wouldn't they? I mean, you look at our political landscape, you look at the infighting, and you also, you see the complete willingness for interested parties, domestic parties, to get in on the action. If they can make money lobbying, if they can make... And our laws are so weak. You know, it's funny, I was talking to a retired CIA officer who was telling me recently that when Citizens United passed, he worked in the Russia desk. He was saying that they were picking up chatter, that the Russians became very interested at that point in what they can suddenly legally do to move money around. And that's not to say that just the Russians are doing it. You know,

all sorts of foreign actors are. That was just his area of expertise. But it was so funny to me that they're completely cognizant of what this means, the fact that you can just flood the political system with money and just overnight are thinking of how do we take advantage of this. Absolutely. And you look at the few weak enforcement tools that we do have, things like the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which are, of course, selectively applied by the Department of Justice, which are, even when they are applied, often result in comparatively

paltry fines. It reminds me of FOIA. It's kind of like, yeah, if you want, please adhere to this. We'd like it if you did. Right. And I think the reason why you see something like FAR in such a weakened state is because everyone wants a piece of the pie, right? If you target one hostile

foreign entity, then those same sanctions, those same fines could be levied someone on your district who's slinging you cash and who you need to win re-election. One of my favorite parts of the story, and this gets to what you were saying before about how they try to use forms of political influence as a cudgel, was um the lobbyist involved in all this tried to say that it was racist to to think hey maybe americans should have american water maybe that shouldn't go so i think he's can you explain how that i think he said something along the lines of uh you know attacking this farm is dishonest at best and racist i think what was the rationale like quote well you know like you just hate brown people because you would like water to belong to the people that live on top of it?

I think, you know, he was pulling out all the stops. I mean, if you read through his testimony trying to block— Oh, this was before the state legislature? Yeah, yeah. Trying to block, you know, pretty standard water monitoring in a largely unregulated water. Right, this wasn't even like, you can't sell it. It's kind of like, let's just monitor what the levels are. And, you know, he's pulling out the stops.

He's saying this could disclose, you know, proprietary corporate information. Oh, I love that. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean, you see, looking at his testimony, you know, you hold it up next to the reality that, you know, Arizona's groundwater, I think, has declined by 50 feet in the past 10 years um you know this is a this is this is not an intrusive ask this is not

big government coming in and even regulating you this was this was the first step of saying you know we need more monitoring right um what i love about his testimony to the state legislature about what you know we can't do this guys was the particular language he uses very funny he's like okay not not now. It's kind of like he's not even going to try to say that it's too far because it's so minimal. He's like, not now. And then there was another phrase in the article where he was like,

he's like, oh, it's going to hurt these poor farmers and it's going to hurt their proprietary methods. Like going in there with a ruler to measure what the water levels are is going to be some top secret thing that gets out and ruins your business. Like, what? How does this pass muster with anybody? I don't understand. Right. And that's the point. It's about basic measures. It is not about barring any foreign investment. It is not about xenophobia. It is about creating a system of checks to ensure that, first and foremost, the people who rely on that groundwater are served. And as the article also points out, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors doesn't really have that much jurisdiction in their county over water rights.

There are different regulations for Maricopa versus the county where the Fond du Mont farm is located. However, it offers an insight into the fact that this person comes out of a career, comes out of a law firm that has a host of clients with specific interests, right? And now he finds himself in a place where he's overseeing a water dispute where the Colorado River is running dry. A town where local residents in Maricopa County used to draw their water from is saying, we're out. The spigot's getting shut off. No more. They're trying to figure out a new plan, whether they should bring in a private utility company to supply water, whether they can strike a deal with folks on the reservation nearby to haul water. But you see the fabric of all these

interest groups and you think to yourself, the person who is mediating between these is still employed at a law firm being paid by the biggest interest groups, some of the biggest interest groups in the state. And again, I think that is where a lot of the distrust that, you know, some say began with Trump, but I think goes back much earlier, comes from and began. Yeah. Once again, reality outpaces our worst satires of how scary and dystopian the future is going to be. I was just thinking, reading your story, about the whole water world picture of these wars for water. Turns out we're not even going to put up a fight for that water.

