In the realm of mine safety, the (new house) budget would prevent the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) from tightening coal dust regulations to curb the number of miners suffering from black lung disease. For over a decade the labor department has been working to lower the amount of respirable coal dust legally allowed in a mine's atmosphere, a move the coal lobby has opposed. The Republican budget would stop any such rule changes in their tracks.
"It's something that's certainly needed," Tony Oppegard, an attorney and mine safety advocate, previously told HuffPost when discussing the MSHA rule. "And the coal industry is crying about it."
In a statement, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, made no apologies for blocking the rules, saying that the budget plan would help to "invest in people by freeing them from stifling government regulatory burdens that replace productivity with paperwork."
"By spending tax dollars strategically," Rehlberg said, "we can balance critical funding for programs that actually help people and families with the real need to rein in government over-spending."
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House Republicans once again are threatening to cut funding to National Public Radio. I was listening to a great story about the Brooklyn Dodgers on KPBS this morning, thinking how wonderful it was to have a news source without a corporate agenda. Of course it is a threat to the right, who see liberal bias behind every lamp post like Don Quixote. I think that public radio is a great forum for so many non political programs that I enjoy, it will be a shame if they are finally able to kill and defund it.
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Libertarian godhead Ron Paul was on defense last week after he was confronted with the fact that one of his principal aides had died sick without health insurance, about 400k in the hole, a debt that his mother now is responsible for and is passing the hat around to cover. The aide had a preexisting condition and couldn't get a policy. Paul thinks that mandatory health insurance cuts into America's freedoms.
Campaign Manager Kent Snyder, the "driving force behind his election campaign" was only 49 when he died from viral pneumonia in 2008.
At the debate Paul said,"That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody ..." before he was cut off by the wild partisan applause. Paul explained later that Snyder was never denied care at the hospital.
What makes it doubly tragic is that Paul is too stupid to see that we all are going to have to pay for the unpaid medical bill, in the form of higher premiums for the rest of us.
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I got to pull for the Milwaukee Brewers in the playoffs. When was the last time Milwaukee smelled a division title, the 1950's with Aaron, Spahn and Matthews? They are due.
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Why is my wife making me eat all this cantaloupe?
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Of course I have friends who are really sick. My friend S told me today that she has skin cancer of the leg that the insurance is refusing to pick up because it is not on her face. Nasty squamous carcinoma. She is going to lose a chunk. Why the hell won't the bastards cover it? Wishing her the best. M has a gluteal cyst that is no fun either and has turned into a fistula. These are truly the glory years, aren't they?
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Read practically any 18th and 19th century book and you would realize that any person the north side of fifty is positively ancient so I guess we greybeards should all feel lucky.
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The Blast would like to send condolences to my good pal Michael Loughlin, in regards to the death of his brother Robert, the New Jersey artist who was run down crossing the street to take care of some kittens in North Bergen. He was a very famous painter and picker, responsible for "the brute" which I show at left. Loughlin is survived by his partner of 31 years, Gary.
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