Maybe you’ve heard of the Zadroga Bill or maybe you haven’t. It is a bill named for a police officer who died as a result of being a first responder on September 11, 2001. The bill, in a nutshell, guarantees medical care to those first responders suffering illness or injury as a result of their actions at Ground Zero: getting people to safety, treating the wounded, recovering the dead.
The Zadroga Bill has been passed by the House of Representatives. Some members of the Senate, however, have filibustered the bill, preventing it from even coming to a vote even though it’s been established that, were the bill to come to an “up or down” vote, there are more than enough votes (only 50 “yea” votes are required) for this piece of legislation to pass. Granted, the bill does allow for even more money to be paid out to 9-11 victims’ families (unless that provision has been removed), and in some cases, those families have received huge sums of money already (some families have received sums into the millions of dollars, though this is not necessarily true of all surviving families of 9-11 victims), but that is a simple matter that Congress could remove from the final legislation without removing the benefit and larger intent of the bill – to provide necessary medical care to those who did the same on 9-11 and who are now dying at a median age of 46 years old. Just as we owe our veterans care they (we) are not receiving, we owe these first responders that much.
Jon Stewart Blasts Congress Over Zadroga Bill
Shepherd Smith of Fox News (not a channel I really pay attention to for my news, to be honest), has also picked up the torch. Whether it was Stewart’s challenge or memories of Hurricane Katrina (be sure to take a few moments to view the footage linked in the article under “Shep doesn’t forget.”) that set Smith off, he is righteously indignant, and he’s tossed cool, calm political correctness out the window on this one:
For those of you who are keeping score, here are the names Shepherd Smith named along with the states they represent:
Lamar Alexander TN
John Barasso WY
John Cornyn TX
Mike Crapo ID
Jim DeMint SC
Mike Enzi WY
Chuck Grassley IA
Jon Kyl AZ
Jeff Sessions AL
Max Baucus MT
Judd Gregg NH
James Inhofe OK
Jim Bunning KY
Tom Coburn OK
John Ensign NV
Lindsey Graham SC
Orrin Hatch UT
John McCain AZ
Mitch McConnell KY (Senate Minority Leader)
Don’t get me wrong: I am happy to see the repeal of DADT, but this really should have been a priority over that.
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