Mine Safety

More Outrages By Senate Republicans! :(

The Republican Party is adding to its horrible public image by recent actions, with no limits on their nastiness! 🙁

Having blocked the DREAM Act, unemployment compensation extension, and the 9/11 First Responders Medical legislation, now they have also prevented a $250 bonus to senior citizens who are receiving no cost of living increase on Social Security, despite rising medical costs.

Also, just eight months after the death of 29 coal miners in West Virginia, the Republicans have become the promoters of the mine industry by blocking passage of urgently needed mine safety reform!

Rather than hold mine owners responsible for mine safety, by imposing greater regulation, greater criminal penalties, and liability for damages, and protection for “whistle blowers” who speak out against unsafe conditions, they have done just the opposite!

Massive violators of mine safety, such as the owners of those mines where the 29 miners lost their lives, now know with a Republican House and more Republicans in the Senate next year, they will get off without any penalty for their violating the laws. And this company had 515 violations in 2009, an unconscionable situation! 🙁

What a sad commentary in the 21st century that the most dangerous of all occupations has safety conditions unworthy of any industry, and Republicans sit by and ignore reality! 🙁

Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and even Richard Nixon would be shocked at what has happened to the Republican Party in the past 30 years, and getting worse than ever now in 2010!