We're just going to let these foreign multinational corporations hoover it all up. Yeah, and in fact, you know, water's futures trading has become this massive new industry, right? Just speculative trading around right speculative trading and also wildly dangerous experiments into water futures derivatives complex financial products

which are packaged and repackaged and pegged to proprietary information based on California water levels and prices. And the trading of these commodities, at least tied to the California Water Index, has not exploded yet, but it offers a window into what might be coming down the line. Perfect. Reality, once again, outstrips our worst dystopias. I was just thinking of water wars, the idea that, you know, as water becomes a precious resource, all these countries are going to be at war with each other. It turns out we're not even going to put up a fight. This stuff is just going to be handed over to foreign multinational corporations for profit. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, a piece of

the end game, if you look at what's happening in California, there have been some tentative dips into the idea of creating these complex water derivatives where you have a water index based in California, and then you have more and more complex wrapped products and trusts and other financial instruments to speculate off the price of water. And obviously, we know from other financial crashes, when you create very complicated financial products, especially tied, I mean, we haven't seen them tied to natural resource. We're about to. It's usually a recipe for disaster. So yeah, there's systemic risk in the trading, but then it's going to drive the price up too for everybody, right?

Yeah, it could certainly drive the price up. And it also opens up a new avenue for foreign investment in what is now an easily tradable financial product in a way that is even easier to dip your beacon than, you know, buying up farmland in Arizona. Awesome. So water as Bitcoin, water coin. When are we going to have water coin to look forward to? Big time. Big time. But we'll have Dan there to report on it as it all goes down. I appreciate you joining me, Dan. Thanks for having me. Hi, I'm Maximilian Alvarez.

I'm the editor-in-chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People. And this is the art of class war on breaking points. Well, here we are. Another chapter in the saga of the crisis in the U.S. freight rail industry is being written in blood before our eyes this week. After three years of stalled negotiations between the country's freight rail carriers and the 12 unions representing over 100,000 railroad workers, after weathering a long, contentious, excruciating process of clearing all the stages outlined in the Railway Labor Act to reach the point where strikes or lockouts on the railroads could legally take place.

After months of union members reviewing and voting on a tentative agreement that was reached just hours before strikes or lockouts were set to begin in September. And after four of the 12 unions voted that tentative agreement down, four unions that represent a majority of workers on the railroads, we have once again been staring down the barrel of a potential national rail shutdown that was expected to begin as early as December 9th. But as it turns out, and I'm sad to say, many workers and bosses in the rail industry expected this to happen the entire time. President Biden, the, quote, most pro-union president you've ever seen, let the mask drop this week and urged Congress to override the democratic will of rail workers and their right to withhold their labor and force a contract down their throats to, quote, avert a rail strike, which Congress has the power to do under the Railway Labor Act. As Emily Cochran reported on Wednesday at the New York Times, quote, the House on

Wednesday resoundingly approved legislation to avert a nationwide rail strike by imposing a labor agreement between rail companies and their workers, as lawmakers rushed to shield the economy from the threat of a holiday season work stoppage and prevent a disruption in shipping across the country. Acting quickly the day after President Biden made a personal appeal at the White House, the House passed a measure that would force the rail companies and employees to abide by a tentative agreement that the Biden administration helped broker earlier this year, which increased pay and set more flexible schedules for workers.

