Congress, Again And Again

Remember a few weeks ago, a spate of stories about how Congress had bills before it to act on all those anoying robo-calls many of us get? I thought about a blog topic then along the lines of "what took you so long?" How many YEARS has this problem existed and it's only now that our Congress gets around to it?  BTW, nothing definite yet--from the body that is supposed to represent us.

Jon Stewart was right, also, to call Congress out for not acting on aid for the First Responders who have suffered grievious medical problems from their work in lower Manhattan during 9/11. He complained, rightly, their benefits were expiring soon and Congress had no timetable to taking up extending them. Our Mitch smugly replied that Congress often acts at the last minute-but it would take action here. Meanwhile, a few more 9/11 victims have died, and their families are up in the air in many cases because "congress often acts at the last minute." This important matter has been called to its attention and for the senate leader and others, to take more time than is needed, is inefficient, impractical, inhumane and ought to be remember when next he--and several others-run for office.


But Stewart also missed a major point, one that rankles me a lot, and shows another side. Congress acted VERY swiftly after 9/11 to pass a bill EXEMPTING those airlines who carried the terrorists from being sued by the families of the dead passengers. Congress can act quickly when it wants to and it wanted to let American, United, et al off the hook, and also not let defense lawyers circling to sue from getting their cases heard. Forget the facts that the TSA/FAA and airlines were monumentally negligent here; as news story after story, and actually tapes of the terrorists getting thru screenings proved beyond doubt--oh, and overlook the airline industries political contributions as well. These sad parts of the "First Responders' "  is still with us, and will be for some  time I suspect.


Congress is a century late, some tell us, facing another issue: "reparations for slavery." This may become a hot button issue in the campaign, but it shouldn't. There are just too many unknowns and intangibles here, such as who today should get reparations for all those dead people we did greatly harm then?  Do we even know--for certain? It's a bad idea, and it's out of place. IF we wanted to pay such reparations today, let us begin with the people we really injured much earlier, even before the first slave arrived in Virginia. I'm talking about the American Indians, or Native Americans if you prefer (I don't) or better, what Canada calls the "First Nation." If we are going to do reparations, we need to start there, and work our way up to a more present time.

I'm just sayin'...