More proof that the GOP is DISHONEST and has nothing but talking points, NO and all their old, failed ideas!
You will rarely ever see Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) blow up, but he does here, as Senator "Dr. No" Tom Coburn (C Street-OK) blocks a food safety bill that will undoubtedly cause evil Hitlerism to rise in America, or something.
This is a bill that the food production industry SUPPORTS, a bill that consumer advocacy groups support. Hell, even the Chamber of Commerce supports it. But Sen. Coburn is blocking it, demanding more debate, demanding more study, and demanding a simple one page bill instead of a 2,000 page bill. That is when he is outclassed by Sen. Durbin, who has a one page amendment ready for just such an occassion! Of course, Coburn says "NO!", and Durbin calls him on his obstructionist bullshit.
Watch . . .
Transcript and more below the fold
Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
We all know how terribly EVIL regulations are, especially FOOD SAFETY regulations! What the @#$%?
Here's the transcript . . . and some background info.
Yesterday, Corporate Executives from the egg farming industry testified before congress after food poisoning sickened thousands of Americans.With stronger REGULATIONS, this could have been prevented.
There is just that kind of bill in the Senate, a food safety bill that has been around for 10 years, SB3832. Republicans ignored it when they controlled congress and have blocked it while Dems have had control. Senator Durbin spoke for a half an hour promoting the bill, a bill that consumers and the industry support. Senator Coburn, who is blocking the bill, spoke next, offering nothing more than talking points and platitudes about how SB3832 doesn't "solve the real problem" (which he never clarified), and harping about government spending and the like. Coburn complained that SB3832 is too long, for one thing, and included that grievance among the reasons he opposes a FOOD SAFETY BILL while people in his own state were getting sick from food poisoning.
This is where our transcript begins. . . .
Sen. Durbin: I'd like to offer to the Senator from Oklahoma a compromise, and tell him that I have spent the time, most of the time he was speaking, reading Senate Bill 3832, a one page bill, which calls for uh, study, a plan rather, uh, within 60 days the USDA and the FDA, and within one year a joint report from congress (and) GAO report. I'm going to join him in this, and what I'd like to suggest is the following, because I am committed as he is to a single food safety agency, I would like to amend my unanimous consent request, and make this a Coburn-Durbin Amendment, which will be offered, which I guarantee you I will work night and day to get passed WITH him, as part of this bill, so we address the overall issue. In the meantime, while we are spending six months or a year moving towards this goal, lets at least make the current system as safe as we can, lets do everything we can to protect the people of this nation. So what I'd like to suggest to you is, I'm going to join you in a compromise here, I will add as an amendment to the bill, and cosponsor with you, your language, in Senate Bill 3832, and ask my colleagues on this side of the isle, all of them, to join us in voting for it, if you will now remove your objection so we can go forward in this important historic debate.
Lucy gets the snap, and here comes Charlie Brown with the kick!
If you've seen this before, it's because you have eyes and a brain that doesn't get Glenn Beck's secret report transmitted down from the Fox News satellite without the standard issue tin foil helmet.
The formula for pointless obstruction goes like this.
Democrats have an idea or a bill
Republican blocks it
Dems offer compromise, one the Republican previously supported (in this case, minutes ago)
Now, here comes Charlie Brown with the kick . . .
Sen. Coburn: I appreciate the Senators offer. I can not do that, but I would also want you to know that this bill isn't going to solve that gentlemen's (Coburn's food poisoned constituent) problem from Owaso(?), Oklahoma. This bill isn't going to solve that, Senator Durbin, because we're not fixing the real problem . . .
Lucy pulls the ball away! Act suprised!
. . . and Senator Durbin comes as close to EXPLODING that you will ever see him get!!!
