MITCH McCONNELL'S AGENDA OF OBSTRUCTIONISM COULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH-- OR KILL YOU

This morning while I was putting on my socks I happened to see a report on CNN about a couple in Harbin, China whose young daughter died because of a badly made drug she took. The Chinese manufacturer isn't allowed to make that particular drug any longer-- and they paid the couple $2,700 for the loss of their daughter. I wonder how much they paid Mitch McConnell and other Republican boosters for unrestricted Chinese trade in return for being allowed to continue to sell their poisonous productions into the United States... which, according to CNN, they do.

Aside from being a firm believer in "free trade" (as opposed to fair trade), McConnell is also a worshipper at the alter of "unrestricted" (i.e.- predatory) capitalism, which means that the market works things like this out, not the government. If a manufacturer, according the McConnell-think, makes poisonous products and people-- and their pets-- die, well, if enough of them die, then other folks will stop buying the product. (By the way, after watching the CNN report I spent an hour looking for the name of the company that makes it-- unsuccessfully.) A few days ago one of the newspapers read by many of Senator McConnell's constituents, the Cincinnati Post ran an editorial, Protect Us, Not China Trade. They didn't mention McConnell by name and many voters in Kentucky are unaware of his highly lucrative and possibly illegal connections to businesses in China. In any case, the 4 points in the editorial-- which basically asks if "the principle of free trade [is] really more important than the health of our citizens"-- were surely a stern warning to McConnell:

First, it's scary to learn that Chinese-manufactured toothpaste on our store shelves could be poisonous. There have been only close calls here, as far as we know-- with the long-term health effects, of course, yet to be determined. But in Panama, more than 100 people are known to have died from toxic cough syrup originating in China.

Other countries, too, have discovered import problems from China, including Canada, Spain and Liberia. Problems such as salmonella and outright putrefaction of food, not to mention adulterating tactics such as stuffing buns with flavored cardboard. We find foods and medicines filled with toxic melamine, diethylene glycol, nitrofuran and Malachite green-- just for starters.

Second, how many Americans knew that the federal role in inspecting imports has dwindled at the same time that trade with China has ballooned?

Today, China accounts for one-third of U.S. imports, worth some $300 billion. And, as everyone knows, China is one of the most polluted countries in the world. So we might ask our, uh, leaders in Washington: "If the Chinese are willing to trash their own country in the name of making a buck, why would they hesitate to trash us?"

And yet at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill, we learned that just 1 percent of food imported into America is inspected, down from 8 percent in 1992.

Indeed, according to congressional investigators, inspectors in San Francisco have an average of 30 seconds to make a judgment on each shipment, including such basic questions as whether the shipment is accurately labeled as to country of origin-- which many are not.

Third, one of the great political achievements of the 20th century, The Pure Food and Drug Act, is now under assault - assault from overseas.

A little more than a century ago, in 1906, muckraking author Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, which opened Americans' eyes to conditions in the meatpacking industry. Within months, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation that ultimately led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.

But now we are learning that the FDA has shrunk from the task of regulating Chinese imports. Why? Because China falls into the realm of "foreign policy," in which the well-being of Americans is subordinated to the well-being of trans-Pacific diplomacy, including trade.

In other words, the State Department, eager to keep Beijing happy at all costs, is the true arbiter of what gets into your stomach, not some low-level public health expert. Feel better?

Fourth, China's system is worse than you know-- but don't take my word for it.
"China's regulatory regime isn't really ready for the 21st century," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, speaking to ABC News.

Yeah, a cynic might say, the Center is a Nader-ite outfit that never met a government regulation it didn't like.

But it's harder to dismiss this warning: "As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak. Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about." That's from Yan Jiangying, the alarmingly frank spokeswoman for China's food and drug agency, as recorded by the Washington Post.

This morning the Center For American Progress put out a report on obstructionism, the route McConnell and Senate Republicans like John Sununu (R-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Pete Domenici (R-NM), John Cornyn (R-TX), George Voinovich (R-OH), John Warner (R-VA), James Inhofe (R-OK), and Ted Stevens (R-AK) has consciously decided to use to thwart the will of the American people on crucial matters like this.

The CAP report deals mostly with how McConnell and his team have been able to use parliamentary tricks to keep Bush's "Stay the Course" agenda in Iraq in place, despite the will of the majority in the Senate and the majority of Americans, but it's a tactic McConnell has been using all year-- and to devastating effect.

In the first seven months of the 110th Congress, conservatives have acted to obstruct legislation at a rate greater than in any previous Congress. While the House has successfully acted on a number of pressing issues, conservatives in the Senate have blocked legislation via filibuster 42 times, embracing a tactic they once threatened to eliminate. In the few instances where Congress has been able to overcome the politically-motivated obstruction, President Bush-- who demanded in January that Congress not "play politics as usual"-- has used the 110th Congress to score political points by vetoing legislation backed by the majority of the American people. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) boasted recently, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail.. and so far it's working."