Jake Johnson at Common Dreams writes—"He Might've Stayed a Minute": Coal Miners With Black Lung Slam McConnell for Brushing Them Off in Healthcare Meeting: “”
A group of retired Kentucky coal miners suffering from incurable black lung disease slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for brushing them off on Tuesday after they asked the Republican to commit to funding their medical care.
Around 120 miners and their families traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to meet with the Kentucky Republican and pressure him to take action to finance the federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which serves as a lifeline for an estimated 12,000 former coal miners nationwide.
The miners said McConnell was "rude" during their meeting and quickly left after delivering a brief statement.
"We rode up here for 10 hours by bus to get some answers from him because he represents our state," George Massey, a miner from Harlan County, Kentucky, told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "For him to come in for just two minutes was a low-down shame."
According to Reuters, coal companies had previously "been required to pay a $1.10 per ton tax on underground coal to finance the federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which supports disabled miners whose employers go bankrupt and can no longer pay out medical benefits. But the amount reverted to the 1977 level of 55 cents [in January] after Congress declined to take action to maintain the rate."[...]
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QUOTATION
“Because, underneath all of this is the real truth we have been avoiding: climate change isn’t an “issue” to add to the list of things to worry about, next to health care and taxes. It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us that we need to evolve.”
~~Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2006—CT-Sen: Bill Clinton's visit:
Lieberman and his apologists believe that having Bill Clinton do a single campaign event for him will somehow convince Connecticut voters that Lieberman has delivered for them the past 18 years. I doubt it will be successful, any more than Dean's parade of high-profile endorsement helped him in 2004.
People vote for the candidate, not the candidate's friends, especially in a case like this where the candidate is so well known and opinions are so clearly defined. Lieberman's poor constituent services, his years-long absence from the state, and his lack of fit with voters is more determinate of how voters will vote on August 8th than anything any blogger or even Bill Clinton can say.
Connecticut voters don't need outsiders to tell them how to think about their senators.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: The Mueller hearing was on, but we couldn't watch becaus they didn’t wait for our show to end! But forget it, the press already decided you weren't interested. Perv-a-Lago has even more Chinese spies! But you can't deport them, because they're members!