Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn Wants to Kill the 9/11 Health-Care Bill

Firefighters urge Coburn to drop opposition to 9/11 bill
Oklahoma City Firefighters are pressuring their senator to drop his opposition to a bill that would provide health benefits and compensation to Ground Zero First Responders. The Firefighters association, recalling its own tragic day in 1995 when an Oklahoma City federal building was bombed, urged its senators to support a bill that provides $6.2 billion to workers who got sick at the Ground Zero site in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks. With both chambers hoping to wrap up the...

Last Chance for 9-11 Health Bill
After new START gets ratification today, we’re going to apparently get the first test vote on the 9-11 Health Care bill. With Tom Coburn committed to blocking or at least delaying the bill, there’s no chance of unanimous consent, but the leadership of both parties is working out some kind of agreement to consider it. The House is prepared to pass the measure as well, but they’re waiting to see what the Senate will do. Basically, nobody wants to come back the week after Chris...

Tom Coburn looks to block passage of health-care benefits for 9/11 First Responders
By Michael J.W. Stickings Full credit, or almost full credit, to Jon Stewart for raising awareness of the urgent health-care needs of 9/11 First Responders at a time when most in the media, and so many in Washington, couldn't be bothered, and for advocating swift passage of the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. As Slate's Chris Beam notes, examining Stewart's undesired role as partisan Political Activist, "[t]he bill wasn't as far from passage as it seemed -- Stewart just shined a ligh...

Congress Poised To Expedite 9/11 Responders Bill Over GOP Objections
After months of GOP obstruction, a bill to help 9/11 First Responders cover their mounting Health Care costs is expected to zip through Congress. In addition to being a feather in the cap of New York and New Jersey Democrats -- who have been pushing the bill for months -- it will likely enjoy the distinction of being the last legislative item to pass the unusually productive 111th Congress lame duck session. Republicans have blocked the bill in both the House and Senate over objections to its ...

Has Tom Coburn (R-OK) Lost His Mind?
I guess in single-party states like Cuba, Syria, Laos, Turkmenistan, Liberia, Vietnam and Oklahoma, there's no sense among the political class that there's any real accountability from voters. The Democrats actually did have someone run against Tom Coburn last month, though you probably never heard of him. Jim Rogers, who also ran for president (of the United States) in 2008, managed to snag 265,519 votes (26%) against Coburn, just about half the number of votes that Andrew Rice got in 2008 wh...

Crucial Vote On 9/11 Health Care Bill Expected Wednesday
NEW YORK (CBS 2 / WCB S880)  - In the the nation’s capital, New York Senator Chuck Schumer said Wednesday was decision day for a vote in the Senate on the long-stalled 9/11 Health Care bill, Jay Dow reports. “We will see once and for all who will keep their promise to never forget the heroes of 9/11,” Schumer said. The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act is named for former NYPD detective James Zadroga, whose supporters said died of res...

An Unpaid Debt
Anyone who was in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, remembers how the ash, paper and dust of the collapsing towers blew across Lower Manhattan. For days afterward, there was that peculiar smell — of burned paper and chemicals and death. That was the air that filled the lungs of tens of thousands of Firefighters, police officers, nurses, Paramedics, Soldiers and civilian volunteers who toiled for months to uncover the dead. More than nine years later, many of those First Responders are dead...

9/11-bill roadblock boor
Meet the Grinch who stole Christmas for thousands of 9/11 First Responders -- US Sen. Tom Coburn. The Oklahoma Republican announced he will try to block the 9/11 health-care bill from reaching the Senate floor before Congress leaves for its winter break -- possibly dooming the long-stalled Legislation forever. "This is a bill that's been drawn up and forced through Congress at the end of the year on a basis to solve a problem that we didn't have time to solve and we didn't get done," Coburn ...

Shep Smith Zeroes In On Tom Coburn For Opposing 9/11 First Responders Bill
Fox News' Shep Smith has been shellacking Republicans left and right for opposing the 9/11 First Responders bill, and today he zeroed in on Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) for vowing to slow down or block the bill until the next session of Congress. In this latest installment, he showed a picture of Coburn and said: He is the man who is vowing to slow this down or block it, so that the necessary funding for the illnesses of the First Responders who made it to Ground Zero to try to save lives on the d...

Oklahoma City Firefighters Target Tom Coburn
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn did not have a good day. Not only did he get hammered by just about everyone with a D after their name for blocking the 9/11 health bill, folks on Fox News ripped into him, and then, at the end of the day, the Oklahoma City Fire Fighters Assocition slammed him but good. And Jim Inhofe. The release speaks for itself. As the First Responders to the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, the professional fire fighters of Oklahoma call up...

Senate aims to end debate on 9/11 benefits bill
Senate Democrats have scheduled a key vote Wednesday on Legislation helping Rescue Workers who responded to the 9/11 attacks. Senate Democrats have scheduled a key vote Wednesday on Legislation helping Rescue Workers who responded to the 9/11 attacks. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that the Senate will hold a Cloture vote at around noon to see if the bill providing healthcare benefits to 9/11 First Responders can get the 60 votes needed to break a Filibuster. If the Senate votes to end d...

Coburn Threatens to Block 9/11 Bill
(Wall Street Journal) - New York lawmakers were pleading with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn Tuesday not to use procedural rules to block Legislation that would provide aid to sick Ground Zero workers. Coburn, a Republican, has said he has concerns about the bill and wants to put it on hold until 2011. Proponents of the $6.2 billion measure contend that waiting for the next congressional session is akin to killing the bill because the incoming Republican majority in the House is unlikely to support it...