The bill passed on a bipartisan vote of 290 to 137. It goes next to the Senate, where leaders in both parties have indicated they would move quickly to avoid a disruption to the nation's rail service. But with liberal Democrats threatening to withhold their votes unless the legislation granted additional paid leave, a key demand of workers, the House also considered and approved a separate measure to add seven days of compensated sick time to the compact. That measure passed largely on party lines, 221 to 207, as Democrats sent it to the Senate with the support of just three Republicans, Representatives John Katko of New York, Don Bacon of Nebraska, and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, end quote. So what does this all mean? What happens next? What will this move by

Biden and Congress mean for the rail industry and for workers struggled to get even the bare minimum of what they deserve? While corporate media is predictably relying on armchair pundits and politicians and industry ghouls to pontificate on these questions, our message here at Breaking Points and at The Real News is the same as always. Let's see what the workers themselves have to say. So to talk about all of this, I'm honored to be joined today by Marilee Taylor. Marilee worked on the railroads for over 30 years and retired earlier this year from her post as an engineer for BNSF Railway, but she is still an active member and activist for Railroad

Workers United. Here's my interview with Marilee, which I recorded Wednesday night from the Real News Network studio in Baltimore. Marilee Taylor, thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points. I really appreciate it. Thank you for asking time to do this with everything going on. You know, for everyone watching, we're recording this late Wednesday night. And so we're going to try to give you all up to date information. But of course, as you know, news is coming out very rapidly. So, you know, there may be developments in this story by the time that you see this interview. But, you know, Merrilee developments in this story by the time that you see this interview. But, you know, Mayor Lee, I just wanted to sort of start, you know, given today's news. Again, we're recording this on Wednesday.

So we've heard earlier today about Congress, you know, at the urging of President Biden, you know, pushing these two bills through the House, passing them over to the Senate, one that, you know, is very obviously going to pass, which is going to attempt to force a contract down workers' throats and end this three-long-year dispute, and then a second one that looks like it's dead on arrival, but, you know, we'll see that is hopefully going to secure more paid sick days for railroad workers. So all of this news has been coming out over the course of the day. And I just wanted to start this interview by, you know, asking, you know, after watching this news unfold, given that, you know, you and your fellow railroad workers have been in this contract fight for three damn years, can you just tell us a bit about how you're feeling right now, what you're hearing from other folks on the railroads, and I guess what you most want the public to know about how workers are doing right now? Well, I think it has been an interesting few days. My reaction is equal to that

of many of my co-workers, former and current friends, co-workers on the railroad, other people I meet on the railroad, which is unmitigated rage at the idea that the President of the United States can step in in a dictatorial and tyrannical manner, cut across the absolute guaranteed democratic rights that we enjoy as workers and citizens of this country. Our rights are codified in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Those rights give us, those guarantees give us the right to organize on the job, to organize into unions, to organize freedom of association, to organize ourselves into political and economic and labor organizations, all of which I think our unions have to be in order to get anything accomplished in this day and age. But we're guaranteed that. So any attempt to tell us we

can't strike should be met with deep, deep resistance, deep opposition publicly, loudly, and visibly as well. And there are many other ways to do that. For example, I did go on some of the letter writing sites. More Perfect Union, for example, had one. RWU site had one where you just go and you could say, speak to your representatives, which I did several times and other people too, which I think is fine, but it's certainly not the answer. This must be a public campaign to win people to our perspective. I think that any worker in this country and, frankly, around the world is looking at this strike. We have rail workers in Britain that have been on strike, doing rotating kind of strikes.

There's workers in many other railroads, I don't even know, trying to scour the press to keep up with, around the world, that see this fight as their fight, because it is. It's ultimately, it belongs as the property of all of us to learn from, to gain experience from, and so on. So there's the rage. And I think it is deep. It is very deep. It is, it was reflected as far back as January of this year, where on BNSF,

a hundred percent of the BLET, the engineers union, and 99.5% of the smart TD, the conductors union voted to strike over the implementation of an arbitrary draconian attendance policy that BNSF did. We forced a vote within our international union to strike, period. We are striking. And of course, the railroads, as they always do, went to court. We were enjoined. And we were further enjoined from having public activities away from the railroad. It was a deep attack on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association. And at the end of that time period, we did begin to have activities, different groups.

