From The New York Daily News -- December 4, 2010:
Heroes of 9/11 hear you loud and clear, Republicans; next time they should turn and run
By JOANNA MOLLOY
Congratulations, Republican senators. Our brave 9/11 first responders hear your message loud and clear: Next time, run.
Why be a hero, you're saying by stonewalling the James Zadroga Act, which would help the sick and dying heroes of the worst attack on our country since Pearl Harbor.
Your message is that if you ran toward the attack site to help, or came back and searched the smoldering pile for survivors for days or worked 12-hour shifts for months trying to locate remains so the heroes and the innocents could have a decent burial, that's your problem.
Oh, you seem to be saying, it's too bad if people got very, very sick or might have to pay most of the medical tab or might die and leave families unsupported.
So what? you say. We Republicans really don't care enough. Not enough to pay for it, anyway.
Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, is leading the opposition to the $7.4 billion bill.
He says the sick workers of Ground Zero - shouldn't it be Ground Hero by now? - have already gotten paid $625 million.
Enzi has an accounting degree, but his math is fuzzy: That money is only for the 10,000 sick folks who sued. There are 20,000 more 9/11 patients who didn't.
Enzi, John McCain and other Senate Republicans don't want to close the tax loophole for foreign corporations to pay for the benefits.
They claim it would hurt profits, oh, sorry, JOBS. We wouldn't want BP to have to pony up and pay its share for our heroes now, would we?
Here's some math for Enzi: Wyoming only has 544,270 people, and New York State has 14 million. You're out there safe with the antelopes and you're telling New York heroes their medical bills aren't worth paying?
McCain, a former fighter pilot and prisoner of war before he decided to become just another politician, should know better.
Instead, he sent his message loud and clear the other day to tow truck driver and construction worker T.J. Gilmartin.
As Daily News reporter Mike McAuliff reports today, McCain refused Gilmartin's four attempts to see him; then, when Gilmartin happened upon McCain in a Senate hallway, the Republican said, "I can't help you."
More like: I don't want to help you. Not if we have to pick up the tab.
Maybe he's forgotten what it's like to make sacrifices for your country.
Maybe all that money from his wife's gigantic beer distributorship made him forget what it's like to be on the front lines.
NYPD Detective James Zadroga was 34 when he died in 2006. His daughter Tyler Ann was just 4 at the time.
She'll grow up without her father - and because of a bunch of tight-fisted Republican senators - she may come to wish he had just turned and run.
Shame on you, John McCain.
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5 comments:
"The GOP objects because the $7.4 billion bill closes tax loopholes on foreign corporations, which they see as a tax hike."
You guys do this all of the time. You take a good Bill and then tack something onto it that could no way stand on it's own---then make it look like the people that object are heartless creeps! Get rid of the pork and maybe you could get your Bills passed!!!
Perhaps Michael Moore should take these heroes to Cuba where they surely will get at least free medical health care.
Why don't the Rethugs care about 9/11 heroes yet are obsessed to dole out billions to the extremely rich by not wanting to let the taxcuts expire for these bloodsuckers? Of course every citizen in the USA will foot that bill of billions to the millionaires and billionaires. Redistribution to the rich!!
McCain is a flip flopper, especially on DADT. He must be senile for quite a while by having picked that Alaskan tundra tart as his running mate in 2008.
It was his choice to stay in prison in Vietnam as he had the opportunity to be released due to his daddy's position.
"It was his choice to stay in prison in Vietnam as he had the opportunity to be released due to his daddy's position."---Anon2
EXACTLY! He did the right and honorable thing to stay with the others and NOT take advantage of release due to his father's position! I call that brave and heroic---you call that stupid, I'm sure. Most of us would not have been able to do it.
"Perhaps Michael Moore should take these heroes to Cuba where they surely will get at least free medical health care."---ANON2
Spoken like a true idiot, Anon2. Does Michael Moore tell us the REST of the story?
there is much more poverty in Cuba than ever before.
Except for Castro and his gang who are the new millionaires, the 11 million Cubans have to suffer
the exploitation of the omnipotent state, rationed food, lack of housing and the indignity of being
second class citizens in their own country.
Under the current rule of Fidel Castro's brother, Raul Castro, Cubans still struggle to have enough to eat, where a government rationed food basket may guarantee that every Cuban family receives at least some essential foods, however it is not nearly enough to eat and families must struggle on meager incomes of sometimes as little as an average of 408 pesos a month, which is a little more than $125 U.S.