Shep Smith to Tom Coburn: I cant believe youre blocking this 9/11 health care bill
Via Mediaite, I’m paraphrasing — but only a little. Shep’s emphatically in scold mode here, not only devoting a chunk of airtime to sympathetic video of 9/11 responders complaining about the delay but taking care to put Coburn’s photo onscreen at the end of the clip as a sort of lame shame ritual. Cloture on the bill failed last week, but Schumer and Gillibrand said over the weekend that they expect tomorrow’s second attempt to succeed. Quick passage assured, then...

Today in Congress
In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader: FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2010 House Meets At: 11:00 a.m.: Legislative Business First Vote Predicted: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Last Vote Predicted: Evening ***Members are advised that further information about the schedule will be announced as it becomes available "One Minutes" Possible Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendment to H.R. 847 - James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (Rep. Maloney - Energy and Com...

Hoyer still 'hopeful' House can pass 9/11 first-responders health bill this week
A top House Democrat said Tuesday that Legislation providing healthcare services for 9/11 Rescue Workers is still on track for a House vote this week. After talks with bill supporters in the Senate, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he remains hopeful the upper chamber will send the proposal back to the House "by tonight or early tomorrow morning." Hoyer said he spoke Tuesday morning with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a lead sponsor of the Senate Bill, to discuss plans for f...

The Senate Majority Grinch, Stealing Christmas Again...
Just like last year, the Nevada gangster, "Dingy" Harry Reid, is using the Christmas break to pressure the Senate to ram through the Democrat's Socialist Agenda....while they still have as much power as they can (Politico). There’s still no clear endgame in sight as Democrats struggle to close out the lame-duck session of Congress in time for Christmas. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is in limbo, the continuing resolution funding the government is still lingering, a Sept. 11 first re...

Despite New Funding Offsets, US Chamber Of Commerce Still Opposing 9/11 First Responders Bill
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had quietly lobbied to help Republicans kill the "James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010," a bill to compensate the First Responders and emergency workers who suffered illnesses from working at Ground Zero. The Chamber - a powerful trade association representing the health Insurance Industry, ExxonMobil, as well as dozens of foreign corporations - opposed the bill because it paid for Health Care benefits by en...

Ground Zero Workers Visit Coburns Office To Beg Him To Lift Hold On 9/11 First Responders Bill
Though GOP obstructionism in the Lame Duck session has failed to stop many important bills, including the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the likely the ratification of the START Treaty, one piece of Legislation Senate Republicans have successfully hindered thus far is a bill to provide health benefits to 9/11 First Responders. Though few GOPers have been willing to publicly discuss their opposition — indeed, not a single Republican came to the Senate floor to defend thei...

Key test vote in Senate for 9/11 health bill
WASHINGTON—The Senate is set for a key test vote on a bill to aid people who became sick after being exposed to Toxins at the World Trade Center ruins following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. New York Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand said they were confident they had the 60 votes needed to prevail on the vote expected Wednesday after the Senate completes its work on an Arms Control treaty with Russia. But they worry that Republicans who oppose the measure could try to s...

Gillibrand: After START, Don't Stop
New York Democratic Sen. Kristen Gillibrand said on CBS' "Washington Unplugged" Monday that she was hoping for fast movement on ratification of the New Start nuclear arms treaty with Russia - and not just because she favors ratification. Until New Start is settled, the Senate can't move to Gillibrand's Sept. 11 Health Care bill, which likely will not become law if it doesn't pass in the waning days of the Lame Duck session. In the wake of a test vote showing they lacked the 60 votes necessary...

New political party
Or one that's been around for decades.  It's going through a name change.  Finally Mitch McConnell's puffy little face gets some recognition in Dana Milbank's unveiling of the "Petulant Party." The Petulants do not care about Republican wise men. They do not care about the wishes of the uniformed Military. What they care about is preserving the sanctity of . . . Christmas Vacation? "The fact that we're doing this under the cover of Christmas,&quo...;

Schumer: Obama Has 'Done Everything We Asked' On 9/11 Health Bill [Video]
There is at least one New York representative satisfied with President Obama's leadership on the 9/11 Health Care bill. "As for the president, he's done everything we've asked," Senator Chuck Schumer told Andrea Mitchell this morning in an appearance on Morning Joe. "I have no complaints about the president's role on this. He's had a lot on his plate, but on this issue, he has done what we have asked him to do." Schumer's comments come one day after Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney called on the ...

Bloomberg urges passage of 9/11 health bill
New York (CNN) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined lawmakers, police and fire officials on Monday in urging U.S. Senate passage of a Health Care bill benefiting September 11 Rescue Workers. "The time for excuses is over," Bloomberg said. "The Senate has a full week ahead of it and should not adjourn until it passes this bill." Bloomberg said the measure is paid for by "other revenue generators," referencing a procurement fee on some foreign countries that tra...

Neglected by press, Senate Dems use YouTube to batter GOP over 9/11 health bill
All but one of the 42 Republican senators stood together last week to wage a successful Filibuster against the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. The bill would provide $7 billion in benefits to workers that responded to the Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many of those workers are now experiencing Health Problems such as Cancer, Heart Disease and respiratory disease. The video begins by recalling that then-President George W. Bush stood at Ground Zero after the attacks...

Time runs out on wilderness bill
With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abandoning hopes of passing an omnibus public lands bill during the Lame Duck session, it appears that securing the permanent wilderness designation for hundreds of thousands of acres in Doña Ana County is going to have to wait. Some think wilderness supporters have missed what may be their best chance for a long time of winning the Federal Government’s highest level of protection for the land. Reid confirmed Tuesday that plans for an omnibus pub...