I say we in that very broad context, my brothers and sisters and other organizations, wives, to be fully informed about the railroad, I can't remember their exact name, different organizations like that Rankin file, grassroots types, the maintenance away workers from the BMWD, they had picket lines in different locations, even around Chicago, trying to explain what the issues were to people going by, people coming in to work and so on. So there's that, I think. And I think it's not just frustration. I think it's directed anger toward the Biden administration, as it should be, for spearheading this attack against us. And I think that every other unionist, every other union member in this country, in the United States itself, is also looking at this. Because if they can do it to us, they can sure as do it to you,

every single one of you. The nurses need to go on strike to fight for safe patient staffing levels? Oh no, we have COVID. You're enjoying from striking back to work. We can't afford to allow you to go on strike. And that's the mindset, allow us. We only, and we'll see where it actually ends up being, how this all works. I think it's very fluid and it's very volatile because the primary conditions of the work-life balance, they call it, really what we call it is quality of life issues, being able to have time away from the railroad, away from the draconian attendance policies to recharge, to rest, to perhaps recover from COVID or any other illnesses coming down the pike on all sides right now, to be able to take care of our children, our significant others, one or more others, whatever kind of relationships we're in. We're social beings

and we bear responsibility too. Things like that that we can't do. People are missing the birth of their child. This sounds incredible, but it's true. We miss funerals of our friends, of our relatives. Because of this, we can't afford, not afford monetarily to take off. We don't get paid for taking off unless it's a paid time off other thing. But we just can't get away. We are at the behest of the railroad under the BNSF policies for every minute of every day of every week of every month with only one 24-hour period of being able to take off without being victimized and punished by the carrier for doing that. It is surf-like conditions. I know a lot of us didn't pay too much attention in high school history, but I'd encourage everybody to go back and read it because this is what it is.

They virtually own you. They. They virtually own you. They want to virtually own you. So if you're not, you must be, under this attendance policy, waiting on them to call because they refuse to attempt to even produce a lineup that will give you an idea of what trains they're going to run. I mean, they have one, but it means nothing because some trains never show up. I mean, never. They're ghost trains. We call them ghost trains. They've been on there for 24 hours.

Oh, we're going to call. And you organize. If you're the one that's the next to be called, we organize our lives around that. So if you don't call a train for two days, and I was waiting to be called, let's say at seven o'clock tonight, now you're not going to run the train that you kept saying you're going to run. You're not going to run anything else till tomorrow morning.

So I will have been up all day waiting on this call. Now you're going to call any minute because they can call any time, whether it's scheduled or not. And you're going to call any minute because they can call any time, whether it's scheduled or not. And you can't really sleep. So these are day after day after day of this kind of physical, mental, emotional, soul-wrenching grind that has brought us to this point because of the railroad's intransigence in doing that. I've also just wanted to raise that we have gotten a lot of messages of solidarity. A number of unions have put out their own statements, their own press releases. One of the ones that warmed my heart

personally was the International Longshoremen and warehouse workers union on the west coast who yes they i some years ago i i actually i knew i had a personal relationship with somebody that worked as a as a longshoreman and was in the ilw and i was just astounded all the time at the strength of the unit. The fact that they will not handle goods that are being struck, for example. So if John Deere, during the John Deere strike, if they attempted to load any of those containers filled with their tractors or whatever their equipment, longshoremen have the contractual right to say, I'm not loading that. So that shows the power that exists in possibility, potential,

that we need to figure out for ourselves and our own union how to use. But they're very strong in terms of solidarity with other workers, and they have made a very clear statement in solidarity with us. No, I saw that statement too. And you're right in characteristic ILWU fashion, right? It didn't mince words. You know, I thought it was beautifully and succinctly put. Everyone should go check that out and everyone should definitely go support the longshore workers who

have their own contract fight or in the midst of their own contract fight. So we need to show up for them as well, just like we need to show up for the UPS workers later this year, just like we need to keep showing up for, you know, striking coal miners at Warrior Met Coal, who have been on strike for over 600 days at this point, striking workers at CNH Industrial who have been on strike for seven months in Iowa and Wisconsin and are still holding the line as the weather gets colder and the holidays approach. We need to keep showing up for Starbucks workers who are having their rights violated left and right with Starbucks firing union organizers for the flimsiest excuses,

closing unionized stores, all for the purpose of squashing the grassroots unionization effort. We have to keep fighting for one another. We can't let up because the bosses certainly aren't. The carriers have been intransigent, stonewalled us every step of the way of negotiations. In the first place, they're very long, drawn-out rigmaroles. You have to go through all these different steps. I can't even remember how many they are. More than a dozen, let me put it that way, over periods of time. I can't remember how. This is another cooling-off period. I'm so cold, I'm in the deep room. I do not need to be cooled off anymore. These are all things codified under the Railway Labor Act passed in 1924.

One of the tangential issues that have come through this struggle is some people want to place their attention on overturning, repealing this law. As well we should. As well we should. So this is just a peak of a scene in time. But it's like an iceberg. The big majority is the part that you haven't seen yet. That's been going on, but it's not as visible and hasn't been as public as we can be. So I think that it's

absolutely, you're absolutely right that we have to get our story out. We have to talk to people. We have to name names as to what they're doing, who's doing what, and what it actually is. And I'll start with that name and names. Joe Biden can no longer claim to be pro-union. And as I have explained in other interviews, he is not pro-union. He is anti-union. Because when the Democratic Party, with him as the premier, since he's the president, one of the premier leaders at any rate, when they decided to intervene in this strike, they didn't decide to intervene on the side of the workers. They decided to intervene on the side of the carriers. And their labor secretary, Marty Walsh, has been going around the country, including to the BLET National Convention recently, giving speeches about how great the contract is, how much he and the other Democratic

Party individuals have done for us, none of which I agree with. And I'm not saying that there aren't members of either elect. There are members of both electoral parties that have spoken in favor of rail workers and have voted. There were I believe it was seven Republicans voted in the House for the seven days of paid sick leave, including Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio, excuse me, I'm tired, stood up and spoke out and said he wouldn't vote to ram this down our throats. So that's not to say that these are leaders, because I really don't think they lead working people particularly at all, but it shows the groundswell. It's almost something you can feel. If you pay attention to your feet on the ground, you will feel the tectonic plates of the earth moving under the crust. I think there's a, and workers

especially, have that instinctual nature. They see something like this and it affects them whether or not they can articulate what that means or whether or not they may lead them immediately to action or whatever, but there is a tectonic activity happening here that we, we need to recognize as, as hopeful or, or potential leaders of these movements as, as workers, as unionists, certainly as someone who,

who thinks about politics using a generic term in a very broad way, national and international and so on. I think this is a great, it's certainly a great time to be alive and a horrid time to work on the railroad. I mean, that is the reality. But it's a great time to be alive as there is, where there's action,

where there's motion, where there is sentiment, there's room for action to better our conditions, to lead the way for other unions and to join with other unions and other workers who are not yet in unions to fight together. It's a tremendous chance for solidarity for anybody with a heart. Yeah, no, I think that's that's, you know, beautifully's a great sort of metaphor that the great nonviolent activist George Lakey gives. He says, like, you know, people talk about polarization in times like these as a terrifying thing. And it can be. And it is right because the extremes are kind of, you know, getting more extreme. The center can't hold. But what he said is that, you know, polarization in or, you know, getting more extreme, the center can't hold. But what he said is that, you know, polarization in or, you know, like you were talking about this sort of movement energy,

this sort of rage, like that's a furnace, like that is how you put the metal in that furnace, right? And that makes it malleable. That means that the future is still within our hands to shape in times like these. And I think that when people ask me all the time, it's like, well, what happens now? Where's the labor movement going? I say, you tell me. That answer depends on how the answer to that question depends on what we all do right now. Right. And I would just I wanted to sort of, you know, pick up on that front because I know I can't keep you for too much longer, but what happens now? So I mean that in two respects, like in the immediate sense on the railroads, right? People

are still wondering, is a strike still on the table? What is the best outcome out of Congress sort of going through the process that it's going through right now? Are people hopeful that more sick days will come of this? So what's going to happen now in the immediate sense? And what is this forced contract and this preemptively broken strike, you know, going to mean for the industry itself and for workers like yourself moving forward? As to what's next is a strike off the table. Well, I'm an individual who is active in the RWU, as well as with other union activities and so on. And I am not looking for any individual or any small group to decide that they are going in the absence of a fuller group, that they're going to take any individual action, because that isn't going to work.