Sen. Durbin: I'd like to add to my time and say to the gentleman from Oklahoma, you can't tell me how badly you feel for these victims and then stop the bill when we are trying to protect them! You can't tell me you want reform and bring the agencies together when I offer it to you and your reject it! The bottom line is, the description you've given up here is about the USDA and this bill is NOT about that agency, it's about the Food and Drug Administration! So I would say to the Senator from Oklahoma, I agree with you! I want to HELP you with this! But if you won't allow us to bring to the floor a bill we've worked on for a year and a half, if you won't offer an amendment along the lines which you've suggested, then all you're doing is saying NO! If you're saying we can't afford safe food in America, I disagree. I think we can afford it! And I'm willing to cut other spending to pay for it, that's the only way it can get through the appropriations process. But to just say NO! after all the work that's gone into it because you don't happen to like it? If you don't like it, offer your amendment, if it's a good idea the Senate will accept it! If you don't have an amendment, then you're like me, Monday Night, watching football, when the Bears play the Packers, deciding what Jay Cutler should be doing at, as quarterback, it's pretty easy from that armchair, but I want you to come down to the field, offer your amendment, be part of the conversation, don't just stand there and say NO! As you say NO! people will suffer and some WILL DIE, and I think that is fundamentally unfair.
Sounds like "Don't get food poisoning, and if you do, die quickly" if you ask me.
We can't AFFORD safe food, but tax cuts for the rich, no matter how unnecessary or costly, well, we know phony ass fiscal conservatives stand on that. Safe Food Bad, Tax Cuts Good. Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Corporations are People.
And REAL PEOPLE are HURTING, getting sick, DYING, seeing their quality of life destroyed and their abilities to earn a living evaporate, and all because Corporatists like Coburn have a million and one excuses as to why we shouldn't regulate, oversee and (GASP!) fine people who might sell us poison and call it food. Real people. People like this . . .
Lewis, the mother of two from California, said she became so sick after eating part of a custard tart at a college graduation banquet for her sister in May that she had to be repeatedly hospitalized, scaring not only her, but her young children who cried when she left, cried when they had to leave her in the hospital and cried when she went back in.
and people like this . . .
"The salmonella infection is not over for me. I have lost my stamina. I often experience indigestion and it is difficult for me to enjoy certain foods," she said. "I feel tired and rest during the day. My doctors told me I almost certainly would have died without aggressive intervention."
"Please make our foods safer," she asked Congress.
If Right Wing talking points were food poisoning I would have died years ago. Toxic, cynical bullshit. I'm sick of it. Real sick, so I say we do something about it.
Because when Senators refuse to protect their constituents from people who would sell them POISON in their food we have a major malfunction, soldier.
I, for one, know why our Government doesn't work. It's because we have too many corporate owned "conservative" sell outs like Tom Coburn in it.
So lets do something about it and help out some great Democrats who are running for Senate.
Click here to support the Senate campaigns of Joe Sestak (PA-Sen), Scott McAdams (AL-Sen), Barbara Boxer (CA-Sen), Alexi Giannoulias (IL-Sen), Jack Conway (KY-Sen) and Kendrick Meek (FL-Sen) with us at ActBlue!
Or, help out two of my favorites who aren't on the ProgressiveElectorate.com ActBlue list, Rodney Glassman (AZ-Sen), and Elaine Marshall (NC-Sen)
Give a little if you can to one of these great candidates, or a little to all of them, either way, we need more voices like these candidates in the Senate, and less like Tom "Dr.NO!" Coburn.
Because anyone who isn't an out of touch, corrupt, corporatist schmuck knows that Food Safety Regulations are GOOD, and if America can't afford Safe Food, America is no longer a first world country.
I put my country FIRST. I put the people and their best interests FIRST, and always first over corporate interests. Republicans like Tom Coburn, Rand Paul and Joe Miller NEVER will put ANYTHING before corporate interests and tax cuts for the rich. Their plan is "Don't get sick", "Don't get food poisoning" and "Don't be born not rich". They want to take our country backwards. We want to move our country forward.
So let's FIGHT! Now, who's coming with me!
Because these ideological corporatists on the right don't give a shit how many people get food poisoning or get sick. If you aren't rich or parroting their talking points they aren't interested. They are the party of no millionaire or corporation left behind.
So let's DO SOMETHING and support candidates with real ideas, not just the Cheney/Bush agenda and NO! to everything else . . .
So, who is coming with me?
Peace and love to all . . .
Follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca