Firefighters Fight Cancer And The System

-by Tracy B Ann

I am the daughter of a fireman. When I was a kid my dad worked 24 hour shifts. Work a day, off a day, work a day, off three days. Except my dad wasn't home when he was off. No fireman then, or firefighter now, could support a family on the wages they are paid, they all work second jobs.

They run into burning buildings for a living, to save our lives and our property and they get paid shit for doing so. They willingly put their health and lives in danger for US and they get very little thanks in return.

My father was hospitalized for smoke inhalation on several occasions that I know of. Like most firefighters, he just did his job, didn't think he was being heroic, he just did what the job called for. He did it with a sense of humour too. I remember overhearing him talk about a fire in a girls dorm at a local college. He said that as he kicked open the door of a smoke filled room with half dressed, freaked out college women inside, he yelled "Cover your eyes if you're naked, we're coming in."

Later in his career, my dad worked often in elementary schools with young kids; getting them used to seeing a firefighter in full gear. That was to keep them from freaking out thinking Darth Vader had come to get them so that they would come out from under the bed in a fire to be rescued. He appeared on kids TV shows doing the same thing.

My dad was also a union rep, fighting to get the best benefits and pay he could for his fellow fire fighters. My dad didn't live as long as some other members of his family did, not as long as I would have thought, genetically speaking. He died in poor health, also unusual for my family. His mother lived to be 98 and in her own home for all but the last 6 months of her life.

I don't know what he would say about the way firefighters are being treated today but I know that he wouldn't be happy about it at all. I think he would really like Herb Jones, the guy who is running for Virginia's 3rd State Senate District, against Tommy Norment, the Senate Majority Leader. Herb says this about firefighters:

There is presumptive cancer legislation in the code of Virginia, however, cancer is NOT a occupational hazard covered by Workers Compensation. The code requires the firefighter to identify the incident and the hazard that led to the cancer diagnosis. It’s a ridiculous burden of proof. The Republican leadership has played games with this for the past 15 years. One year it will pass in the house, but fail in the senate; the ensuing year, it will pass in the senate but fail in the house

They have to "identify the incident and the hazard that led to the cancer diagnosis" Wtf?!? You can check state by state here, but most states coverage for cancer sucks for firefighters. Though, I have to say, without knowing details, the updated version of Oklahoma's coverage looks good; "existence of any cancer that was not revealed by the physical examination passed by the member upon entry into the department." (Was that coverage enacted after the bombing?)

Firefighters have a higher incidence of cancer than the general population. A 2013 NIOSH study showed that firefighters have a 14% increased risk of dying from cancer, even when using full protective gear. They are exposed to all kinds of hazardous materials that release carcinogens when burned.




My father was most active in the fire department in the 1950's, '60's and '70's. I don't know what kinds of burning chemicals he encountered, but I do know that the house I live in today, built in 1957, most assuredly has lead paint under all those layers and I know for a fact that my kitchen floor is asbestos. When I had a new one put in, they wouldn't take the old one out, a hazmat team is needed for that; yet firefighters are expected to run into what will be a toxic dump if my house catches on fire.

This isn't a problem exclusive to any one state, it's a national problem. In Virginia, Herb Jones says "the only way firefighters and their families will be protected is by a change in the General Assembly and specifically in the leadership." I want to help Herb Jones get elected in Virginia and then I want to help Democrats get elected everywhere. Democrats govern with care because it works better. It will work better for firefighters, and my father, a lifelong Democrat, would for sure like that.

This Post Is Only For Californians-- Unless You Also Live In A State That Gets Wildfires

It's wildfire weather in L.A.-- temperatures in the 90s and very dry. There are plenty of reasons to be angry about the irresponsibility of Members of Congress who voted for the Sequester-- and inconvenience at airports is the least of them. The possibility of losing homes and lives to wildfires is far more serious. Monday Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who's in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell were in Idaho were in Idaho explaining that Congress' Sequester had tied their hands in terms of using prescribed burns for fire prevention and that 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer engines will be available to fight fires in the dry West this summer.

Idaho has two congressmembers, both Republicans. Mike Simpson is a GOP Establishment shill and a lockstep ally of Boehner's. He voted for the Sequester. Raul Labrador is a bit of a rebel with a libertarian streak and he was one of the 66 Republicans who joined with 95 Democrats to oppose Boehner's sequester bill on August 1, 2011. Tuesday, the editors of the Great Falls Tribune in their state sent them a message: voters are watching:

Cutting federal dollars for firefighting would seem to be foolish on its face.

Unless Congress wants to see the West go up in flames this fire season, federal dollars for fighting fires should be restored to last year’s levels.

It’s an easy thing to suggest whacking the heck out of the federal budget. But it’s not such an easy thing to find federal programs that don’t affect people in small or large ways. Even chemotherapy to cancer patients has been delayed by cuts.

Last year, wildfires burned 9.3 million acres of land and destroyed more than 4,400 structures. It was one of the worst wildfire years in since most Americans were born. This year could easily be worse. A bad year for Congress' meat ax approach to ideologically-inspred budget cuts. And it isn't just Idaho that is worried, of course. New Mexico and Oregon were both hit very hard last year. Much of Texas, whose Republican-dominated congressional delegation is Austerity-mad, has been a tinderbox. Washington is another state under severe threat-- and so is Florida, another state where senior Republican congressmembers like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, John Mica, Bill Young, Vern Buchanan, Tom Rooney, Mario Diaz-Balart, Anders Crenshaw, Jeff Miller, Richard Nugent and Gus Bilirakis helped push the Boehner-Cantor-Ryan wing of the party's pro-Sequester position.

But no state is in greater jeopardy than California from the $115 million cuts to the federal wildland fire program budget. Fires have already begun and the outlook is grim. The games they play back in Washington are grim too and Members of Congress-- regardless of party-- who voted for the sequester should be held accountable. My own congressman, New Dem Adam Schiff, voted for the sequester. I won't be voting for him in 2014. This is the list of California congressmembers still in Congress who voted for the Sequester:

• Karen Bass (D)

• Howard Berman (D)

• Ken Calvert (R)
• John Campbell (R)
• Lois Capps (D)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog)
• Susan Davis (New Dem)
• Jeff Denham (R)
• Anna Eshoo (D)
• John Garamendi (D)
• Darrell Issa (R)
• Kevin McCarthy (R)
• Buck McKeon (R)
• Gary Miller (R)
• Nancy Pelosi (D)
• Dana Rohrabacher (R)
• Ed Royce (R)
• Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog; her sister, Linda Sanchez, had the sense to vote NO)
• Adam Schiff (New Dem)
• Brad Sherman (D)
• Jackie Speier (D)
• Mike Thompson Blue Dog)

The California members with the good sense to vote against Sequester: Xavier Becerra (D), Judy Chu (D), Janice Hahn (D), Mike Honda (D), Duncan Hunter (R), Barbara Lee (D), Zoe Lofgren (D), Tom McClintock (R), George Miller (D), Grace Napolitano (D), Devin Nunes (R), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D), Linda Sánchez (D), and Maxine Waters (D).

On election day, few people just vote on a single issue. If your house burns down this summer and there are no firefighters there to help, you might want to at least take this one into consideration.

I Bet K Street Lobbyist Tommy Thompson Wishes He Didn't Approve This Message-- A Game Loser In Wisconsin

A desperate last minute smear from Tommy Thompson's campaign is probably the final nail in his own political coffin. The biggest newspaper in Wisconsin, Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel ran a big story about how Thompson's ad is another right-wing lie, which is basically all you get out of that campaign anyway.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson uses military veterans, images of the fallen twin towers and pictures of 9/11 victims to criticize Democratic rival Tammy Baldwin in a new television ad.

...Let’s look at the core claim in this ad: That Baldwin, a U.S. House member from Madison, voted against a tribute to Sept. 11 victims.

The claim stems from a Sept. 14, 2006, vote on a resolution commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Baldwin was one of 22 House members-- 21 Democrats and one Republican [Ron Paul]-- to vote against the resolution.

Thompson campaign spokeswoman Lisa Boothe said the matter was pretty cut and dried.

"It is simple, she was one of 22 members that voted against it, an incredibly small margin.  This was a near unanimous vote."

So there is some truth in Thompson claim.

But that’s far from the entire story.

At the time, Baldwin delivered a speech on the House floor denouncing Republicans for adding language to the routine commemoration that she did not agree with.

According to the Congressional Record, here’s what she said Sept. 13, 2006:

"Mr. Speaker, on the fifth anniversary of the worst attack on American soil, my Republican colleagues have disgracefully politicized what should have been a solemn and sincere resolution.

"This week we are mourning the tragic losses of innocent lives as well as commemorating the unsurpassed heroism that was on display that day.

"We are expressing our gratitude to our nation’s law enforcement officers for their tireless dedication to make our country safer; and we are reaffirming our nation’s resolve to combat terrorism and secure our homeland. But rather than offering a bipartisan resolution that unites us on this solemn occasion, the Republican leadership converted the bill into an endorsement of the Patriot Act, punitive immigration bills, and other highly controversial measures, which many of my constituents oppose.

"This bill was cynically transformed from a memorial resolution to an endorsement of President Bush’s failed policies. The Republicans show enormous disrespect to the 9/11 victims and families by playing election year politics with something as solemn as the fifth anniversary of 9/11; I will vote against the bill."

The publication CQ Weekly, which covers Congress, described the resolution this way in a Sept. 18, 2006 piece:

"But this year’s version was different. Taken up 54 days before one of the most pivotal elections in a decade, the measure afforded Republicans and Democrats a platform from which to argue about which party is more determined to prevail in the war on terror."

The story added: "Republicans stuffed the bill with references to GOP-crafted measures that they say improve national security. Democrats, who voted for some of the bills listed in the resolution, wanted no references to new laws, and complained that framing the resolution that way made it too much of a political document."

Thompson’s ad shows a portion of a Sept. 14, 2006, headline from Baldwin’s hometown Capital Times--  "Baldwin rejects 9-11 tribute"-- but not the entire headline, which read: "Baldwin rejects 9/11 tribute, saying it insults victims, families."

The Baldwin campaign notes that she has voted in favor of a similar resolution honoring 9/11 victims nine times-- in 2001, ‘02, ‘04, ‘05, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09 ‘10 and ‘11.

The campaign also points out that one day before the 2006 vote, Baldwin voted in favor of a resolution calling for "establishing a national memorial at the World Trade Center site to commemorate and mourn the events of February 26, 1993, and September 11, 2001."

Thompson said his Democratic challenger voted against a resolution honoring 9/11 victims. Technically he’s correct. Baldwin voted against the measure in 2006-- and criticized Republicans for adding in references to the Patriot Act, immigration bills, and other controversial matters.

But Baldwin has voted nine times in favor of similar resolutions and the day before the vote in question supported creation of a memorial at the World Trade Center site.

Thompson’s statement contains an element of truth, but leaves out critical information that would give a different impression. That’s our definition of Mostly False.

This week Wisconsin's Professional Fire Fighters Union, answered Thompson with a far more powerful ad of their own (the one up top) asking Thompson if he has "no sense of decency." Here's Tammy's own ad that repsonding to Thompson's shamless and despicable smear:



Russ Feingold said, “Governor Thompson’s latest TV ad is a disgrace. He deliberately misrepresents Tammy Baldwin’s vote, and her strong opposition to playing politics with the 9/11 tragedy. It’s sad that former Governor Thompson is stooping so low to try to attract support. He’ll find that it just won’t work.”

In a press statement, Tammy quoted John Feal, a well respected 9/11 advocate who lost half of one foot at Ground Zero and runs the group the FealGood Foundation. “Tammy Baldwin was one of the first sponsors of our bill outside the New York area.  Her office was one of the ones helping us set up meetings when we couldn’t.

“I don’t think he’s right and he never should have brought something like that up, because it’s not true. She didn’t disagree because of that 9/11 part, she only disagreed to the other stuff that was added in later. I ended up coming home ill. I’ve had a rough time this year. Sometimes I can talk, sometimes I can’t. I’ve had pneumonia, and sinus infections and everything else. So, I’ve been sick, quite a bit,”said Judy Wolff, a Red Cross volunteer and Holmen native, who got ill after spending three weeks at Ground Zero.

For his own part, Thompson, who served as HHS Secretary for the Bush Administration, has been criticized by 9/11 first responders and New York’s Congressional delegation for not making health care a priority.

And after leaving HHS, Thompson then cashed in with a $11 million government contract to provide health care to 9/11 first responders, but left many of them without the care they were promised.

“Tommy Thompson is the product of the Bush administration, who wanted nothing to do with 9/11. When we went to Tommy Thompson in the Bush administration, to get health care funding he kept fighting us.  He’s making money off of 9/11, and he’s politicizing 9/11 for a campaign now, and to me he’s gone down a few notches on the scale of human beings,” Feal said.

In 2008 the Wisconsin State Journal reported, “The problem began in June, Wolff and others say, when Logistics Health Inc., of La Crosse, headed by former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, won an $11 million federal contract to provide medical care and health monitoring from the agency Thompson once led-- a decision that continues to raise eyebrows on Capitol Hill.”

They also reported:

“Dr. Jim Melius, chairman of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Steering Committee, which coordinates care for 9/11 responders, said ‘I just don’t have any confidence that they (LHI) have the capacity or the understanding to do this,’ Melius said. ‘They are doing a disservice to these people. There are hundreds more in the medical treatment program and thousands more that need medical monitoring, and they’re not getting it.’”

The Associated Press reported: “A company run by an ex-Bush administration official and hired by the government to provide medical care to Sept. 11 recovery workers has been slow to take up the job, workers and advocates say. They also reported, “‘I have absolutely no help from anybody,’ said Ed Persico of Missoula, Mont., who was a Red Cross volunteer at a New York City landfill where the ground zero debris was examined for human remains.”

9/11 responders seem completely united against Thompson who-- as someone whose first and only instincts were to figure out how to personally profit from the tragedy-- has now lied about a political opponent who has always supported them fully and strenuously. FactCheck.org examined Thompson's ad and his claims and dubbed the ad "false and vicious"-- and that pretty much sums up what Wisconsin voters are seeing in a formerly popular, formerly mainstream governor. He moved away to Washington and now he's just plain false and vicious. And now even Republican strategists are ruing the day Thompson brought this up and started the ad war.

“I just watched them in order. Production quality of [Thompson]‘s ad is very good, the people talking are sincere, believable, seems like a very powerful hit. Then, I watched the response, seems to hit back very strongly and well. Soft spoken, sad, not over the top,” one top Republican media strategist said in an email to Roll Call. “While I thought the original was powerful, I think the response wins hands down, by not only calling [Thompson]‘s ad a cheap shot, but adding the seemingly devastating info about [Thompson] profiting so much from that very issue.”

The media strategist continued: “Wow. One would have to say that [Thompson's] team must have felt they needed to throw a long ball, because they had to consider the possibility of that response.”

The Blue America PAC only endorsed 3 candidates for Senate this cycle, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Tammy. Please watch Thompson's filth below and the consider helping Tammy win this one.

You've got to give George Will this much credit: It takes guts, or something, to attack firefighters on 9/11

Rick Perlstein wants us all to ask: "Senator Wingnut, do you agree with George Will's September 11 column that pensions for firefighters represent a 'time bomb'?"

"Will would have us believe it is a moral outrage that firefighters and policemen risking life and limb have the nerve to form unions and negotiate pay and benefits packages that are a tiny fraction of what a run-of-the-mill investment banker gets paid."

-- David Sirota, in a post today debunking George F. Will's special
9/11 attack on pensions paid to municipal workers like firefighters

by Ken

I thought it said a lot about where Rachel Maddow intends to take her new MSBNC show when she had David Sirota on the other night as a talking-head expert.

IS RACHEL OFF TO A FLYING START, OR WHAT?

It's also been a confidence-builder seeing people like Steve Benen and Ari Berman and David Corn, along witha more familiar face like Jonathan Alter, who was a valuable contributor to Rachel's old Air America Radio morning show. (As was trusty sidekick Kent Jones, who doesn't seem to me to have hit his stride yet in his popular-culture beat on the new show. But I think that's just a matter of time. We know what Kent can do.)

I'm hardly unbiased where Rachel is concerned. I became a number-one-ranking fan when the idiot-thugs who were running Air America Radio back then (not to be confused with all the other teams of idiot-thugs who ran AAR before and since) pulled the plug on what could and should have been their franchise-building morning show, Morning Sedition, and then plugged Rachel (who'd been doing a crack-of-dawn hour on the network) into two hours of the abandoned time slot. Talk about a tough act to follow, having to face down the ferociously loyal and outraged fans of Morning Sedition.

Yet Rachel came and quickly conquered. It was a totally different kind of show, more progressive news-oriented, with a staff that prided itself on doing its homework. And I was able to leave home every morning with the feeling that I had been thoroughly briefed on what I needed to know to face the day progressively. More recently Rachel was pretty spectacular, as Keith Olbermann clearly noted, in her rise through the Countdown ranks to full-fledged correspondent and backup host.

So I'm not exactly impartial here, but it seems clear to me that Rachel is doing just the job she's been preparing to do for some years now.

I'm assuming that DWT readers, or progressive-oriented readers in general, need no introduction to David Sirota, who's been a favorite in these parts from the outset. I might mention that I'm still trying to figure out how to write about David's most recent book, The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington.

It's a life-changing kind of book; it's just difficult to figure out afterward how your life has been changed, since as David is the first to point out, the widely varied strands of populist uprising he chronicles here are not a movement, and while each has some things in common with some of the others, they don't really add up to anything more concrete than the unmistakable sense that the country is filled right now with groups of people who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, and are by gum doing something about it. If you haven't read the book yet, let me assure you right now that it's not like anything you've ever read.