However, the discussion that's going on is laying the basis for a true action, a true mass action. Whether that means a strike or not is a tactical question. I think we got to be clear that tactical questions are tactical questions. Principle is principle. The fight, if we're clear on what we're going for, we can discuss how we're going to get there. What's the best way? And we have forms for doing that within our unions, within our organizations. There's many places to have that. And you play a big role in that.

So I don't think a strike is off the table. The rulers and the railroad barons would hope it is. That's what their game has been from the beginning. For a group of people that does not create profit, they sure are worried about us not bothering to show up. I mean, it has to be one or the other, doesn't it? But we know that we're the ones that create all the value. Warren Buffett creates no value. Katie Farmer, the CEO, creates no value. All those frontline supervisors, I think, pretty much reduce the value because they just suck up the paycheck and have nothing to do with the railroad. I mean, like other jobs, I'm sure. So the question's not settled.

And I think the question has to be, who is the deciding vote? And I'm not talking about Congress. I'm talking about is if we don't work, the railroads don't make money. And that is the only thing they understand. And that's why the strike has been a valuable lesson and learned and also a valuable quiver with our arrows. It's an important tool that we have an utter right to, and we have to stand up and defend. So I don't think it is off. Will this six, seven days sick leave pass? I don't make predictions, but I think that they're looking for cover

because the cover's been taken away from the Congress. Everybody that votes, both the House and the Senate, everybody that votes will be recorded. And hundreds of thousands of workers in this country, for the first time, for many of them, want to see what these guys do and want to hold them to it. I also have read a number of different articles that appeared from workers in the railroad talking about how they campaigned for Biden. And openly and publicly and in the media are saying, I made a mistake. That will never happen again. I campaigned for him. I went door to door in the, in the all these months, several, and you,

you actually would know a couple of them and they, and this, and that we get slapped in the face. We're told we're basically told we have no citizen rights. So the ramifications that we're just beginning to see, I think they could be anywhere. But I think the discussion isn't going to end here. What it tells me is that railroad workers are for the first time, some younger workers are for the first time seeing that we've had 40 years. We haven't had a decent contract since the mid-70s. Some would say the early 70s. I can't remember the exact date because the more information I get, something has to fall out. I just can't remember all the statistics. So none of this is settled.

And just a final point on that, the fundamental issue, the reason that we voted to strike in January over this attendance policy, the reason that we all voted in every union to strike over this tentative agreement is over the quality of life issues. If those are not addressed in a fundamental way and not resolved to give us a better quality of life, this is going to keep that you cannot tamp this. You could tamp it down, but you cannot kill the flame because the objective conditions are still there, are still not dealt with. So even if they do the six, seven days of paid leave and they force the agreement down our throats, I can pretty much assure you the fight is not over because nothing has been resolved.

And nothing has been resolved on the plus side for us in a fundamental way. So those will continue and they will continue to be a sticking point and we will continue to work, to fight, which is that we railroad workers in RWU and across the board, we are fighting for the safety of ourselves, our coworkers, and every single one of you that's watching this. because if I'm fatigued to where I should not be working, which NASA has proven through many studies, that being at the level of fatigue that we have on a regular basis is worse than being legally drunk, which is 0.08 in Illinois where I live. So by law, I can't drive impaired by alcohol, which makes sense to me. But I can be so exhausted that my reaction time is worse than being dead drunk. So if you're in a little town in rural Illinois and I go through on a train,

you can rest assured that I'm paying as close attention as I can to make sure that your house is not engulfed in an oil can blaze or whatever that I am. And I take that responsibility seriously. And the railroad bosses have really tried to convince us not to take that seriously. Well, and like, you know, it's another point that is just so maddening about all of this. And I'm going to wrap things up in one second because I want to let you go. But, you know, everyone's like kind of running around with their hands up saying, oh, thank God we averted, quote unquote, a national rail strike. It would have been catastrophic. And what I want to stress for anyone watching and listening to this as workers on the railroads have been telling me repeatedly is that you're going to is saying, if we don't address any of these quality of life issues, any of these workplace safety issues that workers have been screaming about, that the corporate greed of the rail carriers has been like making worse year after year after year.

