{"id":3685,"date":"2010-12-21T14:06:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T22:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3685"},"modified":"2010-12-21T14:06:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T22:06:29","slug":"coburn-lies-to-block-first-responders-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/21\/coburn-lies-to-block-first-responders-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Coburn Lies to Block First Responders Bill!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteer Firefighting goes back a long way with me.  I started at age fifteen as a member of my High School\u2019s volunteer firefighting unit.  Since then, I\u2019ve been a volunteer firefighter in four different states.  I know what it is to enter burning buildings to rescue unconscious people and to recover people too far gone to save.  I know what it is to use a stream 2 1\/2\u201d line to cool a LNG tank adjacent to a burning building, knowing that in a BLEVE (when the pressure breaches the tank it blows up), I would not survive.  I know the fear.  But the things I did do not begin to hold a candle to the courage and dedication displayed by 9\/11 first responders.  Yet Republicans continue to block the legislation to provide care for the health effects of their heroism.  The excuses are bold faced lies.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"21_911resp\"Pressure has been mounting<\/a> on Republicans to relax their opposition to a bill to would provide health benefits to 9\/11 first responders after Senate Republicans unanimously filibustered it earlier this month, but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told Politico yesterday that he will likely <\/strong>block the measure<\/strong><\/a> yet again<\/strong>. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said last night that the Senate must act immediately<\/a> to complete the bill in order to allow enough time for the House to pass the same version before Congress recesses for Christmas. \u201c[I]if you\u2019re going to send us anything that we need to deal with, send it, frankly, by [Tuesday],\u201d Hoyer told The Hill. <\/p>\n

But appearing on Fox News this morning, Coburn defended his decision to obstruct the bill, saying he is upset with the process, and claiming that the bill was never considered by a congressional committee, and that there was never a hearing on it<\/strong>. Watch it:<\/p>\n

 <\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Despite Coburn\u2019s claim, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions committee <\/strong>did in fact<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>hold a hearing<\/strong><\/a> on the bill in June \u2014 and Coburn should know as he <\/strong>sits on that committee<\/strong><\/a>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Democrats even changed funding source of the bill, so that it would no longer close the loophole to benefit foreign corporations, when they outsource American jobs, so Republicans no longer have that excuse.  It comes down to pure greed and corruption.  Every penny spent on deserving heroes is a penny Republicans can\u2019t give to millionaires.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteer Firefighting goes back a long way with me.  I started at age fifteen as a member of my High School\u2019s volunteer firefighting unit.  Since then, I\u2019ve been a volunteer firefighter in four different states.  I know what it is to enter burning buildings to rescue unconscious people and to recover people too far gone […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}