Yeah. Cuba sounds like a bit of Heaven on earth! ---but you get free health care! Sounds like you would really need it there--malnutition is most likely a real problem. but wait! It gets better!
Under the Cuban government's health care monopoly, the state assumes complete control. Private, non-governmental health facilities, where ailing citizens could buy treatment, are illegal. As a result, average Cubans suffer long waits at government hospitals, while many services and technologies are available only to the Cuban party elite and foreign "health tourists" who pay with hard currency. Moreover, access to such rudimentary medicines as antibiotics and Aspirin can be limited, and there are reports that citizens excluded from the foreign-only hospitals often must bring their own bed sheets and blankets while in care.
I can only be grateful that you live in Canada and the majority of the people in the US are not as gulible as you are! Thank God you can't vote HERE.
"It was his choice to stay in prison in Vietnam as he had the opportunity to be released due to his daddy's position."---Anon2
EXACTLY! He did the right and honorable thing to stay with the others and NOT take advantage of release due to his father's position! I call that brave and heroic---you call that stupid, I'm sure. Most of us would not have been able to do it.
"Perhaps Michael Moore should take these heroes to Cuba where they surely will get at least free medical health care."---ANON2
Spoken like a true idiot, Anon2. Does Michael Moore tell us the REST of the story?
there is much more poverty in Cuba than ever before.
Except for Castro and his gang who are the new millionaires, the 11 million Cubans have to suffer
the exploitation of the omnipotent state, rationed food, lack of housing and the indignity of being
second class citizens in their own country.
Under the current rule of Fidel Castro's brother, Raul Castro, Cubans still struggle to have enough to eat, where a government rationed food basket may guarantee that every Cuban family receives at least some essential foods, however it is not nearly enough to eat and families must struggle on meager incomes of sometimes as little as an average of 408 pesos a month, which is a little more than $125 U.S.
Yeah. Cuba sounds like a bit of Heaven on earth! ---but you get free health care! Sounds like you would really need it there--malnutition is most likely a real problem. but wait! It gets better!
Under the Cuban government's health care monopoly, the state assumes complete control. Private, non-governmental health facilities, where ailing citizens could buy treatment, are illegal. As a result, average Cubans suffer long waits at government hospitals, while many services and technologies are available only to the Cuban party elite and foreign "health tourists" who pay with hard currency. Moreover, access to such rudimentary medicines as antibiotics and Aspirin can be limited, and there are reports that citizens excluded from the foreign-only hospitals often must bring their own bed sheets and blankets while in care.
I can only be grateful that you live in Canada and the majority of the people in the US are not as gulible as you are! Thank God you can't vote HERE.
"It was his choice to stay in prison in Vietnam as he had the opportunity to be released due to his daddy's position."---Anon2
EXACTLY! He did the right and honorable thing to stay with the others and NOT take advantage of release due to his father's position! I call that brave and heroic---you call that stupid, I'm sure. Most of us would not have been able to do it.
"Perhaps Michael Moore should take these heroes to Cuba where they surely will get at least free medical health care."---ANON2
Spoken like a true idiot, Anon2. Does Michael Moore tell us the REST of the story?
there is much more poverty in Cuba than ever before.
Except for Castro and his gang who are the new millionaires, the 11 million Cubans have to suffer
the exploitation of the omnipotent state, rationed food, lack of housing and the indignity of being
second class citizens in their own country.
Under the current rule of Fidel Castro's brother, Raul Castro, Cubans still struggle to have enough to eat, where a government rationed food basket may guarantee that every Cuban family receives at least some essential foods, however it is not nearly enough to eat and families must struggle on meager incomes of sometimes as little as an average of 408 pesos a month, which is a little more than $125 U.S.
Yeah. Cuba sounds like a bit of Heaven on earth! ---but you get free health care! Sounds like you would really need it there--malnutition is most likely a real problem. but wait! It gets better!
Under the Cuban government's health care monopoly, the state assumes complete control. Private, non-governmental health facilities, where ailing citizens could buy treatment, are illegal. As a result, average Cubans suffer long waits at government hospitals, while many services and technologies are available only to the Cuban party elite and foreign "health tourists" who pay with hard currency. Moreover, access to such rudimentary medicines as antibiotics and Aspirin can be limited, and there are reports that citizens excluded from the foreign-only hospitals often must bring their own bed sheets and blankets while in care.
I can only be grateful that you live in Canada and the majority of the people in the US are not as gulible as you are! Thank God you can't vote HERE.
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