And after this process has played out, the rail carriers, what incentive do they have to change their ways if this is if they're going to just get everything that they want with Congress's help? So things aren't going to get better on their own. Everyone's expecting them to just get worse unless workers fight back. But what I mean when I say you're going to get the effect of a strike is that workers are already quitting in reportedly record numbers. They're going to keep quitting. People keep telling me they're like, if this is how this all ends, I'm out. I can't make it to retirement. This job is too much. The draconian attendance policies are too much. Being on call 24-7, 365 is too much. I want to see my family. I want to see my kids grow up. So you're going to see more of that talent, more of that skill, more of those accrued years of experience, just leave an

industry that is already having a hard time hiring and retaining people. So what's that going to mean? It's going to mean more slowdowns, more trains lying idle, more ports backed up, more delays with the essential products that we depend on, higher prices for all of that. So celebrate if you want, but we didn't avert shit. And in fact, we didn't avert anything. Workers had their strike preemptively broken by President Biden and Congress. And with that, I wanted to ask you, Mayor Lee, just by a way of quick rounding out, you know, you've been so amazing and I can't thank you enough for chatting with us today. So as I always try to end every interview, I just wanted to ask, what can folks out there do to show solidarity with you and your brothers and sisters on the railroads?

And, you know, where where should the labor movement go from here? Well, in terms of I think there are some basic solidarity measures that everybody can take. Anybody who's in any professional organization, any union, can certainly discuss or invite one of us to speak or bring it up on your own, the issues that exist, and ask for solidarity. Were we to strike at any point, I would hope that everybody who wants to show solidarity would show up to the nearest rail yard with your own handmaiden sign supporting rail workers. Because if there is a strike, the strike is won or lost on the picket line in battle, whether that means in the political sense or in any other sense. That's where it is. And to win the support of our fellow workers around the country and seeing them in

action, it just, it inspires everybody. It inspires me to see. I mean, I could go back many years, so I don't want to sound like I'm 90, but I am of retirement age. But so, you know, from strikes like the United Food and Commercial Workers in Iowa, Ottumwa, Iowa, where I traveled from the West Coast just to show up because I wanted them to know that even us, we support this fight. All of those kinds of fights, the coal miners you referred to, the Alabama coal miners, the Amazon workers, the Starbucks workers, those are concrete actions that you can take. You can discuss it. I would like to see some churches coming out and saying, Biden, back up. Back up. You don't get to decide this. We support the workers. I think there are many organizations that people live in, or not live in, but around the areas in which they live and that they

participate in, civil, civic, whatever. That's a good place to start. And I want to ask your viewership to ask us for solidarity, too. If you're fighting, especially as a trade unionist, in whatever industry, to organize whatever it is, reach out to Railroad Workers United. And I hope we can put a little blurb up somewhere with the website. Reach out to us for solidarity with us. We have the same social responsibility and the same reciprocity, excuse me, with you that we want to express.

So we will be there too. If we're not in every city, but where we are, we can find you. So let's begin to build this network stronger, reach out, Make allies. And it's by working together, in fact, and fighting together, in fact, that we will forge the strongest alliances that Biden and his entire administration and everybody else that is anti-worker, something that can defeat their actions, which for right now is still on the table. Hell yeah. So that is the great Marilee Taylor. Marilee worked on the railroads for over 30 years and retired earlier this year from her post as an engineer for BNSF Railway. She continues to be a member and activist for Railroad Workers United. Marilee, thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points.

Thank you so much. And keep up the good work. Right back at you. Thank you for watching this segment with Breaking Points. And be sure to subscribe to my news outlet, The Real News, with links in the show description. See you soon for the next edition of The Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.