This morning David pounced on today's column by the unspeakable George F. Will, who chose to vent his Villager's wrath against municipal pensions. As often happens with David, it's pointless to try to "highlight" his writings, which really need to be read in their entirety. So here's the whole of this Campaign for America's Future post:

The Aristocrats, Part II -- Starring George Will

By David Sirota

A few years ago, the film "The Aristocrats" made audiences guffaw with clips of comedians reciting their version of the dirtiest joke in history. Conservatives seem intent on following that flick up with their own version of The Aristocrats -- this one starring the aristocrat, George Will, with his own obscene joke, only his isn't funny.

In a column about underfinanced municipal pension systems today, Will expresses deep anger that veteran police, firefighters and municipal workers eventually get paid well for their services. In one California town on San Francisco Bay, Will tells us that -- gasp! -- "after just five years, all police and firefighters are guaranteed lifetime health benefits." The horror.

Such salaries and benefits, of course, are part of a bargain: Enticing people to turn down the high-paying private-sector job and instead run into burning buildings (firefighters), do the dangerous work of apprehending criminals (police), disposing of sewage (garbage collectors) and administrating all the other services that conservatives pretend aren't necessary (municipal workers) requires, well, an enticement -- namely, the promise that making such a public-minded choice will result in decent and stable pay and benefits.

When you accept a public sector job, that's the bargain: In exchange for being willing to do a tough job and accepting that you won't have the chance to make hundreds of millions dollars like a corporate CEO, you are rewarded with the chance -- if you play by the rules -- to make a pretty good living.

Will and his elitist cohorts in Washington, D.C. don't like that set-up, likely because it's not economically Darwinistic enough for their taste. And so rather than asking their fellow aristocrats to pay a little more in taxes for the services they (and all of us) rely on, the Royalist Right cites a few seemingly outrageous examples as justification to force those providing the services to give up the salary and benefits they were originally enticed into the job with. That is, conservatives want to renege on the bargain -- forgetting the old adage that you get what you pay for, and you don't get what you don't pay for.

The hypocrisy of this logic is obvious when you consider that the Right rarely -- if ever -- complains about, say, executives ripping off shareholders and harming companies' fiscal health. There wasn't a peep out of the Right, for instance, when the news division of its own paper of record -- the Wall Street Journal -- reported that corporate leaders now regularly raid worker pensions to pad their own salaries. Nor do you hear much from conservatives about major companies evading most of their taxes, thus draining public coffers of the funds that would allow them to fulfill their various long-term obligations.

Indeed, Will would have us believe it is a moral outrage that firefighters and policemen risking life and limb have the nerve to form unions and negotiate pay and benefits packages that are a tiny fraction of what a run-of-the-mill investment banker gets paid. Their outrage may seem like an obscene joke -- but it's not. This is what today's aristocrats are really angry about.

The one point David doesn't make is the eerie timing of the Will column. This prompted fellow CAF blogger Rick Perlstein (another DWT favorite; and yes, I'm still working on his remarkable book, Nixonland -- report to follow, eventually) to chime in:

Sensitivity Training

By Rick Perlstein

May I point out as an addendum to David's excellent post below that George Will chose to run his column about how firefighters don't deserve pensions on . . . September 11?

Oh, yeah: and the tasteful headline? "Pension Time Bomb"

I hereby command a blogswarm. Wedge opportunity! Senator Wingnut, do you agree with George Will's September 11 column that pensions for firefighters represent a "time bomb"?

I don't know about where you are, but here in New York City, on 9/11 we're apt to be especially prickly about patronizing dismissals of the job that public employees like firefighters do. The Republicans, led by our son-of-a-bitch ex-mayor Rudy the Scum-Sucking Clown, have done a lot to make a mockery of the day, with their repelling chest thumping and demented fake patriotism. But in this town, on this date, when it comes to our firefighters . . .


POSTSCRIPT: OF COURSE IT'S NOT JUST OUR FIREFIGHTERS
WE NEW YORKERS HONOR -- AND MOURN -- ON 9/11

Of course it's hard not to think first of the firefighters, marching into the Twin Towers that day without regard to their own safety. Our cops took a terrible pounding too, as did all our emergency response workers -- and for that matter, the whole of the municipal labor pool was pushed to the limit. I don't suppose Bowtie Man would understand about that either.

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