It may seem as though I'm picking on John Cornyn. If I really were, I would have used his nickname (in certain circles) -- Senator Cornhole -- in the title, not just the lead. I don't want to obsess over this right-wing twit, but he cast a vote last week that was very telling, and really ought to cost him his Senate seat. He was one of four wingnut Senate Republicans who essentially voted against better mining safety.
The other three who kept him company on the tinfoil-hat right were Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. I'm not sure if we have a genuine division line of true crazies on the far right here, given the history of some of the other GOP senators. But in this case, even Inhofe's rather kooky Oklahoma colleague, Sen. Tom Coburn, didn't join him on this one. By the way, Inhofe, in case you didn't know or have forgotten, is the guy who has called the threat of global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." He means, like, greater than the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Saddam's WMDs, or Reaganomics?
Onward. The vote was 89 for, 4 against. The measure was to increase the budget of the Mine Safety and Health Administration by $10 million -- from $330 million to $340 million -- to reduce its backlog of coal mine inspections. This was part of the voting on amendments to an appropriations bill (HR 3043) for the Department of Labor and other agencies.
Given the catastrophies that have stricken miners for several years now, this would seem like a no-brainer vote. But when you have no brain, apparently even the no-brainers are too challenging.
I have run onto a
number of links showing the record of the Bush administration on mining safety, and it isn't pretty. I think there would have been more opposing right-wing Republican votes than this if the recent lethal disasters hadn't been as much on the public mind. Only four of these people dared this.
But, this is one more thing to remember about Senator Cornhole: He's not concerned about anybody outside his own socio-economic circle, certainly not grimy miners. And then, there are those ailing kids who can't get health insurance. Senator, I can see that you have neither conscience, nor shame. But are you even worried about being re-elected?
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
5 comments:
After seeing the likes of Bush, Gonzalez, DeLay, and Cornyn, et al, I was starting to suspect it was something in the Texas drinking water. But then I thought about you and Molly Ivans......oh wait...Molly's gone. Stay safe, my friend.
I don't usually drink municipal water, even though bottled is supposed to be non-PC now. I started drinking bottled long ago because of the sodium concern (I have drug-controlled hypertension). But now, I'm beginning to think that was serendipity! Maybe those people you mentioned have had too much Texas tap water. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but stranger things have happened!
Seriously, thanks for stopping in. I will try to reciprocate more.
Nice work Joe,
Who votes for these guys?
This is one of the mystifying things about our state, and several others. One example: A co-worker bought something recently at a 7-Eleven, and the guy behind the counter, who couldn't have been making more than $9 an hr., had Limbaugh on his radio and was just jamming to the bashing. There are so many dupes.
Does 7-Eleven pay that generously? The minimum wage is $5.85 an hour. I would seriously doubt that 7-Eleven pays one penny over that amount.
On top of this, the minimum wage laws are only as good as their enforcement, which is a sick joke these days. There are millions of people in this country who are paid well below minimum wage, "off the books."
Companies know they can get away with this because labor laws are weakly enforced (and even if they get caught, a $5,000 fine is chump change to a Fortune 500 company that rakes in hundreds of billions a year).
I read somewhere that historians have long understood the root causes of the French Revolution, (but many historians have long been baffled as to why the Revolution turned so bloody and violent).
Shit, even a trailer trash turd like myself can figure out this "mystery" that baffles all these professional historians.
The fact is, the French peasants were goddamn sick and tired of the leech class eating caviar off gold plates while they were starving in the streets.
If we get a French Revolution of our own in this country (and I believe we will someday), I suspect it'll get pretty violent.
I myself will be the first one to volunteer to sharpen the guillotine blade.
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